Working Mom's of young children how do you do it? (not a rehtorical question)

tmoneyag99 wrote: »

How do you manage getting your family fed, stay on point with your diet, keep work demands under control, spend quality time with your children, spend quality time with your husband, clean house, AND make time for working out.

By young children I mean kids that aren't self sufficient. Kids that can't feed themselves or dress themselves. Not that being a mother of older children is any easier but it's different in that you don't have to sit at the table and shovel food in your child's mouth. LOL

What do your days look like? How often do you work out? How long is each workout? How much sleep do you get daily?

It was far easier when the kids were younger. They are more "portable" you can just take them with you, plust they have no afterschool activities.
When my kids were young, I had invested in a treadmill for exercise. But, exercise is more for fitness and general health, it will not affect much weight.
Diet-wise, single, married, child-less, with younger or older kids, working or not, honestly I see no difference. You can always eat less or more.
I was cooking pre-marriage, pre-kids, after-kids. Not much has changed, other than cooking for 5 now instead of cooking for 1 or 2.

Be suuuuuuper organised lol I work, study, home school my oldest son and the rest. I wrote all my weekly things to do on a whiteboard then scheduled them in my phone calendar (right down to showering, taking meat out for dinner etc) we have a two year old as well. I go to the gym six days a week ( in the evening after hubby home from work) my gym is 24/7

*How do you manage getting your family fed, stay on point with your diet, keep work demands under control, spend quality time with your children, spend quality time with your husband, clean house, AND make time for working out.*

First off, I stopped worrying about what "other" people thought all that was suppose to look like and instead found creative ways to make all that fit into my crazy life. When mine were really young, I didn't worry about getting an organized workout in, rather I just found ways to be active as often as possible. Whether it was taking the kids to the playground and running around with them instead of just sitting on the benches. Walks in the neighborhood to help lull them to sleep at night. I'd pick up cheap workout equipment (dumbbells as I could afford them, exercise balls, jump rope, etc) and would squeeze in 10 mins here, 15 mins there when I could. As they started walking, we'd spend free time doing walking tours, hitting museums. I even bought a membership at our local zoo and I would often stop on the way home from work and let them run around. Chasing kids can be great cardio. As my kids got older and more independent, our quality time came in the form of me coaching their sports teams, weekend active adventures. I also made a point to make car time our quality talk time. I realized between driving them to daycare/sitters/school and running them around to all their activities, my children were a captive audience for a couple hours a day, almost everyday. All our best conversations happened in my car!

As for keeping eating on point? Meal planning/meal prep. Eventual, I planned a 2 month rotating meal plan that just took the guess work out of food. (I still use the 2 month rotating meal plan as my kids are just about grown and starting to leave the house). Saturdays mornings were coupon clipping and grocery shopping, Sunday mornings were for meal prep (pre chopping veggies, mixing marinades, packing snacks, etc). I'd also pack my lunches while hubby and I were cleaning up dinner.

The house work? ehhh. That happened when there was time and I only worried about keeping the house sanitary and safe, not "clean". The hubby and I split the basic daily chores, but I didn't let a little mess stress me out. I'm pretty sure my house looked like a tornado hit it most of the time until the kids were old enough to help out.

JessicaMcB wrote: »

I'm a SAHM who solo parents much of the time because my husband works away. I cook and shop with my 4, 3 and 2 year olds in tow, we walk everywhere. I run at 3AM 6 days a week on my ultramarathon programming. I clean, etc. after my kids have gone to bed and prep against running in the morning, usually in bed around midnight.

Oh my gosh I could not survive on three hours of sleep. Particularly not if I had to then be nice to people

Mine are 9 & 11, and while I don't need to physically feed them, they're still time consuming. They each have their own activities, homework, etc. My husband works nights and I have an hour long commute each way from my full time job. I don't see life getting less busy until they're driving themselves around.
My gym time gets squeezed into my lunch hour- but then again, I'm really fortunate to have a gym in the building next door I can walk to. When I can get a full hour, that is. I have a standing desk, squeeze in walks and trips up the stairs... last night I did kettle bell swings and yoga in front of the TV while the kids watched a movie.
I'm not doing as well as I should, and I know this, and I'm trying. Two things I'm currently doing right is that I'm barely drinking (maybe a beer every 2 weeks) and sleeping as much as I can. So tired of being tired!

Francl27 wrote: »

You ask your husband to help. It's not your sole responsibility to take care of that stuff.

My husband works 13 hours a day in 100 degree heat 13 days on and 1 day off. Maybe OP's husband works a lot.

I started lifting before trying to conceive because I didn't want to start a pregnancy underweight. I went back to lifting about 6 months postpartum. At that time, my husband was dropping the girl off at daycare, and I was picking up, so I lifted in the morning before work at a friend's house. Drop off/pick up duties switched and my friend and I started lifting at my house after work. Then we added a third to our lifting group and met at her house. We can coordinate 3 adults schedules well enough to meet twice a week, and we follow a 5/3/1 type progression.

At some point while we were lifting at my house after work (around the 1 y.o. mark for the girl), we just began lifting with her in the room. This has proven to be good for her. She now "lifts" with us (plays with the weights), counts our reps for us, and tells me how she "have muscles, just like you, Mom," and "I'm strong just like you, Mom." It's adorable, and her form is perfect. Occasionally, after picking her up at daycare she falls asleep in the car, and I pay the newer lifting partner's 11 y.o. $2 to sit in the car with her so I don't have to wake her up. Now that she's 3, I have also bribed her with happy meals to keep her busy while we lift. We really have just learned to play it by ear to get the workouts done.

Those are the only organized workouts I do, but I also make a point of carrying her rather than pushing her. I hate strollers. When she was too big for baby carriers, she started just riding up on my shoulders. We go hiking, or walk about anywhere like that. I average my daily steps by month, and I am consistently between 12,000 and 17,000 steps per day each month, and a lot of that is carrying a small child.

That's not a lot, basically daily step count and lifting weights twice a week. That seems to be enough to keep me in pretty good shape. We did a family backpacking trip at the end of July, and I was able to carry a pack that was 45% of my body weight, plus the 3 y.o. up on my shoulders when she wasn't hiking (which was a lot of it).

I do work 40 hours a week, and as to the work life balance.... that's a whole other post.

Meal plan, meal prep on weekends, always have something like a protein bar, boiled eggs etc in case you're in a hurry but starving, try to get extra steps where I can and squeeze in an at home video workout where possible. Not easy but can be done, I'm a mum of 2 and full time uni student with study and 32 hours a week of clinical placement - lost 6lbs in the last 6 weeks!