Being a stay at home mom and homemaker can make you feel like your whole life revolves around your kids and husband. The reality is, you need to incorporate self care into your daily, weekly, and monthly routine to maintain your identity as a homemaker.
The biggest modern day rumor about homemakers is they don’t have an identity outside of the home. This can happen to those of us in this role.
Don’t let it happen to you.
Keep your womanhood and your spouse will notice. You will notice.
Hi, I’m Meghan and welcome to AR Bound. I’m a mommy and military wife covering these topics twice weekly. I hope you’ll stick around to check out more topics I cover on my blog. For now let’s continue the conversation on how to maintain yourself as a stay at home mom.
After having our first baby, I got completely absorbed into his little life. This is totally normal and positive. At some point though, you have to be you the individual again.
Here are 10 of the things I do in my day to day life that keep me feeling myself, even if I spend my whole day running around serving littles!
Self Care as a Stay at Home Mom for me means Bleaching my teeth
Nothing makes me feel more disgusting than coffee teeth. You know the look. Yellow, dingy, and yucky looking teeth make me feel sub human.
I stopped whitening my teeth during pregnancy based on no research at all. Something about putting bleach on my porous teeth just seemed like a bad idea while I had a little human in me.
Following pregnancy I was still breastfeeding but I just couldn’t wait any longer, I had to do something about my teeth.
Seeing the layers of staining start to peel off really got me back to a good place mentally. No more embarrassment when it comes to smiling. This is the first way I started to improve my confidence post-partum.
Self care as a stay at home mom can be the little things, not just the big ones. Add this into your routine and I promise you’ll start feeling more and more yourself.
Cleaning Up My Nails
I just can’t make myself go to the nail salon. It takes hours to sit and get a mani/pedi done.
Not to mention, I’d rather allot our budget toward other items at this point in life. Not just my vanity. At some point this may be an option, right now though: not so much.
This is why I just try to trim, clean under my nails, trim/scrub off any dead skin, and buff/shape my nails at home once a week.
I don’t want to have “hobo hands” in the words of Emily Gilmore.
I keep my nails trimmed to a practical length and don’t do any fancy painting but there is nothing that robs you of your womanhood more than jagged bitten off nails with grime under them.
Saying this as the most addicted nail biter in history, I cast no judgement.
This is one of those simple ways to make yourself feel more like a woman. Not just a diaper changing machine.
Toning Hair or Using a Hair Mask is my Self Care as a Stay at Home Mom
I am the laziest woman alive.
I got my hair colored with some balayage blonde and I can not be bothered to go back to tone it every 6 weeks.
Finally I got a shampoo recommended by my stylist to keep it from getting brassy between visits and even now I’ve decided to get rid of my blonde, it is too much maintenance.
The important thing is whatever you do with your hair, just do it well.
That will keep you feeling well maintained. I still think doing a little something extra for your hair once every two weeks or once a month can keep you feeling like a woman even as a mama. Self care is the extra mile we go to take care of ourselves.
I like to do a hair mask to give my hair extra hydration and shine and this is plenty of extra work for me.
Plucking Your Eyebrows can be Self Care for you Stay at Home Mom
This is one of those maintenance areas that if you neglect it, it can really make you start to feel like a cave woman.
This isn’t one of those things you feel like you need to tell people, but when you’re a mom with littles who stays home for the most part: this can fall through the cracks.
I know I went months when my baby was born neglecting this area. When I started to put the work back in I felt much better.
The no makeup look feels a lot better on your face if you’re keep the basics covered. Self care doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate.
Taking the time to cover your basic needs as a stay at home mom is incredibly valuable.
Do a Face Mask
Once a week, or biweekly, giving your skin a little extra attention in whatever form it needs.
I like to do a deep clarifying charcoal mask made by Origins. It always leaves me feeling refreshed and brightened. Giving yourself the extra attention will always feel worth it.
Anything you can do to intentionally prioritize yourself, even if only for a few minutes out of your day/week/month, will remind you of the fact that you are more than just mama.
