Tips for an Overwhelmed Mom

Feeling anxious? Feeling stressed out? Feeling like you just can’t handle it anymore? I hear you mama! You may be feeling overwhelmed. But I got you covered; here are my tips for an overwhelmed mom.

We’ve all been there. You want to pull your hair out, you want to scream into a pillow, you may have even said you want to run away. You are not alone there mama!

You may just be feeling like an overwhelmed mom. And you wouldn’t be wrong.

Being an overwhelmed mom does not make you a bad mom.

It does not make you love your kids any less. It does not make you awful for wanting some space and feeling overwhelmed with life.

Because guess what, it is overwhelming!

Everyone gets overwhelmed at some point or another, but throw motherhood and all that comes with that in the same boat and you’re bound to feel like you are drowning and there is no one around to throw you a buoy.

My tips for the overwhelmed mom may seem simple, but I bet you it will make a world of difference in the day-to-day life.

Tip #1: Deep Breath

This may sound silly and you may even want to click that exit button because you’re sitting there like “okay really? this is the big tip?”.

No. Its not, there is more but first things first.

Taking a deep breath, and I mean DEEP breath where you feel like you can’t breathe in anymore air. Then let that out slooowly! I mean really slow.

Taking big deep breaths in and releasing slowly can help calm and center you so you can move on to the more important tips.

Tip #2: Get Out

You can either do this tip with or without the kids. Granted without the kids would be ideal, but we don’t always have that option.

But even with the kids you can do this step. Take a drive. Doesn’t matter to where.

Load up the kids, grab a Starbucks or favorite coffee or snack and drive. Blast some tunes and just drive without a hustle and bustle destination that you are rushing off to.

Take your time and really enjoy that moment.

The kids are strapped in (aka not running around driving you crazy), you can even get them a snack to keep them entertained or bring some sort of toy or electronic so they leave you alone while you enjoy that long drive.

This works like a charm (most of the time) for myself. My kids love getting out of the house too so we all get a change of scenery and calmness to our day.

Tip #3: Physically Removing Yourself

This sort of goes hand-in-hand with the last tip but this one is more for an overwhelmed mom who has hit the point where you want to scream or throw punches.

Go in your room or bathroom, lock the door and just sit.

Cry if you have to (lord knows I’ve been there many times), scream into a pillow, or whatever it takes for you to get that pent up rage or frustration out so you can take that deep breath we talked about earlier.

Physically removing yourself from the situation gives you that chance to regroup. I call it a “mommy time-out”.

I will even tell my kids, “mommy needs a time out, sit out here for a minute”.

They usually will let me leave. The first few times I did this within seconds they were at the door asking if I had been naughty and that’s why I needed a timeout. (lol oh kids!)

I explained to them why I needed the mommy timeout and the after a few times they understood and now will let me have my moment just like I let them have theirs.

Tip #4: Look Back at Photos

Now this may seem like an odd thing to do as a overwhelmed mom to stop and look through old photos.

But hear me out. I’m sure you have sat there in bed or on the couch after the kids go to bed looking back through old baby photos of your kids and think “omg how adorable and little”.

It gives you that fuzzy, “I love them” feeling even if the day itself was hard.

Well instead of waiting until after you’ve snapped and yelled because you were feeling overwhelmed, what if you stopped and just looked back at old photos to get that lovey-dovey feeling of your kids back?

This could help calm you down if the deep breaths aren’t your thing.

Try it and see if your mood doesn’t automatically change because of that sweet sleeping infant photo or cute baby face they make in that one photo you just love.

I bet it does.

Tip #5: Schedule & Organize

A lot of the reasons there may be overwhelmed moms is the amount of stuff we feel like has to get done in a day.

Whether or not those things actually need to get done, we pile on the to-do list a mile long then get overwhelmed with the list.

Creating a list of daily tasks to get done is different than a mile long to-do list. Daily tasks are important but that to-do list can get broken up into days.

Pick 3-5 main tasks you want to accomplish that day besides the daily tasks. Use this block scheduling chart to help break up your day into chunks of time instead of a mile long list.

Have the kids help with chores to will lessen the load on your shoulders and gives them something to do too!

I’ve recently started letting my kids put away their own clothes. Are the clothes folded? Nope. But they are put away in the drawers and it gave them the biggest sense of helpful accomplishment. They were actually excited to do it again the next time I did laundry!

Having kids help with the to-do list will lessen that load on your shoulders mama and hopefully lessen that overwhelmed feeling.

Here are more tips to get organized and charts to help with that overwhelmed feeling.

Hopefully these 5 tips have helped give you some ideas on how to become less overwhelmed!

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