20 Ways to be Happy As A Stay At Home Mom

Sometimes being home all day with our kids just gets us down. Then add in all of the housewife activities we also have to do and before you know it, you forget how to be a happy stay at home mom.

But don’t worry, you will get your mojo back and here are some tips that can help you…

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How Can You Be Happy As A Stay At Home Mom?

Momming doesn’t have to be a sad part of your life. You don’t have to be so overwhelmed with all the things! You just need someone who has already done it to give you suggestions on how to make it easier. (that’s me by they way)

In order to make your life as a stay at home mom better, you must find support, ideas, routines, and products that work in your life. Which can be difficult, especially when you are just starting out.

Tips To Help You Be A Happy Stay At Home Mom:

If you are willing to make changes for the long haul, then you should check out these tips and start making life as a stay at home mom happier for the rest of the time you are home. So here’s to becoming a happier mom:

Tip 1: Find Someone To Talk To

One of the best ways to be a happy stay at home mom is to find people to talk to. Many times the friends we had before kids seem to fade into the background if they do not have kids. So you may have to be proactive in trying to find new friends who are moms like you. Here are some things to try.

Join a Bible Study for Moms
- Going to a Bible study can help you meet other women who are stay at home moms. How? Because if you go during the day, the other people there are either going to be retired or Stay at Home Moms. A good bible study will help you find your way through motherhood more easily with bible related stories and a great support system.
Start Praying
- If you cannot find an actual person to confide in, then God may be the obvious next answer. Speaking to God through prayer can help work through the problems you are facing as a mother.
Talk to your Mom as a Friend
- If you are lucky enough to have your mom around, she is an excellent person to ask for help. She raised you and you are a great person, so why not ask for some help from mom.
Talk to your MIL as a Friend
- Maybe you are not close to your mother. What about your Mother in Law? She may be the next best thing to having your mother around. She did raise the man you love, so she must have some good ideas about how to be a good mother.
Find Stay At Home Mom Friends
- Friends can be somewhat hard to confide in after kids. This comes from the fact that many of your friends you had before kids were child free and still are. It is hard for them to understand where you are coming from as a mother or how to help you. So you need to branch out and find new friends that are moms so you have a support system.

Tip 2: Join a Mom’s Group

Local Mom’s Club
- A local moms group is the best thing you can do if you are feeling alone in your new role as a mom. You can make friends around the same area as you. Many groups organize outings for both the kids and the mothers. These groups will help you socialize your child and help you stay socialized yourself so you don’t become depressed or a hermit!
Find Other Moms Online
- An online Mom’s group may be a good fit for you if you cannot find a mom’s group in your local area. Mom’s groups on FaceBook can help you answer questions you have about raising your child, postpartum depression, and fun new things to do with your kids.
Create a Stay At Home Mom’s group of your own
- I figure if you don’t have a stay at home mom community in your area, you should create one yourself. Put together some playgroups at the local library, have people sign up when they come with their email, and then send out some outings 1 time per week to see if any of the mom’s want to participate.

Tip 3: Start Using a Calendar

Start Using an Online Calendar
- If you like having an electronic calendar, then Google Calendar is a great option. You can sync it to all of your other calendars and email accounts. Plus, when your kids get older, you can sync it to your husband’s and kid’s accounts so you are all on the same page. and when everyone knows what is going on, you can be a happy stay at home mom.

Start Using A Paper Calendar
- I wrote an entire review on some great planners for moms.
- A good planner has everything you need from a monthly calendar down to an hour by hour scheduler. It also contains a place for you to prioritize you daily tasks, take notes for tomorrow, and write down all that you are grateful for.
- Related Post: 12 Best Planners For Moms Who Want To Be Organized
Writing On The Walls
- A great way to keep everyone, including yourself, up to date with the day to day schedule is by putting it where everyone will see it. You can go simple and buy a dry erase board with a calendar or can go big and paint an entire wall in Chalkboard paint and draw a calendar on it. Either way, if it is right in front of your face everyday, it is hard to ignore.

