How to Love Being a Stay at Home Mom

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Being able to stay home with your kids is an incredible gift that not everyone gets to enjoy. Still, some days can be challenging! Here are a few thoughts on how to love being a stay at home mom.

If you’re reading this, you probably know that being a stay at home mom is a gift, and one that not everyone gets to experience. Many women long for children and never get to experience the joy of motherhood. Still, others have to work out of necessity when they would much rather be home with their children. If you have the ability to be a stay at home mom, rejoice! There are few joys greater than being involved in our children’s lives day after day.

Still, many moms struggle at home even if they understand the blessing that it is. There’s cooking to be done, laundry to be folded, floors to be cleaned, and most importantly, children to be cared for. It can feel overwhelming. On the other hand, it also has the potential to feel isolating, mindless, or boring at the same time.

Every day, I am floored that I have the opportunity to stay home with our kids. Being with them day in and day out is just incredible, and I feel so blessed by it. I know there are a lot of people who feel like children are a burden, or slow them down, or get in the way. To put it bluntly: stop thinking like this.

Here are some ways to truly enjoy being a SAHM and love your days with your kids.

Know your purpose – it’s much bigger than cooking and cleaning

Have you ever worked a job whose mission you didn’t agree with? Even worse, how about working for a company who had no mission at all?

Being a stay at home mom isn’t much different. If your sole purpose is keeping the house clean or having dinner on the table every night or simply keeping the kids alive, you’re going to feel purposeless and discouraged.

As a family, our purpose for having the maximum amount of time possible with our kids is to train them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We believe that there is nothing greater than them knowing Christ. Our mission as parents is to point them to Him day after day.

As a mom, that is my goal. The cooking, cleaning, and diaper-changing is secondary. It’s done with joy to serve my family and honor Christ. But it’s not the main focus of the days.

Help your children learn and teach them to work, don’t just entertain them

Secondly, use the short years with your children to teach them. Being a stay at home mom is such a gift because our children get to do everything with us!

Kids need to play for sure. However, the focus of motherhood is not to entertain them from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed.

In our home, we have times that are set aside for play: reading books, going outside, doing puzzles, etc. We also have a lot of time that is focused on work, and they love it!

Making dinner, weeding the garden, and folding laundry is a lot slower with a toddler. But the time invested in teaching her will pay off in the long run and will prepare her for life.

You don’t have to wait until your kids are sleeping to get anything done. Involve them in what you’re doing. I’ll be the first to admit that sitting on the floor sorting shapes all day can get super long. There’s a time for this, but don’t neglect to teach your kids life skills, too.

Have a schedule (or flow) for the day

Having a consistent flow each day makes the days go so much smoother for everyone. This way, both you and the kids know what to expect. If you don’t already have some sort of schedule, you’ll be amazed at how quickly the kids pick up on it when you start implementing a consistent routine!

Having a daily schedule helps kids be more content because they know what’s coming and aren’t as disappointed if they don’t get to do what they want. It also helps you, as the mom, know when you can fit in different responsibilities as well as focused time with your kids (and when you can expect a little break).

Currently, our daily schedule with two under 3 looks something like this:

Wake up, get dressed, breakfast as a family
Baby goes down for a nap, toddler does blanket time
Free time: this usually includes going outside, working on tasks together, playing together, or errands
Lunch
Naps for both kids
Make dinner together (toddler sometimes helps, but usually the kids just play near me)
Dinner as a family
Family worship and play with dad until bedtime (this varies: sometimes we go outside, sometimes we play inside, sometimes we work on a family project)
Bedtime

Plan your week

Whether you’re a planner or not, it can be helpful to think about what you want to do during the week. I love being home, but I usually prefer to leave the house a few times during the week. Think ahead of what you can do. This can give both you and the kids something to look forward to and break up the time at home.

I also like to consider what to do with our time at home. Looking at the weather ahead of time helps me sort out what we want to do. For example, if there’s only going to be one sunny day this week, you can bet I’ll plan to have less indoor responsibilities that day!

Keep a list of projects or goals

Some people like to wing it, but I just cannot. I need some sort of list to keep me on track and keep me from feeling flustered and directionless. My weekly planning strategy only uses a simple notebook, and it’s an easy way for me to keep track of what I want or need to get done each week.

Having a variety of tasks on the list makes it easy to fit in tasks where the make the most sense. For example, the tasks that take a lot of focus are usually done while the kids are sleeping. I wrote a whole post about it if you want to see exactly how I do it.

Make likeminded friends

It is HARD to be a stay at home mom when you don’t have like-minded friends. Friends with the same mission and goals as you will spur you on and give you renewed energy to joyfully and patiently invest in your children day after day.

Of course, there is nothing like having real-life friends to do life with and lean on. If you go to church, make it a goal to join whatever groups or studies you can to meet the other moms. Invite like-minded families over and get to know them. You can also seek out different mom groups in your area.

Additionally, finding moms who are similar to you online can still be a wonderful source of encouragement!

Train your children

Training your children is loving your children. While it may be an unpopular opinion, leaving your children to do what they want is not loving and will not prepare them well for life.

Values such as self-control, obedience, sharing, and taking responsibility by cleaning up and helping with age-appropriate chores can all be instilled in children from a young age.

Teach your children to play independently

Teaching your kids to not need you every moment is good for them and for you. The goal is not necessarily to “get away from them”, but rather to teach them to be content, enjoy what they have, and simply be children.

Some of the ways that have worked well for us in this area include introducing playpen time or blanket time from a young age and not overloading them will too many toys.

Be productive: Have a mission

While children are an integral part of the family, they should not be the complete focus of the family. This does not serve children, the family, or society well.

Your children are part of your family’s mission, they are not the mission.

If you’re starting to feel like the children are the focus of the household, it may be time to take a step back and get together with your spouse to think about the overall goals of your family.