Avoid Parenting Burnout

It’s really easy to say that you’ll take care of yourself tomorrow and push through hard times. You feel like taking care of your child should come above all else, and you simply don’t want to let go of getting through the hard times. While it’s true that you need to take care of your child and make sure they are safe, it’s equally important to not let yourself get to the point of being completely burned out of parenting.

No matter how much you like parenting, there will be parts of it that you don’t enjoy. There will likely be days where you are simply feeling like you don’t want to keep up with the monotony of it all or that you’re tired of hearing your child scream for the millionth time in the day. That’s completely normal - you’re not a bad parent for feeling that way. You’re simply a normal human being that needs to take care of themselves.

Burnout is a real thing, and it can lead to pretty bad consequences if you’re not careful. You hear about people getting burned out at work, but you can get burned out easily at parenting as well. When you get burnt out, you simply don’t want to do anything any more. It’s not just parenting that you’re done with, but you don’t want to fulfill any of your obligations. You’d rather just sit and do nothing.

Burnout can lead to far dire consequences as well, and so for the safety of you and your family, you shouldn’t let it get to that. You need to take care of yourself before you get to the point that the safety of those around you may be in danger. Rather than getting close to the burnout stage in parenting (or anything for that matter), slow down and take care of yourself along the way. You’ll be glad you did.

Make time to do things that you enjoy and want to do throughout the course of the week. You don’t have to spend all day everyday doing things that you want (that’s the other end of the spectrum of parenting), but you should make at least 30 minutes a few times a week to get in some “me” time doing things without kids. It doesn’t necessarily matter what it is, but something that will help you to recharge.

If you have a partner that is also helping to raise the kids, then you should be able to easily find this much time in the week, and ideally you’re making it a daily occurrence. You’ll find that recharging by doing what you want to do will make the days much easier - at the very least you’ll have something that you look forward to every single day and it will help to get you through a tough day.

Make sure you make your time away count. Don’t spend it wasting away on social media as you’ll likely come out of it feeling worse than when you went into it. It’s too easy to get caught in the trap of comparing yourself to those on social media when in reality most of the things you see there aren’t the full picture. Spend your time doing something more productive that you enjoy and will actually help you relax.

Don’t get to the burnout phase. Take care of yourself along the parenting journey and you’ll find that you’re a better parent.