You are a woman, a wife, and you deserve to give attention to your appearance. Even if you’re only leaving the house once a week.
Floss Your Teeth, it’s Self Care Mom
I know this sounds like a weird instruction; I know I sound like your hygienist. But, hear me out.
Bad breath is more than teeth brushing. Food sits between your teeth and rots. When food rots, it stinks. I don’t think I had ever had anyone point out that flossing improves your breath and this point is what I really needed to hear to motivate me to floss.
Regularly, often, and well.
Nothing makes me feel less human than rank mom mouth, and this has really stepped up my hygiene. It’s one of those extra steps that really makes me feel that much cleaner.
Moisturize
Does any one else get bothered by that weird sensory experience you get when you put lotion on, then get dressed? I just cannot stand that sensation.
It’s like when you keep having the sheets pulled off you, a rouge tag in an itchy sweater, or when your water breaks and you just keep getting uncontrollably doused in fluid. Ew.
I hate it so much that even in the winter when my skin desperately needs the drink I struggle to bring myself to moisturize.
This is one of those steps that keeps mama from feeling like a reptile. I want my baby to still feel interested in snuggling with me because I actually have soft skin.
Once a week, I get out of the shower and soak myself in shea butter, then put on my most uninvasive robe to let it really soak in. Usually, I will put on my face mask at this time and fold some laundry while I let everything do its job.
I use Dermaplaning as Self Care as a Stay at Home Mom
I am not a heavy makeup wearer, but nothing will steal the life and beauty from your foundation like peach fuzz. Hair caked in powder and cream is just never a good look.
I added this in a couple of years ago and it hasn’t only helped to remove my facial fuzz, but also dead skin cells and superficial white heads that develop in the nooks and crannies of my face. This has really been a game changer for my makeup and skin care.
You can buy a pack of dermaplaners on amazon.
This is the simplest and most satisfying self care I have added in to my routine.
Catch Up Your Special Laundry
Feeling raggedy? Under dressed? Stinky?
Any stain removal piling up?
Armpit stains on your favorite shirt that you can never seem to part with? You also can’t seem to part with its stench?
You have two options mama. Throw it out, or freshen it up.
If you want to freshen up a stinky garment, you can boil the juice from one lemon and baking soda with your item that needs it in a clean pot on your stove top, letting it soak for at least 15 minutes. Then, lay your shirt out to dry in the sun. You can even do this in the cold winter months and get good results.
If you just need stain removal, spot clean with your detergent or dawn dish soap and let the item soak for, again, at least 15 minutes. The longer the better. Then wash on a cold cycle in the washing machine.
Everyone wants to sell that hot water helps get stains out better than cold. If you buy this though, you’re likely to actually set the stain. Good luck ever getting it out then.
Freshening up your wardrobe in this way will almost get you feeling as if you’ve gotten new clothes. Garments that have taken a lot of wear and tear but are your favorites appreciate your extra effort, and you’ll thank yourself, too.
Take one outing a week with your baby or kiddos
Are you a coffee lover, antique shopper, or athlete?
This part of you didn’t die with the birth of your child. Nurture it. Give it time.
I love to be outside. It improves my mood. I decided on the days it is possible, my baby and I would go for a stroll. I do this almost daily.
Once a week, however, I am intentional about getting out and at a minimum grabbing a latte or acaí bowl. On the best days, we head to a book store or boutique as well.
This can help you keep your identity as a woman who’s most days bound to her home.
This is one of my most sanity providing weekly activities. It’s good to insert some normalcy into your routine as a mom of littles.
Go forth and do your self care stay at home mom.
Many see self care as pampering, primping, and extra time with oneself. Self care can actually be just taking care of your basics, especially when you’re a full time mom.
I hope that here you’ve remembered just a few of your routine basics that you may have left behind when you moved into motherhood.
For more discussion on homemaking, mom-life, and military wife life, stick around!
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