A Few Tips For Moms!

I know that having a baby is a lot of hard work, especially for us stay at home moms. We don't get a break! It's taken me some time to figure things out, but I am getting there slowly. I figured I would share some of my tips, maybe another mom out there could find some of them useful!

During the day it's sometimes hard to shower, eat lunch, or even go to the bathroom. A lot of moms wait until their little one is napping to do stuff. I recently started taking a shower with my son. He is almost 7 months old. Obviously you probably can't do this with a newborn, but once your baby has some good head control and can be on their tummy this is great! I turn the shower on, get myself and baby undressed and make sure the water is positioned closer to the back, then I put Elijah in the shower on his tummy with a few bath toys. He usually stays pretty occupied while I get to wash my hair and body. Once I am done washing up I will sit down on the tub floor with him and play and wash him up. So, not only do you get a shower, but so does your little one, and it's easy to keep an eye on them since they are right in front of you.

Babywearing is also a wonderful thing. Not only is it comforting for your baby to be close to you, but you can actually do stuff. The ERGObaby carrier that I just reviewed is wonderful because of all the different positions you can wear it in, so you can do more stuff like laundry!

I really need to start doing this more often, but preparing snack items for quick eating is important. When you have some free time when someone else is with your baby you can cut up some cracker sized pieces of cheese, make some hummus, guacamole, or dip. Make a large salad so you can just put a portion into a bowl to eat and you don't have to cut up veggies, make something for sandwiches to store in a bowl in the fridge such as egg salad, or "chicken" salad (garbanzo beans, celery, mayo, salt & pepper! If you're not vegetarian you can obviously make real chicken salad). Cook an entire bag of spaghetti so you can just throw some in the microwave with some sauce. I try to always have a variety of crackers on hand because you can eat everything with crackers. Stock up on quick items of food like yogurt and carrot sticks.

The best piece of advice I can give is try not to stress about cleaning. Do what you can if you have time, but remember that you and baby come first. If you have to choose between eating and vacuuming, eat!

So, what DO you do all day?

I can't stand the fact that there are still people who think stay at home moms sit on their butts all day watching television and eating bon bons. This isn't Married With Children, people. If you've never been a stay at home mom (or even a mother) then you have absolutely no idea how much work it is. Seriously. While being a stay at home mother is the most rewarding job that anyone can have we need to be cut some slack.

Every day I wake up tired from lack of sleep the night before. Why lack of sleep? Well, Elijah is a pretty good sleeper, but he still gets hungry at night, so I feed him. Sometimes he gets fussy and wakes up, so I comfort him back to sleep. My husband? Well, he gets uninterrupted sleep from whenever he goes to bed (usually around midnight) until sometimes 6, 7, or 8am. That's 6, 7, or 8 hours. I get broken sleep, and 5 hours straight is a good night.

So anyway, I wake up, tired. The rest of the day is not determined by me, it's pretty much up to Elijah. If he gets hungry, he eats. If he's tired, he takes a nap. Sometimes he doesn't nap at all, which means I don't get a break. When he does nap I try to do things like eat lunch, maybe shower if I think he's going to stay asleep long enough, or sometimes I just rest. When Elijah is awake it's a full day of me keeping him entertained. I play with him, sing and talk to him. Sometimes I can do something like wash some dishes or sweep the floor, sometimes I can't. A few times a week I usually have to make a post office run, like today. I go after Eli has napped and eaten so I don't have a fussy baby in tow. As soon as I get home from any errands we are both tired and need a break. A lot of times during the day Elijah just wants to be held all the time. If I put him in his exersaucer or bouncy thing in the doorway he will start fussing and want out. Now that Elijah is more mobile I am constantly chasing him around the house, so whatever I am doing gets interrupted about every 45 seconds so I can go grab him before he starts chewing on the vacuum/cat toy/dust ball.

Since I stay home all day with virtually no adult interaction aside from the internet in spurts and my quick errands to go get coffee or mail packages at the post office, well, I deserve a break. Anyone who stays home all day, isolated, will eventually go crazy, so if anyone ever tells me I don't "do anything" it really strikes a nerve.

Because Elijah is still exclusively breastfed and I practice attachment parenting means I have even less time in the day than stay at home moms who let their babies CIO, and those two things are non-negotiable for me.

Using a stay at home mom salary calculator I determined that my annual salary would be around $160,000. Here is a chart of the national low, median, and high:

It's a hard job, being a stay at home mom. Next time you think that one of us SAHM's don't "do anything" just remember that we are. Always. On call 24/7. I would (and every stay at home mom) would appreciate a "thanks for all your hard work" or "you do so much, I appreciate it" instead of a list of things that I need to do since I have so much free time.