Tip 4: Plan your meals

When To Meal Plan
- One of the biggest questions I get asked is WHEN! When do I have the time to sit down and make a list of meals! I feel your pain. Time is limited when you are a mom. What I found works for me is 1) making the list in google docs so I have it wherever I am, 2) Making sure to make my husband drives to church on Sunday mornings so I can grill the kids about what they want in their lunches for the week and what they want me to eat for dinner.
How To Start Meal Planning
- Some of the best places to get quick and easy recipes are from family members, cook books, and pinterest. Just search, “quick and easy recipes” in Google and see what pops up.
The Best Free Meal Planning App
- One fantastic app I use to help me meal plan…or well, it really just does it for me is Mealime (not MealTime…Mealime).
- It is an app you can use that will plan your meals and give you the shopping list in about 10 seconds. Plus it is absolutely FREE!

Get Meals Delivered to Your Home
- If you decide that meal planning is not for you, then you may want to try a service that helps plan your meals for the week or even the month.
- There is a service called Yumbly that makes toddler and kid meals and they send them straight to your doorstep.
- HelloFresh (pending) will send recipes and fresh ingredients right to your door. All you have to do is go online and pick the recipes you like.
- Fresh and Lean(pending) is a Meal Delivery service that delivers meals that are already made. Meaning, there is no cooking required for you, you just have to be able to warm the meal up somehow.

Tip 5: Declutter Your Home On A Regular Basis

There are 5 steps to decluttering your home.
- Remove Items
- Categorize
- Get rid of
- Put back
- Move

Start The One In/One Out Rule With Your Family
- Create a policy where every time you bring something into the house, you have to get rid of something. This concept is best used with toys and clothes.

School Bins
- What do you do with kid’s schoolwork? I cannot tell you how many papers my kids bring home from school I started buying a large plastic bin for each child so when they bring home papers and throw them on the countertop, I can look through them quickly and then toss them in the appropriate bin.
- Plastic bins hidden in an ‘out of the way’ cabinet or closet are a good way to cut down on all the school paper clutter. This will keep things off the countertops and in a safe place for sorting at the end of the year.

How to get rid of things without your kids knowing
- This is a system I created to get around throwing things away that my kids thought they needed, but would only play with for 20 seconds and then forget about it.
- When you have seen the item laying around for a day or two, relocated the item to an out of the way countertop. It should be in sight, but not where they left it. If within a week, they have not asked about the item, it gets moved to a cabinet where they can no longer see it.
- At this point I normally forget about the item until I have to use the system for another item. That is when I rediscover the item that is already there, figure it has been long enough, and throw it in the garbage. Be sure to put it under something in the garbage can so the kids don’t see it by accident.
- When the kids don’t know they are happy…which means you are a happy stay at home mom.

Grab this Declutter Checklist and Get Started decluttering today!

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Tip 6: Start a morning/evening routine to be a happier stay at home mom

Creating a routine as a stay at home mom is important for getting everything done.

Toddler Routine to beat boredom – activities
- Make sure your kids are also on a routine. Having a kids routine for eating, sleeping and playing is important because it helps them know what time of day it is since they cannot tell time.

Stay Flexible
- The best way to keep your routine is to stay flexible. Do not fill your day to the second with things you need to do. Build in buffers and relaxation time everyday for a successful routine.

Tip 7: Teach your kids to be helpers

By teaching your kids the importance of helping around the house, you will be able to ask for their help with more and more as they get older and more able. It is not your responsibility to do everything for your children, it is your responsibility to teach them how to be good adults one day.

Tip 8: Delegate to ALL Family Members

Delegating chores in the home is sometimes hard for parents. You feel like you should not ask your kids to do chores, you want them to have play time, or maybe you don’t want to have to re-do the clean up once the kids try to do it.

Either way, it is important for kids to learn responsibility and a sense of being a teammate. The ability to work together is becoming harder and harder for our kids as they spend more and more time alone on their electronics.

