If You’ve Got Mum Burn Out, Do These 5 Things Now

About the author

I am a young mum to 3 beautiful daughters, originally from Sydney, Australia - now living in country NSW with my partner of over 10 years and our girls.

4. Get out in front and outsmart your kids.

I know I’m doing a fair bit of self contradicting in this article but bear with me. The last thing you want to hear when you’re burnt out is “I’m hungry” or “I’m bored”! It is the WORST. And, I get it. It’s exhausting constantly thinking of activities and planning the meals and doing all the CEO boss babe jobs being the manager of the household. But if you can somehow muster up the strength to do this, you’ll be able to flow way easier out into your week / weekend.

When you know you’ve got the kids all weekend or on your days off when hubby/partner is working, get out in front and list a bunch of different ways you’re going to keep the kids entertained. I used to find it handy having a Pinterest board with tonnes of ideas and prior to those long days, I’d scroll through, pick about 5 or 6 activities, and prepare. I’d also think of what we were going to eat for meals, and I’d do some loads of laundry so that when it came to the day, we’d have plenty of clean clothes, I wouldn’t feel bogged down by the mess as well as having to entertain the kids, and I’d know what was coming up for meals. It meant that on the day, I’d just seamlessly roll in to each next checkpoint of the day (if that makes sense). Make it easier for you!

5. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

When I was 3 1/2 months post partum with our third, my little girl hit the 4th leap and just when I thought we’d figured out sleep a little bit (she was never a fan of the evil bassinet… lol) everything went backwards. It was like I had a newborn again. Super clingy. Colicky crying (but coming from a bigger baby this time). Only sleeping in 1-2 hour fragments at a time (if I was lucky). I was months in, and I was exhausted to say the least.

Well I had gotten so caught up in merely surviving that I completely forgot about my doctor’s referral for a blood test. A forum on the Wonder Weeks app lead me to look into my iron levels, as other mums also going through leap 4 were talking about how our levels can drop off at that stage and to get them checked. Immediately I remembered how in pregnancy, I had struggled to keep on top of my iron levels and vitamin D levels. I wasn’t anemic, but surely by now, after months of surviving indoors and ditching the struggle to take my colicky baby on walks, I was low in something. So I started taking a supplement and lo and behold, I felt so much better.

Make sure you’re getting regular blood tests if you’re really not feeling well. Take matters into your own hands and if you’re feeling terrible, chances are there’s probably a reason for it and it might just take a vitamin tablet and maybe extra focus on having some better meals for you to get back to feeling like yourself again. And who in your beautiful family wouldn’t want that? <3

If you found this helpful check out:

• 5 Quick Self Care Tips For Mums

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If I told you I was burnt out from work, what would you think? Oh so you’re working too much, right? So what would you say to me if I told you I was burnt out as a mum? Does it mean I’ve been parenting too much? Mum life-ing too much? It’s a hard one because our kids are there when we wake up, they’re there when we go to sleep… so there’s not much we can do about it, right?

Well it’s an interesting one to think about. We want the absolute best for our children because deep down inside there’s a sad little inner child who just wanted more love from parents growing up. So we do absolutely everything we can for our children to avoid that pain for them. And we give and give and give. Plus, through the hard phases, sometimes we just want to hustle and "get it done" - but then we lose sight and it can go on for far too long.

After reflection coming out of the newborn phase with our third baby and having two toddlers to deal with at the same time, honestly - I just wanted to grind it out until that phase was over. Our baby also hit the 4 month sleep regression, then my hair started falling out as it does, and it felt like months and months of survival and I hardly felt like handing my baby to someone and going out. I just wanted every single slither of sleep I could get in order to be able to get up the next day and face it all again.

But one afternoon when my partner Tom was working a long shift into the night, I found myself unable to stop snapping at the girls even though they really weren’t being any more difficult than the usual. And I realised - I have been watching kids shows all day, singing kids songs, doing kids activities, I’m burnt out from this regression and in that moment I decided - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

2. Nail the basics

When we’re burnt out and we’ve spent too long just surviving, sometimes we don’t see the point in the little things because we’re just trying to “get it done”. The problem is that over time this can really affect our mental health, as well as our physical! It can be a big rut to pull yourself out of. So answer the following questions to check in with where you’re at (and be honest! No shame here):

• Have you eaten much today?

• If so, what have you eaten? (If it’s half a sausage roll and some crackers, you might want to fill your gob with something more substantial)

• Have you showered yet? Need to wash your hair?

• Have you brushed your teeth?

• Are you rewearing your clothes? Do you need to put a wash on?

• How about your bedsheets? Are they weeks overdue and in need of changing?

• Do you know what’s for dinner tonight? (I'm serious!)

These are such basic questions but if you’re not getting them right, that’s when we can really feel the burn of mum burn-out. There’s no escaping our kids. We give to them all day long - but just like that viral reel, who’s the mum behind the camera taking pics of her kids all dressed up? Sometimes, it’s not a joke. Take care of yourself mumma. Brush your hair. Brush your teeth. You are the most important person in the family.

So I put on some old school Beegees, blasted it, and put on some Christmas themed cooking shows and when the girls whinged that they wanted Paw Patrol back on, I sent them outside to play. I was done. Tired of sacrificing myself and giving and giving way too much. Sometimes they can just see how it feels to be a part of the outside world aside from 3D animations and songs sung in awfully high pitch! (I guess it’s harder these days with all the streaming services).

So here are my top tips for burnt out mums if you are really feeling it right now and don’t know what to do:

1. This is your sign to book in a date.

Whether it’s with your partner, a good friend, or by yourself - you need to let your hair down a little. You don’t have to go out at night and party, but maybe just even wearing something other than breastfeeding shirts and some perfume out to a cafe might make you feel human again. No it’s not going to fix everything, but it’ll get you through this. Plus, if you make a habit of it, maybe it just might fix everything who knows.

I remember when my third baby was just 3 months old and super clingy, I told my partner I’d go out by myself once a week just for an hour when she went down for her first nap of the day. Honestly it was a game changer. It’s sometimes enough just to pull yourself out of the rut. Plus, it gives you something to look forward to!

3. Potter around and be less "on" for a while.

When I’m really not in the mood to parent and I’ve woken up on the wrong side of bed but I know it’s going to be a long day, I really try to master the art of pottering around and not responding to every single little command my girls throw at me. Why do I have to fetch the muesli bar? They can get it themselves, right? And when I look after the basics like putting laundry away and just unpacking the dishwasher, they tend to entertain themselves after a while. If you can somehow master the art of being responsive but not responding to every little command, you can just relax knowing you are doing enough for today. I find it helpful to ask myself, what’s in my control? And what’s not in my control? And start with what is in your control to do.

Sometimes we can get SO caught up in doing everything properly and by the book for our kids. We associate it with our competence as a parent, and try to stick to all the routines and get everything right. But sometimes there’s a right time to just let it go a bit. Something I like to ask myself lately is, does this matter? Like really, does it? So my daughter wants to spend 10 minutes washing her hands in the sink. Yes it stresses me out. But really, does it actually matter today when I’m feeling like this? Like the Mel Robbin’s advice says: let her. Just let her do it today. Walk away for a bit. Come back to it. Who cares. She’s not going to do this forever. It’s just a bit of water. Where can you just let it slide a bit right now? There’s just going to be a short season in their lives of this sort of chaos. It’s going to be okay.

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