6 Tips for Surviving When You Feel Like You’re Drowning in Motherhood

6 Tips for Surviving When You Feel Like You’re Drowning in Motherhood

6 Tips for Surviving When You Feel Like You’re Drowning in Motherhood

Exhausted, brain not thinking clearly, no time or energy to do much of anything so you’re overwhelmed and behind. Parenting is sometimes like that, isnt it? Sometimes it is because of a round of sickness, sometimes it is a season of busyness, maybe it is cabin fever after a bout of bad weather. For me right now it is a newborn.
Those on my email newsletter or who follow me on Twitter may have read my announcement that our fourth son entered the world just over a week ago. As I type this out, he is sleeping in my arms as I sit on my couch. Other than getting up to change a diaper or get a cup of milk for the 3 year old, I have been doing next to nothing since he was born. By noon my brain has turned to mush and having a complete intelligent thought is nearly impossible. (I don’t think I was ever this bad with the others!)  I felt like I was in a similar position after a round of a stomach virus hit us last winter.

By noon my brain has turned to mush and having a complete intelligent thought is nearly impossible.

Here are some tips for surviving when you feel like you’re drowning in motherhood:

Stay hydrated

We all know the benefit of drinking enough water yet many of us still have a hard time doing it. Find ways to make it easier on yourself. Set a timer to remind yourself to have a cup every couple of hours, have a big cup first thing in the morning with breakfast and have your regular coffee afterwards, use mason jars or water bottles and commit to when you want to finish them, remember you don’t have to drink just water. (I have fallen in love with the Takeya ThermoFlask Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottle. We found it at Costco a few weeks ago and it is everything the description says it is. My husband fills his with ice water every evening when he games and he was totally surprised and impressed when he filled it for the second evening and there was still ice in it from the night before! I try to drink 2 of the 40oz bottles each day, in addition to a coffee, milk, and sometimes tea. Sometimes I throw a lemon wedge in there too.

Sleep

Go to bed early. Nap. It is critical to health and sanity and we all know it. Yet so many moms refuse to do it. I understand you want to have some kid free quiet time in the evening but you’ll find that it doesn’t compare to the sanity gained by an adequate amount of sleep. Napping gets a bit tricky when kids get older and no longer nap but lock the doors, throw on a show or pull out the playdough, and doze on the couch, within earshot. (One of my most popular posts has some more tips on how to survive on interrupted sleep.) Even 20 min of resting your body and mind can be very rejuvenating. My current bedtime is around 9:30pm. Sometimes I go to bed earlier but never later. I sacrifice time with my husband (he does bedtime routines for our older 3 at 8pm and comes back downstairs around 8:20 on non gaming nights) but he and I have been through this stage before and know it is only temporary. Even when I am through the exhausting newborn phase, I still rarely go to bed after 10:30 and set an alarm on my cell phone if I find I’m making excuses to stay up later. And the older boys have learned they are to stay in bed until 7am. The 3 year old sometimes wakes up at 6 but he is still in the side-carred crib, next to my husband, so they snuggle until 7am. Teach them how to read a clock young.

Easy Food

Hit up the frozen meals aisle. I normally prefer to cook from scratch (or mostly scratch anyway) but during this season I’m relying on frozen lasagnas, frozen pizza, canned soup, and easy prep foods and snacks like toast, cereal, yogurt, grilled cheese, noodles, precut veggies, and bananas. Even my 3 year old can prepare himself a simple breakfast and my older two can start the oven and pop a meal in. I’ve also been blessed with an amazing church family and friends who have dropped meals for us.

Maintain Peace

Sometimes this means allowing your 3 year old to have a chocolate chip cookie during breakfast. This may mean using technology more than normal. Or using it less, as it goes in my house. Sending kid to separate rooms for a portion of the day when squabbles get heated. Part of my peace comes in the boys clearing all the toys out of the living room before supper. I have barely looked in the playroom but I breathe a little easier when my main room has some semblance of order after they go to bed.

Housekeeping

Ignore the mess. Truly. Yes, you’ll get behind and yes you’ll feel overwhelmed when you are finally able to catch up but you will catch up, step by step. The only one putting pressure on you is you. All you really need is moderately clean dishes (there are no housekeeping police saying you can use breakfast’s toast dishes for lunch’s grilled cheese and a veggies and dip snack) and moderately clean clothes (no housekeeping police here either so wear the same jeans all week and make your kids do the same and don’t worry about folding and putting away for the time being).

