Being a stay-at-home mom is a rewarding experience – you get to see your kids grow up, day by day, without missing any milestones! You also won’t be plagued with the hassle of annoying bosses and pushy coworkers. That said, there are some days when this responsibility can feel painfully constraining.
Motherhood is an endurance game – and this goes double for stay-at-home moms. Your biggest enemy will be boredom, so stave it off with every means at your disposal!
Exercise is a great way to keep yourself focused and fit! You could also pick up a side hustle or two to earn some cash on the side. Try adding some music or podcasts to your chore time!
A bit of entertainment might work too – try out some movies or even a game to pass time. Dabble a bit in cooking. Get in touch with like-minded mommies and have a girl’s night in!
You’ve got plenty of ways to beat the dreaded stay-at-home mom boredom. All you’ve got to do is look at your options and try things out. Not everything will keep your interest, but keep an open mind and some of those options will be sure to stick!
How to Beat Stay-at-Home Mom Boredom?
1. Work Out!
A mother will get pretty busy tending to their child’s needs – especially in the first few months! Stay-at-home moms would be in charge of cleaning, feeding, and clothing the child, and all the time spent on those tasks can add up to several hours per day.
Most mothers won’t have time to take care of their bodies with a child on hand. If they’d just recently given birth, they’d also be saddled with some pregnancy weight for a little bit. Lastly, their diet may suffer from the extra expenses, limiting their healthy options at a grocery store.
Your best recourse would be working out from time to time. The nice thing here is that you don’t need dedicated classes for this – heck, you won’t even have to leave your home for it! There are plenty of YouTube fitness gurus ready to help you keep your body toned and your mind sharp.
When it comes to the stay-at-home lifestyle, complacency is one of your biggest enemies! Another big obstacle for you to overcome would be stress, so it might be worth bookmarking a few Yoga class videos to help you meditate and wind down.
2. Pick up a Side Hustle
While a stay-at-home mom already does a ton of work for their family, a lot of it is about maintenance. Taking care of a child is exhausting work, but that contribution is easy to downplay – caregiving work often comes up only when the caretaker has made a serious mistake.
Their work is crucial for a family to function, but it won’t always be fulfilling for them. Some freelance work on the side could scratch that itch to be productive – while also bringing in some extra income to boot! As much as possible, go for work-from-home opportunities!
Good ones include being virtual assistants, social media managers for companies, or affiliate marketers. Essentially, you want any job that offers manageable application requirements, flexible hours, and fair pay to compensate for your time.
The majority of these opportunities will be online, so try to scrounge up a solid resume first!
You could also try your hand at some modest commerce, selling certain products to augment your home budget. Baking might be a nice way for a bored mom to try this out, but not everyone has the knack for this. Others also try selling goods like scented candles, homemade soap, cute knitwear, and even jewelry via online shops. Just see what means works for you best!
3. Spice up your chore schedules with Music or Podcasts
A few moms are lucky enough to enjoy doing chores, but the majority of them will struggle to meet their entire checklist day in and day out. The best way to contend with this tedium is through distractions, and we’ve got just the thing for you!
Music is a nice way to distract yourself from mind-numbing responsibilities, and it’s also likely to incite certain emotions in people, depending on the genre.
Just give it some thought:
Why does rock music pump most people up? Why do classical pieces wind them down?
Music primes your brain to view the situation in a certain way. It might make you excited to clean or more soothed while you do it, but either option will reduce a ton of boredom with the task!
Podcasts provide a similar experience, allowing you to dissociate from the hum-drum ordeal through your content creators of choice. You can easily set up a work playlist (or pick a work podcast!) to prime your brain for a productive evening!
4. Treat Yourself to a Movie (Or maybe a bit of Gaming)
Boredom can make you feel restless, so having something to look forward to can make all the difference. Try setting aside a couple of days a week to treat yourself!
A lot of moms go with personal movie nights. They get some movie recommendations from friends, snag some microwavable popcorn for the occasion, then finally kick back and enjoy.
Some moms might also game in their spare time. It’s a great choice to keep them entertained and energized, but it’ll take time, focus, and free hands to enjoy it fully.
We’d recommend movies to detox since you can tend to a child while watching a movie. Your experience might not be ideal, but interruptions in the middle of a movie are way less irritating than interruptions happening while you’re in the zone while gaming!
