Mommy Burnout: What Are The Signs, Effect and How to Overcome

Being a mother can be a very tough task. As a mother, you will likely encounter so many responsibilities that need to be taken care of. From taking care of children, doing household chores, not to mention if you are working as well. The demands and pressure that are often felt by a mother can definitely exacerbate this condition.  

Moreover, a mother is often expected to always fully dedicate herself to the family. This can make you sometimes forget about your own needs, and always prioritize others above all. Moms are prone to encountering emotional distress because they have to take care of a lot of things at once. Conditions like this will make it very possible for a mother to experience mommy burnout!

What is Mommy Burnout?

Mommy burnout is a condition where a mom is experiencing emotional and physical exhaustion as a result of the stress of raising children. This is very normal to happen, and most moms have encountered this feeling at least once. However, if this condition is left for too long, and you don’t have proper support to get through this, it will definitely bring a negative impact on your mental health.

Some of the effects of mommy burnout are, feeling emotional distress, encountering sleep disturbances, and being temperamental. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for a mother to become easily annoyed with her child or partner due to mommy burnout.

Before mommy burnout interferes with your mental health and affects the well-being of your whole family, you need to find the best way to address this issue. Below, we have several ways that you can do to avoid mommy burnout effectively!

1. Don’t Hesitate to Ask for Help

Feeling unsupported in carrying out the role of mother is one of the ultimate causes of mommy burnout. Perhaps this can happen due to your partner’s busyness, being left alone daily to take care of a child and household matters without any support, or many other factors that can contribute. 

But you do not have to feel worried about this. You need to only ask for help, for people around you. Communicate your needs to your partner, ask for help from your family, and find support from any mom community. Do something to ease your worry and stress. Sometimes people want to help, but they just don’t know how to start doing so, if you don’t reach out first. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it, because it can do wonders to lift your burden of being a mother.

2. Sharing Responsibilities

In a relationship, everything is about roles. A mother has her own role, and so does a father. But sometimes, the existence of this role has an impact on the unfair distribution of responsibilities in terms of household chores. This imbalance of responsibilities is most likely because in general, the public’s view of household work is synonymous with women. While in actuality, chores such as washing clothes, cooking, cleaning the house, or even accompanying children, can also be done by the fathers. 

Even though it seems simple, sharing responsibilities can also do wonders to help lift your burden as a mom. Once again, don’t hesitate to communicate and share what kind of help you need from your partner.

3. Create a List

Too many responsibilities for a mother to do can sometimes make everything seem excessive. Thus, making a list before going to bed about what to do the next day can help to avoid the burden and worry the next day. Sometimes you might anticipate that you have a long list of things to work on, but if you don’t jolt it down and create a list based on priority order, it will be very easy for you to completely forget it. Preparing a to-do list can help your mind to be more relaxed, thus you can avoid stress better when you already understand what to do next. 

4. Find Something Enjoyable

The World Health Organization (WHO) once wrote an article about all the things you can do to maintain mental health. One of which is to do things that you like. If you are a mother, maybe you can take a walk in the park with your little one. Letting yourself breathe the fresh air, seeing the green leaves, and smelling wet soil can be the ultimate perfect therapy to detoxify from any stress.

Another thing that you can do to enjoy yourself is to set a budget for yourself to purchase anything that you’ve been eyeing for a while. Do you need a new outfit for date night with your partner? A veggies chopper to make it easy for you in preparing dishes for your family? Or a new workout equipment to support your daily exercise? Whatever you need, you can purchase it on the popular shopping e-commerce site, Temu. Online shopping with it is not only less time-consuming, but you can also get the best price for your shopping.

Indeed, being a mother is never an easy task. If you are a mother and are experiencing prolonged stress due to mommy burnout, you need to check and follow the tips that we have curated above!