Enlist help

More often than not, our spouses are willing to help out. They just aren’t always good at seeing how much we need or what they can do about it. Let him know you feel like you’re drowning and that you need him to rescue you. And give him bite sized and practical solutions. Don’t say the housework is overwhelming, can you clean the house? Tell him the dishes are stressing you out and can he please fill and run the dishwasher. Or the laundry needs to be switched over, or gathered from bedroom floors and tossed in. And be honest with him (and yourself) about what is most important. If the toilet isn’t bothering you, don’t ask him to clean it. If you still have clean clothes, don’t ask him to do laundry. Kids can do the same. They are often more capable than you give them credit for. Be honest with them about the need to come together as a team to keep the household running.

Some seasons of parenting are harder than others.  There is no way around that. But you also don’t have to drown. So take care of yourself, let go of the housework, and focus on relationships and teamwork within your family. I know that I will get through the newborn hazy days, and I know that you will get through the tough seasons too.
Do you have any other tips to get through the tough seasons? I’d love to add them to my list. I’m sure that there will come a time when all 4 of the boys will get sick at the same time and I’m not looking forward to that!

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N is for Nutrition: How to Eat Healthier

N is for Nutrition: How to Eat Healthier

N is for Nutrition: A Simple Start to Improving Your Family's Health

When my husband and I were both working full time, our meals consisted of a lot of prepackaged foods. Canned soups, frozen pizza, hashbrowns, mac n cheese, cereal etc. I didn’t have a lot of recipes under my belt and didn’t enjoy cooking (still not my favorite thing to do) so we took a lot of shortcuts in the kitchen. Shortcuts are most definitely not how to eat healthier.

When I got pregnant, I wanted to improve my diet. So I added a lot more fruits and veggies than I used to eat but, due to my work schedule, I often had to eat supper in the vehicle. Drive-throughs were so convenient. Mmmm poutine!

Then C was born. I was still making slow improvements to my diet but it was tough since my husband wasn’t really on board. C was exclusively breastfed until 6 months old, when we first introduced him to solid foods, in the form of pureed carrots. Jarred food had too many additives for my liking so I avoided them. It wasn’t long before C moved past purees and he wanted to start sharing foods from my plate. That’s when we discovered the simplest and more beneficial tip to finding healthy foods in the grocery store:

Read labels.

There are numerous articles on how to read food labels and exactly which ingredients to avoid and which ingredients do what to your body. It’s confusing, to say the least. The “Ah Ha” moment came when my husband and I were comparing ingredients on a couple bags of hashbrowns. One had about 15 ingredients and one had about 6 ingredients. We bought the one with 6.

Typically, less ingredients is better. Also, if you can’t pronounce the ingredients, they probably aren’t good for you.

Carrots = good.
Milk = good.
Eggs = good.
Rice = good.

Eat foods in as close to their natural state as possible and your body will thank you. That’s the easiest starting point to improving what you are putting into your body.

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What is the easiest tip that you have for someone who wants to eat healthier or head toward a healthier lifestyle?

Edited to add: Yes, I do realize my photo has a spelling mistake. And no, I won’t be fixing it at this point. Too much work and I think you get the point anyway 🙂

In the Thick of It

In the Thick of It

I have some great posts that I want to write but my time is not my own these days. Currently my little ones are watching a show so I can type this out really quick and then head to my sewing machine to get some stuff ready for a trade fair that I’m attending this weekend. My house is in disarray, I have frozen lasagna for supper (and that’s the best supper my family has had in the last while!) and I feel like I’m running on fumes. Coffee fumes that is.

Quick update: The farm renovations are nearing completion. Another couple weeks and (Lord willing!) the barn will be ready to go. Which means that I have some more packing to do. God is really showing us His hand in things and, though His ways are hard to understand, I try to remember that He is in control and will take care of His children.

Bought a 20 book set about science and C and I started reading them as soon as they were out of the car. He is learning new words and absolutely loving the books.mama cat nursing her kittens

Both boys are enthralled with the new kittens in the barn and are learning to be gentle with them. They are the first tame kittens we have had in quite a few years. Their mama is tame but usually she hides her kittens so we can’t tame them. I think that God knew we needed some soft, snuggly kittens in our lives right now.

Motherwort is being tinctured right now, echinacea wil be tinctured in the next couple of days, and herbal teas and vitamins are ordered. Hoping we’ll be able to make it through cold & flu season without any chemical drugs.

Care to share any of your favorite cold & flu remedies? I’d love to add some more natural methods to my arsenal!

Living Simply Shouldn’t Be Stressful

Living Simply Shouldn’t Be Stressful

Living Simply Shouldn't be Stressful - Aimed at the Heart

It has occured to me how complicated we can make our effort to living simply. We feel that we need to do it all and then some. We read blogs and books and feel like if we aren’t growing everything we eat and making everything we use, we must be doing something wrong. This revelation came to me when I was reading an article on how to simplify your DIY.

