Hellobee Boards

Do your kids nap at the same time together frequently? If so, my philosophy is people first, including yourself. What do you WANT to do? Do you have a book you've had your eye on? A tv show, exerscise, a puzzle, whatever. Even some kind of cleaning can be good if that's what sets your soul on fire (it does for my mom). Anyway do that FIRST, before anything else. Set aside 30 minutes to an hour, or hell, the whole nap time and do that thing. Things really turned around for me when I started doing that, even just a couple days a week.

We do something outside the house every day. Even if it's just going on a walk. Breaks up the monotony. Sometimes I just don't get a break-DH is gone overnight a lot. So I've decided not to have a second honestly until I'm ready to pack around 2 kids alone on the regular. It's hard, I feel you. I also don't worry about the house much. It does not bother me to have an untidy home time to time.

@Foodnerd81: I get it. It's really hard. I don't make a habit of using the entire nap time for myself. Usually just about 30 to 45 minutes. And I've created other routines during other parts of the day that help me to stay on top of things, even if I miss a day or two. But I didn't figure out how to do those things until DD2 turned almost 1.5 so....it just takes a long time to find a groove. And now that DD1 is about to start preschool and I want to make an effort to set aside some of that time especially for DD2 and I, I'm sure I'll have to find an entirely new groove.

@Mrs. Sunshine: I should also add wejust moved a month ago. So I'm trying to use nap time to do things like paint trim or hang curtains or whatever in addition to regular cleaning maintenance. And my toddler is in preschool and the baby naps almost the whole time so I have those two mornings of about two hours of uninturrupted time, and I always sit and have another cup of coffee before getting into whatever task.