Being a mother is a noble job without pay. Well, the only payment you'll receive is love and support from your family.
However, as a mother, sometimes we overdo our jobs, and we take for granted our health, particularly, our mental health.
But how can we do our best as a mom (and a wife for many), if we are ill-tempered with our children and husband, we are not in a good mood or condition, we experience anxiety and depression, and we struggle to survive daily?
So here are some mental health tips that I am practicing that could help you maintain your mental health as a mom.
1. Do have a daily routine for your family to practice.
Having a daily routine helps me a lot because it saves me time thinking about what to do next as the day passes by smoothly. Your actions would be automatic and less work would be missed out.
And because of these routines, the more your family members understand what to do next, the more they will do things on their own because they already know what to do. It will later give you less mental burden and more time to rest once they become more independent.
2. Ask for assistance.
You can hire a helper to help you with the chores, hire a babysitter, buy machines to help you automate some of your chores, or ask for help or delegate some tasks to your spouse or older kids.
It would not mean that you will depend on them. You are not a Wonder Woman who can do all these things by herself. That's why it is better to have more than two hands, right?
3. Not all parenting advice can be applied to your family. Just choose which can apply to you.
You don't have to follow every piece of advice that you receive from your relatives and other parents. We, as parents, know very well which ones are best for our children, especially for minor kids who can't decide yet on their own.
4. Avoid comparing your kids to other kids and their siblings.
Children have different developmental milestones, skills, intelligence, personalities, etc. This is actually what I learned as a twin mom. Not because they have the same looks and age, automatically, they will develop at the same rate.
We don't need to compare them as everyone has their own uniqueness and abilities. Some excel in specific skills, while others don't or have some delays, and that's okay.
Developmentally, as long as they are on par with their peers, it's okay. If you are worried, you can consult your pediatrician to ask if there are developmental delays.
5. Always have regular self-care practices.
You can meditate, do yoga, pamper yourself at a spa, write in a journal, exercise, and more. Just choose which applies to your lifestyle and can squeeze into your schedule. You can do these every day for at least 5 mins, every week for at least 30 minutes, or any time you can squeeze in your daily or weekly routine, so these will be your habit. You can also combine these self-care routines to keep yourself sane and grounded. These activities can serve as your downtime too.
6. Keep in mind that nobody is perfect. Likewise, no mother is perfect.
We are all a "work in progress." No mother automatically knows how to become a mother once she gives birth to her child. Most of the time, they learn through actual experience.
That's why you shouldn't be too harsh to yourself whenever you make mistakes as a parent, you get angry with your kids, or you can't properly take care of them for a day, etc.
For every mistake that you make, you rise and learn from them. You can correct them later and continuously work on self-improvement to become a better mother and wife.