How to be a happy SAHM?

[Ejr2012]

I hope someone can help me. I am a stay at home mum with a 26 month old and 5 month old. I have lots of friends, go to lots of groups, nice home, husband who helps, no money worries. Life should be excellent but I am really struggling to be a SAHM mum!
I feel so lonely and isolated. I used to have a career but now feel I have no identity as a SAHM. I don't want someone else to raise my kids but some days it is such hard work and can be so boring staying at home. I find the daily cycle so tedious and find myself angry and wound up by such silly things like whining, and non stop talking! I hate it when I get cross at my toddler.
I feel guilty for feeling fed up and I worry I am screwing them up. I love my children, they are amazing but this job is so hard. No days off while breastfeeding, the only job you can't hand your notice in on! I clock watch but then feel I am wishing my life away. I know they will grow up too fast and I will miss these days when they are gone.
How do I make life more enjoyable again? How do I appreciate the time I have with my children?

Oh and can you put your eldest in nursery even just for one day a week? My oldest son goes twice a week and it's saved me! I get all my cleaning / organising done when he's not here (I have a new baby too) and he is much happier there as has much more to do!

My 2 are nearly 2 and 4.5 and I have complete sympathy with your post. I left a very hard-fought for career to stay at home when my youngest was born. I find it, at times, mind-numbingly dull & irritating... BUT ... what has helped me is to remember that work can be exactly the same. I had days I dreaded, people I hated, things that stressed me out terribly & at times they treated me like shit...and being at home I have days I don't want to get up, moments when they drive me nuts...it's not the same as work, but what I'm saying is work isn't perfect either.

I've always known in theory why I've chosen to stay at home, and I've loved the highs and struggled through the lows, but now my eldest has started school I really can appreciate how fleeting this time is and I'm finding it easier to get through the terrible 2s with my 2nd for that reason. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard about small children was 'the days are long, but the years are short', and it's OK to wish some of that time away, to clock-watch for 6pm, don't feel guilt about that, life isn't a Pinterest post, sometimes it is boring, and it's boring whether you're at work or at home (haven't we all sat in an office & stared at the clock till 5pm?!). But in my experience, at least at home you get cuddles, fun and simply time to 'be' with the most important little people in your life. My toddler at the moment can make me furious & properly belly-laugh within the same hour, and that's the pay-off for me with staying at home.

It can be very suffocating - and if you feel that, it's not because you should really be at work or you're not cut out to be a SAHM, it's just because it is very intense! So how I handle that is I try to ensure I get Saturday mornings to myself - I go to my favourite cafe to read my book in peace...I go out once a week in the evening to an exercise class...I ensure I see a friend once a week (someone who knows me beyond the Mum stuff), that way I feel I hold onto a sense of self.

I could have written your post op.

My dc are 8 and 2. I was made redundant during my first maternity leave. I've been at home most of the time since then. (8 years ). I retrained when my oldest was 2 but nothing much has come from it. I've had the odd job which I've loved. I've been back to university which I loved.

Now my youngest is here it's a lot more difficult to get back into work. I am looking simply because my mental health can't take me being at home all day everyday. I find it painfully dull, stressful, boring, frustrating and I'm very very lonely and isolated.

Money is tight but we're managing. A lot of things have been delayed because we can't afford to do anything until I find work. I can't afford nursery, crèche, gyms, hair cuts etc. We have family near but they can't help because of their health and other commitments. Youngest is a complete handful so the offers aren't very frequent! Christmas this year is going to be tough.

I need a good salary to pay for childcare and justify working. I cry most days now. I don't hate housework but I find the relentlessness of it all hard to cope with. The mess is stressful and constant tidying up breaks me down.

I have to say the thing that breaks our day up is the school run. It forces us out the house. Pick up time breaks the day up but fitting in homework demands and after school activities for my eldest is hard with a demanding toddler.

For me the answer is quite simply I need a job. I'm looking but live in an area where competition is ridiculously high due to unemployment levels. It's going to take a while.

My children have benefitted by me being at home. My eldest is a polite, well rounded, confident boy. He gets many compliments on his behaviour. We have a good relationship. He talks to me about everything. My youngest is confident, sociable and again very polite. They both have good table manners and can be taken to any situation without to many problems (toddler limitations apply).

