10 ways to avoid mum burnout these holidays

Last Updated on April 18, 2024

The holiday season brings with it lot of pressure, especially for mums who want to do anything they can to make the holidays as special as they can be.

However, mum burnout can very quickly happen due to a never ending Christmas to do list, and other Christmas events that occur over the holidays, which can result in us feeling resentful or unhappy during this time.

If you’d like to try to avoid mum burnout these holidays, and instead enjoy the festivities instead of feeling resentful towards them, then here are 10 ways to avoid mum burnout these holidays.

Try to get more sleep

Getting more sleep is something I rarely write about as a way to avoid mum burnout, because as a mum we can’t control our nights, as quite often our sleep is interrupted.

However, what we can control is the time we go to bed, and going to bed earlier over the holidays gives us the best chance of getting a little bit more sleep than we’d normally get, so we can feel recharged for the days ahead.

Schedule time out

Having time out is usually on the bottom of our to do lists, and even more so over the holiday period where there’s more than usual to do.

If we don’t physically schedule time out over the holiday period in our digital calendars or planners, it simply won’t happen.

You don’t need to schedule a lot of time out, all you may need are small pockets of time, even just 10 minutes a day, or one hour a week, whatever amount of time you can take away from your family so you can do something for yourself.

Find a quiet spot

I love this idea to avoid mum burnout, because it’s simple and achievable.

All you need to do is find a quiet spot in your home and hide there, even for just 10 minutes to get away from the noise of the house, drink a hot drink in peace, or do whatever you want for as long as you can.

Let things go

When you’re feeling really stressed by everything you want to get done over the holiday period, take a good look at your to do list and find things that you can delegate to someone else, or better yet remove from your to do list all together.

For example, do you need to visit a Santa’s Grotto? Do you really want to make that extra cheese plate or dessert? Do your kids really need that extra two or three presents?

Being realistic about what you really need to do over the holidays and delegating, removing things, or doing things differently, can really lessen the stress of Christmas, and your chances of burnout.

When it comes to gifts, less is more

Over Christmas we often feel like we haven’t bought our kids enough, but sometimes no matter how much you buy them, shortly after the joy of opening them the gift is either forgotten, or not played with.

Buying less presents has financial benefits, and it also decreases the amount of time you spend researching, purchasing, and wrapping gifts, and it prevents toy clutter in our homes.

Don’t over commit

A significant way to avoid mum burnout is to not over commit, and by this I mean saying no to things you don’t want to do, which can include, but isn’t limited to:

• Secret Santas
• Buying presents for friends, kid’s friends, and extended family members
• Local pantomimes
• Local Christmas light switch ons
• School bake sales
• Play dates
• Christmas Day breakfast, lunch, or dinner invitations

Doing things we don’t want to do, don’t have time to do, or that aren’t a priority, really helps to avoid mum burnout, and it also means you’ll have more time for the things that truly matter, like taking time out for yourself.

Listen to music

This sounds like an odd way of avoiding mum burnout, but sometimes all you need to do when you’re feeling overwhelmed is listen to music that you love, and that makes you feel happy.

You could even do this to help you get through any Christmas things you need extra motivation for, such as wrapping presents, or baking with your kids.

Watch your favourite Christmas movie

Having something to look forward to at the end of a busy day may just be what you need to actually get through it, and something that you may like to consider to help with this is watch your favourite Christmas movie once the kids are in bed.

Avoid the comparison trap

Comparing our holiday efforts to our friends, or those we follow on social media, is a big contributor to feeling disappointed in your own holiday efforts.

Doing this can make you feel like you’re not doing enough, that you’re doing happy the wrong way, or that you need to add more to your already full plate.

A good thing to remember is that the Christmas family traditions you have, or the things that you do to make the holidays special are the right things for you.

Also, social media doesn’t show us what happened before, during, or after the photo was taken, and it doesn’t show us how much help that mum had to achieve what she’s taken the photo off, or what debt she may have gone into to achieve it.

You can’t do it all!

Remembering that you can’t do it all, and that some things won’t go to plan, is a good way to realise that as much as we try, and as much pressure as we put on ourselves, things go wrong.

Plans get cancelled, meals don’t always work out, presents sometimes don’t arrive on time, and our kids can pull down the Christmas tree breaking multiple irreplaceable ornaments (yes, this happened to me last year!).

Remembering these things can help to avoid mum burnout over the holidays because it may change the amount of time we spend on something, and may even make us not do something because we realise it’s actually not that important.

I hope you’ve found some ways to avoid mum burnout these holidays that appeal to you.

It’s really important that as mums we actually enjoy the effort that we put into the holidays, and take time to enjoy it ourselves, because more than anyone we really, really deserve to.

What do you find most challenging over the holidays?