You can use either option, as what matters here is being able to break the monotony. Having something to look forward to will always be a boon for long-term responsibilities like motherhood.
5. Try Your Hand at Cooking
A lot of people find cooking to be therapeutic, and you’ve got plenty of time to mix, match, and experiment with your recipes of choice. Start small – work your way up. It’s important that you take this as a hobby first. Once cooking feels like another chore, your enjoyment will dampen.
This tends to happen when you feel forced to cook multiple times a day. The fact that your ingredients – and subsequently options – may be limited on some days won’t help.
Cook what you want to first to work up a passion for it. That way also keeps your post-cooking cleanup mess manageable.
While it’s a nice way to beat stay-at-home mom boredom, cooking also serves a practical purpose. You can save a ton of time and money by cooking in bulk and finding a solid meal plan to follow.
Just remember not to feed your baby what you cook yet – even when you’re proud of it! At that age, their digestive systems won’t be able to process the meal. Wait until they’re clear to eat solid foods, then spoil them rotten (within reason) with your delicious homemade cooking!
6. Get in Touch with Like-Minded Mommies Online
The stay-at-home mom experience can feel isolating, but you aren’t as alone as you think you are. It can get monotonous, yes, but if other moms found ways to keep themselves entertained they’d be more than willing to share their life hacks with you!
Your husband, family, and friends might not understand the full extent of your experience, but these people do. There’s comfort in that company, and you’ll have the worst of your struggles validated by moms who’ve been through exactly what you’re going through now.
There’s a lot of good advice (and great stories) floating around – all you need to do is ask for it!
7. Set Up a Girl’s Night In
Stay-at-home life can feel constraining, but leaving your baby unsupervised isn’t an option.
Your best bet would be to bring the party to your home. If your other friends are mommies too, all the better – you could host a group playdate! Clear your schedules out for a girl’s night in!
The kids can keep each other entertained (and out of their mommy’s hair!), only requiring minimal supervision. You can have people take turns on that or even hire some help for the evening. Meanwhile, you and your friends can catch up, let your hair down, and relax together.
Other Options to Keep you Engaged…
While the suggestions above will be your main boredom killers, they’re won’t be your only ones. Those options were selected for their general ease of accessibility.
Everything past this point might require time, money, or other caregivers – privileges not every stay-at-home mom has available.
8. Pamper yourself at the spa
Stay-at-home parenthood can leave your body with a lot of tension – it can clog your pores and frazzle your mind! A spa day could help melt all of that stress away, letting you unspool your thoughts and process things in a calm, soothing environment.
9. Plant a nice, cozy garden
The nice thing about gardens is that you can see them grow and develop – not unlike your child!
Most plants also need sunlight and clean air to thrive, and you’ll be spending a lot of time in such areas tending to them – a welcome change from the stuffiness of your home!
10. Get your spouse (or hire a nanny) to tag in for a bit
What you’re feeling might not actually be boredom, but burnout. Being a mom is rewarding, but if you’re stuck in that rut for too long even the love for your child can feel like an obligation.
Having someone to alleviate that burden – even for just a few hours – can give you time to process those feelings. Being a mom isn’t just about caring for your kids, but doing it for the right reasons.
11. Pick up some skincare know-how
All mothers are beautiful, but sometimes it can be difficult to convince them of that. A lot of them, after giving birth, might feel bloated, listless, or uncomfortable in their post-pregnancy bodies.
A renewed interest in skincare might make it easier for a mother to believe in their own beauty, improving their self-esteem and confidence. And who doesn’t want to feel awesome?
12. Start a blog to document your thoughts, experiences, and stories.
Every mom has a story to tell, but it’s easy to lose track of its worth because the wonder of parenthood becomes a part of their day-by-day life. Having a blog or journal to log one’s day in helps one cherish these moments.
It also has the added boon of saving what might have been forgotten, making them tangible enough to treasure. It’ll be a wonderful thing to look back on – even years down the line. You get to beat stay-at-home mom boredom while recording all of these precious memories!
Final Thoughts
It’s tough to beat stay-at-home mom boredom, but you’ve got to nip it in the bud before it gets worse. Toy with new hobbies, play something to make chores feel less dull, get in touch with moms who can relate to your struggles, and invite some friends over to have fun at home!
