How do you find time for yourself, and what do you do with this time?

[wandermum24]

I’m Claire, a 38-year-old mum from Surrey with two young kids (ages 7 and 4).

After spending a few years focusing on family, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to find new interests and balance them with our busy family life. I feel like my whole life revolves around my kids, and don't get me wrong I love that! But, I don't feel like myself anymore, I don't have any hobbies or interests to call my own.

I’m curious—what new hobbies or activities have you all explored recently? How do you manage to fit in personal interests amidst the daily chaos of parenting? I’d love to hear about any new passions you’ve discovered or tips you have for finding time for yourself because I'm really struggling with this!

You might get more replies if you repost this on the Chat board, as this one isn't as busy.

I started trying to add in my own evening activities again when my DC was about the same age as yours, and agree it can be hard to know where to begin!

The first thing I did was join a book group, as I love reading and it was a monthly rather than weekly commitment which didn't feel so hard to fit in. Then I added a regular exercise class, which was weekly but very flexible as there were so many different time slots. Now that a few more years have gone by, I've added in more stuff: some weekly, some less frequent. I sing in a choir, play in a few different music groups, and do ad hoc things on weekends. I'd suggest start small and build up.

I agree with VioletIndigo about reposting this on a chat board to get more answers, but yeah, the general answer would be pretty much to start small. Think about activities that brought you joy in the past or things you're curious about trying out, see if there are local communities where you can find likeminded people, like book clubs, camera clubs, etc. Even gyms may give you a great feeling of cameraderie, so it's entirely up to you to decide what are you interested in and which things would you like to try.

Lately I've been into video making, I love all things digital, so it first it was photo editing, then I tried to make music and now I'm combining all this and do videos 😂I used to LOVE scrapbooking but I'm too lazy for it now, so I'm only creating digital scrapbooks (there are actually pretty exciting, you can read about it here) with pictures I've taken here and there. I have an office job, so not really active during the work day, hence I try to hit the gym as much as possible. Not sure it's a hobby, to me it's more like a health/activity thing, but it brings me joy so it could be called a hobby as well.