From Full Time Working Woman to Full Time Mom

Working full time can be an exhausting affair, however as much time that it takes up, it leaves you 3 times as much time for personal time. A week consist of 168 hours and you only are spending 40 hours working and 56 hours sleeping. In the event that you put in some overtime there is the payoff on your paycheck. You can plan your days around your shifts even if they vary, because you will know what they are going to be ahead of time. You look forward to your "Friday," even if it isn't an actual Friday, and having a "weekend" off from work. It might be stressful but it does come to an end. You do at the end of the day get to punch out.

When you leave the working world to become a full time mom you may find it is very different. It feels like you will get a lot more done since you are no longer traveling as much, going to and from work. Plus new babies have a reputation of sleeping a lot, leading a lot of moms to think they will have all the time they need to get everything done. However this is not always the case. Every baby is different but they all get hungry and that is what gets them up day and night. This being said you realize that a mom never clocks out, there is no overtime because you work the whole 168 hours a week.

Still there are some things to help simplify your day. Thinking back to when you worked full time, and how you were able to still cook, clean and keep up with laundry and dishes, it may feel that there will be plenty of time to do all that and more. Then you realize that there are not a lot of times when your baby does not need you. The thing to remember is that you can get any task done, it is likely though that you will be interrupted.

* Do the dishes in smaller amounts. If your baby goes down for a nap, wash up what is there, instead of waiting till the end of the day. Loading the dishwasher only takes a minute, so doing that when ever you get a chance will keep your kitchen refreshing to walk into.

* If you like to clean your bathroom once a week, try and do it on a day where either your partner will be home or you will have family over to visit the baby. This kind of cleaning is hard to walk away from, so it helps if there is someone there to watch the baby.

* If you have one day a week where you clean everything, vacuum floors, clean the bathrooms and the kitchen, etc., then you may want to change that to three days. Tackle the floors on Friday, clean the bathrooms and kitchen on Saturday, and anything else on Sunday.

* Once you have a baby, laundry will increase since they have their clothes and diapers that are washed in specific detergent. Some thing that can help, breakup the days that you do certain laundry. Wash diapers every other day, baby clothes every 4 days and anything else when ever it is needed. Spend as little time in the laundry room. Bring the items that need to be folded out to the area that you and your baby are in. If your baby wants to be held and you have sling or baby carrier then you can fold the laundry while "holding" your baby. Then when you get a chance you can take the time to put everything away.

* Embrace leftovers. Make a little bit more then you would normally, that way preparing the next dinner will only consist of heating something up. If you want to keep variety, make dishes back to back that have a common course. Monday night have stir-fry and make extra rice, Tuesday night have burritos and put the leftover rice in the beans to make it more filling and grate extra cheese, Wednesday night make spaghetti and use the extra grated cheese as a topping and make extra salad, Thursday night make something for your protein and extra mash potatoes and eat the rest of the salad, Friday night make eggs, fruit salad and with the extra mashed potatoes make potato pancakes.

Don't feel bad if you don't get to something. Sometimes the night before could have been rather hard because the baby did not sleep too well. Even if the baby is napping you may feel a moment of relief and simply want to nap as well. It really is the best time to do so. You will likely get help when you have a baby, since people always enjoy helping by either watching the baby or helping with the laundry and dishes. Even if you have a partner working full time and supporting the family, it is still acceptable to ask them for help around the house. Being a mom is a full time job in of itself.

It may be a hard transition, going from working full time to becoming a full time mom, for many reasons. Suddenly always being at home can be a factor for some moms, they miss getting out. The pressure to have constant upkeep of the home, since you are always home can sometimes be a mistaken obligation. The consistent caring, day in and day out, of your baby can be extremely overwhelming and exhausting, but it is all worth it for the look on your baby's face and grins of thanks that they give you and that is much more rewarding than a paycheck with overtime.