How did you manage to balance it all? Give me your hacks!

[december2020]

I'm at the end of maternity and due to go back to work in a few weeks and trying to figure out how on Earth mums manage to balance full time employment (my job does need FT hours), admin/chores, healthy eating, exercise, parenting and spending time with the kids (DS will be 10 months) and still having time to have a small chill and relax before bed.

We don't have family close by so unfortunately having someone look after DS for a couple hours isn't our reality.

Can you give my your tried and tested hacks? What has worked for you?

Being prepared. We get all clothes out ready for the week, everything we need from the supermarket for the week, eat easy meals, and my non negotiable is a good bedtime routine. Kids asleep 7:30/8 so I can get a couple of hours peace

These are amazing tips! I'm taking so many of these (if not all)!

Love a list - so that should be easy! I'll try break the day into manageable tasks and plan the day out the night before.

DH is a bit of a procrastinator and doesn't mind not having things as tidy and organised as I do but he does help with the daily things like cooking, DS, food shopping and some tidying etc. Think he's not as bothered with my decluttering and tidying sprees.

Love the idea of bulk buying items like birthday cards so you're never caught without!

I'm hoping I can get my shit together (even loosely) to be able to balance everything (without burnout). Before DS I was working silly hours in a role I didn't enjoy (starting at a new company now and leaving that behind) so I'm trying to find that balance before life and work takes over and find a bit more contentment in life.

Great idea on incorporating one thing at a time to build the routine once starting work so not to get too overwhelmed or stressed!

Batch cook something like veggie lasagne every week. That will do 3 meals with some salad.

Make sure all new clothes for work do not need ironing

This is how I managed:

1. tidy each room before you leave it
2. Give the bathroom a good clean while baby is in the bath
3. Go to bed early (early enough to be awake naturally an hour or two before every one else)
4. Have your “me” time before everyone wakes up . I used to do half an hour of Pilates/reading and sort myself for the day before DS woke up. It makes a massive difference to chase another little person to get ready when you are already ready. No more arriving to work frazzled trying to run after a kid while trying to do your hair!
5. Cook twice as much you need, put half in tupperwares in the freezer. If you do it every time you will soon have so much frozen food you won’t need to cook if you are tired after work.

Well i don't work f/t & DH is hands on/can wfh, we have family close & we have a cleaner etc however you can't juggle

job
admin/chores
healthy eating
exercise
parenting
spending time with DH
spending time with family
spending time with friends
alone time

all at the same time. Aim for a few & lower standards.

Cleaner
Takeaways at the weekend
Share the pick up and drop off 50/50
All house job are 50/50
10 minute tidy up every day
Use your calendar and write all family and individual commitments
Say no sometimes, you don't have to attend every birthday and invite you get

Gousto/ hello fresh if meal planning is draining your energy

how on Earth mums manage to balance full time employment (my job does need FT hours), admin/chores, healthy eating, exercise, parenting and spending time with the kids (DS will be 10 months) and still having time to have a small chill and relax before bed.

DH and I both had very demanding jobs.
The way we managed for the first 4 years was to give up exercise, healthy eating and any relaxation time. (this is with a cleaner and lots of lists). Oh and we also gave up a lot of sleep and any social life. The way we managed for the next 4 years is I gave up work.

How full time is your FT job? 9-5.30 or 8-8?

how on Earth mums manage to balance full time employment (my job does need FT hours), admin/chores, healthy eating, exercise, parenting and spending time with the kids (DS will be 10 months) and still having time to have a small chill and relax before bed.

We set up routines early on, with DS going to bed at 7, we could even have dinners with friends at home before DS woke up for a feed at 11. Having a child who slept 7-7 worked beautifully until he was 5… then he became the night owl his mum is and has not slept more than 6 hours a night ever since, no matter how many years I tried to get him to sleep on time.

I think it’s probably all been covered, but for me the most important things are:

• be organised and have a routine (e.g. food shop same day every week, one load of washing on every morning, dishwasher before bed, etc)
• declutter so your house is easier to keep tidy
• do a small amount of tidying/cleaning each day rather than trying to do it all at the weekend
• outsource where you can afford to (cleaner, gardener, food delivery, etc)
• lower your standards (meals don’t all need to be made from scratch, house doesn’t need to be spotless)
• make sure your partner is pulling his weight
• carve out quality ‘me time’ when you can, even if it’s just an hour, and don’t feel guilty about it

Before you go back to work do appointments like dentist, Pap smear etc so you know you are set for a few months
DP should do any sick days for your little one for the first 6 months so you can build up some good will in the workplace
Meal plan. Make a list of meals you can put together in 30 mins or less. If there are less than10 meals on the list than find some more and practice them!!
Agree with DH you each get a lie in on the weekend
Use your commute to pay bills, catch up on communicating with friends and family, researching holidays etc.

shared calendar so you both know of any events etc
Plan to teach your DC from an early age how to be tidy and to do chores. They can do lots from an early age.
And yes both of you need to pull your weight!

DP should do any sick days for your little one for the first 6 months so you can build up some good will in the workplace you might find what with the lack of interaction due to covid and depending how strict your nursery are there might be a lot of sick days! So I agree a plan is sensible. My DH does any emergency pickups due to the nature of his and my roles. Then we alternated sick days (he did all of them the 1st two months, but has to keep his employer on side for the emergency pick ups!)

For me the most difficult part was “making sure DH was pulling his weight”.

I didn’t realise most of my tiredness and frustration came out of that alone until we divorced. Raising a child alone was a breeze compared to trying to get a bit of time out of his hobbies or working so many hours at home.

In hindsight, I should have made him transition from paying his share of nursery fees to invest his share on a cleaner. We may still be married

Definitely don’t have it down but there are things that help, but I’d also say this has only really been since my daughter was 18 months old. She’s 2 now and I feel like we’re finally in a good rhythm, although expecting dc 2 and it will probably end up going out of the window.

Sleep- number 1. Work on child’s sleep if developmentally appropriate and if it needs work. DD slept through at 18 months and before that from 10-17 months we were on one nightly wake up, but sleep regressions and rough sleep patches meant just wasn’t as focused.

Slow cooker- put the food on overnight and it’s done for when you wake up. Just re heat. You can make a surprising variety of things in there from the obvious, stews, curries etc to pasta bakes, lasagna. It’s more cost effective too as can get cheaper slower cooking cuts of meat.
Cook a bit extra and freeze it, easy quick dinner for kiddos when you’ve just been swamped.
Functional exercise and get active with kids, so I find i don’t have the time to ‘work out’ but my daughter loves going out on walks around country parks and hiking. Pre pregnancy then I’d try and do some weights in the evening after they were in bed for 15/20 mins whilst watching the TV.
Meal plan, beat the ‘what’s for dinner’ dilly dallying.
Not feasible for everyone but I wfh, this helps, we do food shop mid week on our lunch break and clean the house on our lunch break bit at time so the weekends are ‘ours’
Do a bit at a time, never let anything get too messy or dirty or out of control as it just takes longer to sort
Everything split 50/50 with partner. Takes half the time.
I’ve found setting boundaries at work helps too, you know there’s always the thing that someone asks you to pick up last minute, I’ve found setting expectations helps I.e. ‘ will gladly pick this up, however won’t get it completed today as I have a hard finish at 5’ children are a great excuse for this. I’m not paid Ote and those extra 30 mins a day make a huge difference esp if you’re committing