As an unwilling SAHM (moved abroad due to DH's career) I really struggled to find any happiness after the first year or so of SAHM life. The first year was ok because I rationalized that if I had stayed working I would have had a year off on maternity leave anyway. I also found the baby years fun as they're portable to some extent and you can still get out and meet friends.

The toddler years were HARD. That age between 1-2.5 was the worst phase for me with my son. I kept my sanity by

• hiring a cleaner
• making a schedule for us for the week with classes and play dates so we always had a reason to be out of the house and so...
• I could see friends and make new ones
• took online courses through universities that ran adult education programs

Now I have DC2 who is turning 1 and it is harder with 2 DC instead of 1. I find it harder to get out of the house so I solved that problem by hiring a babysitter 1 day per week so I can volunteer and start looking for jobs to go back to work soon.

Personally I find it a boring, lonely life many days. The key for me is carving out time for myself and giving up the mommy guilt that I have to love every minute of parenting every minute of the day.

It gets easier too as they get older and are more fun. My 4 year old is great fun now! 2 was the worst age for me - not looking forward to going through it all again with DC2!

I think once your eldest starts preschool in January, you will find your day changes a lot. I can remember what it was like with a toddler and baby where you think 'we've played with every toy in the house and it's only 9am!'. But once you've got something like school or preschool in your routine, it gives you somewhere to go, breaks up the day, there's a bit of relief knowing that someone expects you somewhere at a certain time, rather than floundering around all day.

My real saviour for being a SAHM was lots of play groups and classes, and later preschool and school. I know so many don't like groups, but for me it gave routine and stability to my day and gave me something to look forward to, an interaction with the outside world that I had to attend. It breaks up the monotony.

Lastly, I would definitely get a cleaner over an au pair. An au pair is a young woman living with you full time! You might like her, you might not, but she is in your home with you every day. It's one thing if you're out at work while she's at home, but you won't be. A cleaner can come once a week while you take DC somewhere and they you return to a clean house. Brilliant.

You can have time off. I distinctly remember my mum sleeping in the afternoon when my brother and I watched TV. My mum went back to work full when I was in Y1 or 2. So I was very very young.

You can just put your 26mo in front of the tv you know. And the 5mo doesn't even need entertaining. I just started back at work from maternity. I remembered a lot of time spending watching netflix, reading up on technical books (work related), and baking. DD2 was happy just crawling around me.

Personally I find it a boring, lonely life many days. The key for me is carving out time for myself and giving up the mommy guilt that I have to love every minute of parenting every minute of the day.

This basically. You don't have to do parenting 24/7.

When my twins were little, we had a Twins Club evening meeting at 8pm (when it was possible to get them all in bed) and this consisted of: tea, cake and chat, meal out, visit to local health club with nice swimming pool, visits by a child psychologist to explain her work, visit by someone who looked after special needs for the LEA who was interested in Self Esteem in Children. Also a visit to a Montessori nursery someone had set up in the area.

Admittedly our group was in a very affluent area and started by people who had breathtakingly enormous houses and knew people etc, but it gave me a whole new view point on how to bring children up which was poles apart from my life, and was time out from the usual grind.

Is it worth setting up your own SAHM support group for people locally?

For me it was meeting up with other mums regularly, but also, working/studying part time. I always wanted to be a SAHM and I do actually think it's the best thing and am not massively keen on nurseries for little ones (I used a childminder which I found personally better) but I just don't enjoy it anywhere near as much as I thought I would.

I thought I'd be all creative and engaged and think up fun activities every day and spend time playing and have loads of energy and never shout. The reality is just very different. Children are lovely but they are also frustrating and it can be really hard to keep your cool! I found that I really needed breaks which surprised me because I had thought that being with children all day would be a break (not sure where that idea came from!) And I didn't give myself breaks when DS was little, because, I know this sounds stupid, I didn't really realise I was allowed to So I would swing from being all involved to periods where I couldn't do anything and I would find it difficult to interact with him at all. I found that my lack of organisation might feel laid back, but with children, actually, you can't afford to be laid back. You have to have a measure of control and organisation to be able to be a laid back parent.

I desperately needed adult contact and I found the whole thing so much better when I got that regularly. Whether that means groups, or meeting up with friends and/or family, going to their house, having them over to yours. You need your "village". And the more adults your DC know, the more likely you are to be able to find one of those adults to babysit, even if you don't want to do that right now.

I agree with getting a cleaner - it just reduces one burden off you. Otherwise that's just another (depressing!) thing to worry about.