Or maybe I’m just talking about myself here. I know that I have a tendency to over complicate things. I have a wonderfully annoying habit of researching the pants off of anything and then trying to dive in head first. I really should remember what my goals are for changing our lifestyle.

I have a number of reasons: frugality, health, appreciating the simple things, teach my kids the importance of work and more. But, when I dream about my goals for my life, I don’t picture money in the bank, or being superfit/healthy. I picture being able to take the time to enjoy my family. Working alongside them without being tied down by the craziness of this world. Slowing down. Peace.

Now I need to ask myself, will what I’m doing lead me to that life? I’m pretty sure that, if I attempted to learn and do everything at once (garden, canning, herbalism, soap making, cheese making, weaving, knitting, sewing, building and wood working and the list goes on) that I would just burn out. We are not designed to do it all. And very few people are able to dive in head first without drowning. That doesn’t sound very peaceful to me.

So, instead of my grand plan for our garden this year, I managed to move one step further than last year. The only vegetables I planted were tomatoes and carrots. Oh, and onions because I saw an idea on pinterest and thought it would be a simple way to use up the space where I planted my chamomile (that didn’t come up). I planted in containers because I figured it made sense to have a portable garden due to our impending move. I watered with a bucket from my kitchen sink because I have no faucet on my house. And I watched and waited. I did very minimal weeding (one of my favorite parts of container gardening) and only a little bit of fertilizing.

tomato container garden

My garden took about 10 minutes to care for every couple of days and I didn’t lose my mind. I learned a lot about growing tomatoes and carrots. I didn’t get a huge and bountiful crop this year but I did manage to learn enough to point me in the right direction for next year’s garden.carrots from container garden

Next year my goal is small: plant enough of a garden so I don’t need to buy veggies through the growing season. If that goes well, the year after next I’ll plant enough so that we can store some for the winter.

But, for now, 10 minutes extra into my schedule is simple. Because simplifying should be simple to do.Another couple great posts that I have recently read that are great grounders when you’re feeling overwhelmed or like you’re not doing enough:
How Do you Know When You Are Natural Enough? (Cheeky Bums Blog)
dear sweet mom who feels like she is failing (Finding Joy)

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Stop Drinking Water

Stop Drinking Water

tips for staying hydratedWe are in a bit of a hot streak so many people are trying to figure out how to drink enough water. There are various methods including: put lines on a bottle to mark how much water you should be drinking every hour; fill mason jars every morning and drink them throughout the day, carry a water bottle on your hip everywhere you go, add slices of lemon to it to make it taste yummier, and I’m sure there are plenty more ideas. I’m going to add mine to the mix: stop drinking water!

Here are some quick facts: New studies have shown that there is no specific amount of water that every individual must drink every day. Rather, our daily water requirements vary depending on out health, weight, activity level, and where we live. Signs of a good amount of water intake include not feeling thirsty through the day, adequate amounts of saliva, and light yellow or clear pee.

So now that we know how to make sure we are hydrated enough, let’s stop counting how many glasses of water we drink per day. It was about 30 deg C here today (that’s about 86 F for my American readers). Pretty hot for this part of the world. Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter. I’m also breastfeeding which means I should technically drink an extra 2-3 cups of water per day.

I had a total of one cup of water.

Eeek! I must be dehydrated, right? Um, no. I also had a cup of coffee, a few cups of milk, a popsicle (okay, maybe I had two!), steamed veggies, and some iced tea. My mouth is watering (possibly because I’m thinking about popsicles), my pee is light yellow (just what you wanted to know about me, right?) and I’m not thirsty. Adam pretty much never drinks water but he is the most hydrated person that I know. He drinks iced tea. Unhealthy amounts of sugar-filled iced tea. (I’ve been trying to convince him to try homemade iced tea but his iced tea is an area he is not willing to compromise).

So stop drinking water. Or at least don’t drink 8 glasses per day of it. Here are some options to try instead:

  • Milk (my personal favorite)
  • Fruit or veggie juice
  • Iced Tea
  • Coffee
  • Tea
  • Fruit (or veggie) smoothies or milk shakes (yummy simple recipe: frozen strawberries, and Costco’s forzen fruit medley clended with cold milk or grape juice. Add a banana for sweetness)
  •  Fruit and water-filled veggies (watermelon, lettuce, grapes etc)
  • Popsicles (fill a mold with OJ for a refreshing treat)
  • Yogurt

What is your favorite non-water way to stay hydrated?

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