8 ways to find time for yourself when you’re a mum

Last Updated on April 1, 2024

Finding time for yourself when you’re a mum can be hard, especially if you have young children who demand most of your time, most of the day.

However, the less time we make for ourselves, the more likely we are to experience feelings of overwhelm, higher stress levels, lower patience levels, and mum burnout, which is why finding time for yourself is important.

Why finding time for yourself is important

There are many benefits to finding time for ourselves, some of these include: 

• It allows you to feel refreshed
• It decreases stress levels, especially if taken during times of high stress
• It lets you feel more present and patient with your children
• It gives you back some of your pre mum identity by spending time doing things you love

These benefits highlight just how important finding time for yourself as a mum is, time which can be found as follows.

Finding time for yourself when you’re a mum

Here are 8 ways to find time for yourself when you’re a mum.

Schedule it in, and treat it like an appointment

Scheduling time for yourself into your calendar, and treating it like an appointment you can’t cancel, is a great way make time for yourself.

To do this, look at your calendar or planner every morning and block out time for yourself. It doesn’t have to be the same time, or amount of time everyday, there are many self-care ideas that take 30 minutes or less, so even just a small amount of time is beneficial.

Take time out when your children aren’t with you

If your children are at school, go to nursery, or are taken care by others during the day, or on weekends, allocate some of that time for yourself.

Sometimes it can be tempting to use any time you’re alone to work or do housework, but not having your children in the house with you allows you to do some things that make you happy.

Utilise mornings and evenings

If your children are with you during the day, then finding time for yourself in the morning or evening may be the best time you have.

Waking up before your children is a nice time of day to enjoy time out. However, if your children are up early, then perhaps doing something that you enjoy when your children go to bed is a better option.

Writing a list of all the activities you’d like to make time for, and then working through this list when you make time for yourself, will ensure you spend your time wisely, instead of using it to catch up on work, or tidying the house.

Make time for yourself during naps or quiet play

Naps or when your children are playing by themselves are great times for yourself.

This could even mean sitting in the same room your child’s playing in and reading a book, drinking a hot beverage, or watching TV.

One of the most frequent ways that I find time for myself is when my toddler is playing with his cars. I use the opportunity to ban housework, and instead do something just for me.

Ask for time out

Asking for time out can make us feel uncomfortable, but if we don’t ask for it, we won’t get it.

Asking our partners, family members, or friends if they can watch our children so we can take some time out for ourselves is something that we need to do, because we can’t, and shouldn’t, do everything ourselves.

You could ask for time out when you really need it, or better yet, see if there’s a dedicated time each week that someone can help you. For instance, can your partner watch the children every Monday night, or can family members watch them for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning?

Hire a babysitter

Another way to ask for help is to hire a babysitter, which if this is an option for you means you can have some time out, and your children get to spend time with someone who will love to play the games with them that they love.

Mix up your sleeping patterns

As mums we know that getting enough sleep isn’t something that we can control, because we can be woken up during the night for any reason, and for any amount of time.

What we can control in terms of sleep is the time we go to bed, or wake up, which can impact the amount of time we have for ourselves.

This means that when you need to, you could go to bed earlier than normal so you get time to yourself in the morning. Or when needed you could go to bed later than usual, for time to yourself at night.

Put systems in place at home

Putting systems in place at home means making tasks you do more time efficient, so you can have more time for yourself.

For example, if you spend a lot of time working out what to cook each night, then creating a meal plan for the week will save you a lot of time in this area, and give you more time to yourself.

Or, if you spend too much time cleaning dishes, which I’m very guilty of, make it a rule to only do dishes after breakfast and dinner, so you have more time for yourself during the day.

I hope you’ve found some ideas here that you’ll start so you can make time for yourself every day, because finding time for ourselves should be a priority and something we look forward to, instead of feeling guilty of.

Is finding time for yourself something that you find difficult?