I also think that, even if you're not a structure person, it helps to have just a very rough structure to the day. This helps me enormously and I was so anti routine when DS was little that it took me until he was nearly 7 (!) to work it out. So you have lunch at a set time, you have your groups on certain days, perhaps you have "outdoor" time and "indoor" time, or however you want to break it up, and SO IMPORTANT: "Mummy's breaktime". It's a very good idea to introduce a time in the day, at least one or two, where you are around and available for emergencies of course, but you don't sit and play, you don't read to them, you don't show them how to do things, you just have a break. This is complete anathema to the usual doctrine about how we have to be more present, but I think that that has swung so far that we are typically trying to be "present" ALL the time, which is totally unsustainable, and then feeling guilty and worn out by it and thus less able to be present ANY of the time. So build in some time for you and know that it is okay and not anything to feel guilty about to take it. It's okay for them to learn that people need time out and that they can't always expect others to want to do the thing they want to do at the exact same time they want to do it.

And by that token - you have to be careful when you're a SAHM and especially when the DC are very little that you are not slipping into the role of "default parent" even when your DH or DP is around. That is a killer, because it puts you on duty absolutely 24/7. It's hard to be on duty all the time when DH is not at home but it's crushing to be on duty all the time even when he's there, and it will exhaust you. So not just "helping" but things like - do you feel totally able to just say "I'm popping out" at the weekend and doing so, going off for a nap, or a run, or to the supermarket. I'm not talking weekends away with such a little baby (though you could - take the baby with you) but these simple things. Who notices that it's time for dinner, who gets up in the night, who goes to DC when they are hurt, who takes them to weekend birthday parties, who does bedtime? Would your DH notice if he'd dressed them in too-small or dirty clothes which were mistakenly in the drawer and would he know what to do about it?

I also think you're in a hard age where the bigger one wants lots of entertaining and the younger one isn't old enough to play with. In six months to a year, they'll be much better able to entertain each other and you'll find things easier.

Good luck! :) Let us know how you get on.

Forgot to add that I found I wasn't really cut out to be a SAHM and it took me a long time to really get over that because I had thought that it was all I ever wanted. I wouldn't be SAHM again given the choice, but if I was, then I'd do the above things to make it more bearable.

Just hopping on to say how much Ive been nodding away to this thread. I'm a SAHM to a 4.5yr old and 21mo (and have been pretty much since dc2 was born).

Agree with so much that has already been said. Dc1 knows that I have a nap on the sofa next to him whilst dc2 naps in his cot every day.

Also, nothing lasts forever, and it IS super hard! (Can't imagine what it's like with a smaller age gap and breastfeeding!). Give yourself a break (mentally) and lower your standards (in the nicest way).

There's a book called Torn in Two which may be of interest.

About how being at home with children can lead to negative feelings.

Wow! I never thought I would get such a response. Thank you all for sharing. It is so good to not feel alone in this and to hear others find it hard. We have had some good days recently and of course some not so good days. Now on those bad days I get this post out and read it and it makes me feel better! So thanks.
I even showed it to my husband last night to show that I am not alone in finding it difficult. I think even he couldn't believe how many also felt the same way. Thanks op of mumsnet for all your great suggestions I am still processing them!

I think everyone feels like this once in a while. But to be fair, paid work is not endlessly fulfilling either. I have had days that have felt frustrating and tedious both at home and in the office. The good days at home, however, give a pleasure that I have never achieved at work hence my decision to leave my job and spend a couple of years at home full time while my children are small.

I don't think someone else 'raising your children' is the end of the world if that is what you want for a while. my DS (now 4) went to a wonderful Childminder and has had a fabulous start in life, learnt great social skills and we are still very close. If anything, I worry that my DD (16 months) will lose out by being at home with me instead of having the experiences that my DS did.

Only you know whether this is a 'bad day' that can be fixed with a good nights sleep and a better day tomorrow, or if you would all be better off if you worked part time. Many people (proabably/possibly including me) are better parents for some time off.

Also, based on your last post, perhaps it helps to know that you don't have to find it endlessly fascinating, and it doesn't make you anything less of a great mother if that's the case :)

I'm the same OP, I miss working & find I get very resentful that my fiancé gets to be a normal functioning adult. Then I get to see all the children's firsts. Like today our dd2 went to the potty twice by herself & DS 3.5 wrote his name.