Preventing Mom Burnout During Summer

Preventing Mom Burnout During Summer months can make a difference in how your summer break will go. Mom sets the tone on how a day can go in the home. So, it’s up to you if you want to create a fun summer filled with memories or overwhelm.

Preventing Mom Burnout During Summer

The truth is, as soon as summer is rolling close we tend to create this plan of attack in our heads.

Unfortunately, we will be sorely disappointed if something happens to stop all of these plans. Uh, hello pandemic and bye-bye Georgia family vacation that we were only looking forward to for almost a year!

Not something we all planned to experience. So, all of those plans went down the drain.

My point here is that as moms we just want to plan the best summer vacation, but we overwhelm ourselves with all of the planning. Trying to make it the best summer ever.

We then forget to slow down taking away the special moments of truly being present with our family during vacation.

Then the next thing we know it’s back to school time and summer is over. Well, I don’t know about you moms, but I’m ready to enjoy my summer with my kids to the fullest without the crazy stress and burnout.

How Do We Plan Without Really Planning?

Here’s the thing. I’m not saying to create a plan of attack for the summer months. In fact, I encourage it. That’s why I’ve created bucket lists and calendars for my family. But, what I mean by this is your plans are not set in stone.

As we have seen over the past few months, we have the ability to create a new plan at the last second. Without even a “hey there, you might need to start educating your children for the next few months get ready.”

If you’re thinking that you can’t do that, think back to when all of this started in March. We all did and educated our kids to the best of our abilities. I’m not saying that it was perfect. Because even as a former teacher and former homeschooling mom, I was not feeling the love!

It’s all about mindset. You didn’t even have time to think or react. You just did it because it had to be done.

Now, I’m not saying that some of us did not sit on it for days, planned for hours, created an entire plan of attack, or created a school space in our home for our kids. What I’m saying is, that when we set our mindset to do something we get it done.

No More “Perfect” Summer

Summertime is supposed to be fun, not perfect. Many of us have an obsession with perfectionism, even when we don’t even realize it. Umm… pointing the finger straight at myself!

Creating an amazing and memorable summer is all about the moments we create. You can’t create a profound memory if you’re not even living it. Not truly, if you think about it.

Sometimes, when my girls come to me to share something they have done or created (you know they are so proud because their voices got pitchier and higher quick) I blank out during the conversation.

You tell me, how am I taking this moment and cherishing it? There’s going to be a time that I wish she was home to share everything. These are the moments that we will miss, even when it’s right in front of us we still tend to miss them.

Do me a favor? Instead of perfection, why don’t we reach for intentional instead?

Let’s be more intentional when our kids want to share something with us. Take it all in and truly listen.

Let’s be more intentional when we go for a day at the beach. Put on that swimsuit mama and jump into the water with them!

Let’s be more intentional during dinner time instead of turning on the television (you can do this, just not every single night) let’s have an open conversation with our children and get to know the person they are becoming.

Taking back our own power of perfectionism will allow us to create more intentional moments that are worth remembering 10 summers from now. Not the perfect calendar that took you days to set up.

Setting Boundaries

I don’t know about you, but when I see that word boundaries… I just get a tight knot in my stomach.

This is because we know that we are not setting them. Setting boundaries during the summer won’t take away the fun your family will have, it will squander any stress, overwhelm, and burnout you will experience.

If on Sunday you prefer to stay home and rest, but you get an invitation to a friend’s BBQ, it’s okay to say no. Especially since you already know and have most likely been looking forward to your quiet Sunday afternoon.

Signing up the kids to do a summer camp during social distancing gives you anxiety, and you don’t need them to attend a summer camp. Keep them at home. Believe me! They will survive the summer even if that means not seeing their friends for a few weeks more. I know this to be true because my daughters are still alive and having the best time together.

Chores still need to be taken care of during the summer months, but you don’t have to do them all. Create a chore chart for your kids to earn electronic time or special outdoor activities. Don’t take on all of the extra loads of laundry, dishes, and sweeping. Ask for help or no video games.

Setting boundaries will not only take the load off your shoulders, but it will allow you to begin making space for the things that truly matter in your life and a lot of self-care.

Self-Care

Preventing mom burnout during summer and all year long can be done with one tiny little thing. Self-care!

Self-care is defined in many different ways for different moms. What I mean by that is that we all value specific things as self-care towards us.

For self-care looks different during different seasons of my motherhood, but during the summer months, I’ve added reading, while for another, mom might be listening to music. I know that reading calms me and makes me happy. It gives me a small hit of dopamine! No matter what you decide to do for self-care, just do it.

Self-Care: the practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress.

The goal is to choose things you enjoy doing and can’t wait to do again. Be honest with yourself about setting this goal daily. I believe that moms should get 15 to 30 minutes of self-care a day. This can also be split up into two small self-care moments.

Grab a book you have been dying to read, let the kids know that you will be taking 15 minutes to yourself (boundaries), and finally, start reading it this summer! You will thank yourself!

Revamp Your Daily Routines

During the school year, most moms have a routine set up in place to try to keep their sanity under control, but this schedule is going to look very different during the summer months.

The kids are home, no early drives to school, and no after-school activities (most of the time). So, revamp your summer routines to allow the kids to get up a later and go to bed a little later if that’s okay and works with your family.

Believe me, this is the best thing ever during the summer! It gives me a few extra minutes of my time for my morning routine and gives us movie nights later in the evening.

My point is that whatever schedule you had set for during the school year might not work during the summer months, and that’s okay. Be mindful of what your family has going on and give yourself grace if you hadn’t thought about that.

How To Prevent Mommy Burnout?

Preventing mom burnout during summer or any time of the year, in general, is something that we moms truly need to start working on. If we’re burnt out, tired, cranky, and in a miserable mood. How are we supposed to take care of our families, let alone take care of ourselves? That sounds like a not-so-fun summer to me!

That’s why we need to make sure that as moms, we are more intentional with what we add to our schedules. Especially during the summer months which should be about fun in the sun, not stressed-out mom.

I hope that you at least start implementing one of these ideas into your summer routine, if not all 3!

Remember, you’re child is not going to remember the perfectly clean house, the expensive car you rented for a road trip, or how big the hotel room was on your summer vacation. They are going to remember eating in front of the television picnic-style all summer, the deep conversations and jokes you all shared on the road trip, and the cannonballs shared with you at the beach.

Those are the moments we need to start looking for. So from this former summer, anxiety perfectionists driven mama, let’s stop the perfect summer syndrome and create lasting memories instead.

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How will you avoid mom burnout this summer?