Also, you should have designated things that your husband and yourself do. My husband takes out the trash, takes the garbage to the curb and cleans the shower. Sometimes he will even do the dishes after dinner, which is when I think I love him the most! ? (because I absolutely hate dishes!)

By posting the chores that each person (including mom and dad) in the home does, the kids see that everyone is participating, and that you are not just being mean to them by making them work.

An everyone working together will make you a happy stay at home mom.

Tip 9: Find Help To Get What You Need

Finding help around you is very necessary to be a happy stay at home mom. This is different than just finding someone to talk to and get advice from. I am talking about someone who can give you the time you need to actually be a better mom.

Find relatives, a trusted friend, or a service that can watch your kids now and again to give you some alone time, help you get some errands done, so you don’t have to take the kids to the doctor with you, those sort of things.
Another option is to do a swap with some of the moms you know. If you trust them, you can trade services where they watch your kids for a few hours, and then you watch their kids for a few hours. Instead of trading money you are trading time.

Tip 10: Don’t let cleaning and organization stress you out

Sometimes you just have to walk away from the idea that your home is going to look anything like it did before you had kids. Unless you want to be a Nazi mom, you may need to re-align your ideas about what a clean home is.

Since having kids, a clean home doesn’t mean clutter free to me anymore, but it means making sure it is clean for my kids. For example, the floors are clean because my kids are on the floor all the time. The toilets are clean because kids put their hands on everything.

I don’t worry quite as much about dusting anymore or making sure my dining room is clean. Because we never even use the dining room.

Mess inspires creativity in kids
- Plus, did you know that messes can be good for your kids? Well, they are. It can promote healthy imagination. So don’t be too particular when it comes to having a clean home.

Related Post: 5 Super Easy Steps For Getting Organized

Tip 11: Organize high traffic areas

If you cannot find the things you need quickly, then you definitely could stand just a little bit of organization in the high traffic areas of your home. This is just part of becoming a happy stay at home mom….You need to be able to find the gloves your kids need as you are heading out the door without running all over the house to search for them.

You need to be able to make a meal without searching every drawer in the kitchen for the can opener.
Small amounts of organization will help you save time and simplify your life extensively by freeing up time during your hectic days.

Related Posts: 5 Reasons To Label Your Kitchen

Tip 12: Wake up before your kids

It took me years to actually believe that getting up before my kids could benefit me in any way as a mom. I love to sleep. I prioritize my sleep. So after kids, I would sleep whenever and however long I could.

But recently I started waking up early. I am not going to lie and say I made this choice on my own. I have to drive my daughter to the bus stop every morning at 6:30. So I decided that I was just going to stay up after that.

The changes to my day have been hugely beneficial, so now I encourage everyone to try it. I get loads more done and have time to relax and organize my day before the crazy starts!

Tip 13: Set an alarm for everything

As a mom, how do you remember everything you have to do? I used to get caught up cleaning or cooking and realize I completely missed an appointment! Not Good!

Alarms set on my phone are a lifesaver for me. Every morning, I get up, look at my calendar, and set alarms for the things I need to remember. Because if we are being honest, my mommy brain just cannot handle everything. So I need to create systems that help me be successful.

Tip 14: Pre Prep Meals

Pre prepping lunches, dinners and snacks has been a game changer for me. By pre prepping lunches every Sunday for my kids, I never wake up and realize I forgot to pack a lunch then have to rush around in the morning.
By pre prepping my dinners by chopping veggies and getting things ready on a day prior, I avoid stressing or spending loads of time on one day preparing a meal.

Tip 15: Make Time For Yourself

This bullet point should probably be at the top of this post. Because by now, you have probably stopped reading due to your child demanding your attention.

But right now is the time that you really should be thinking about how to make some time for yourself. There are loads of ideas that do not cost much and you really don’t even have to leave the house for.

Although, just getting out of the house can be a huge mood lifter, so don’t stay in if you don’t have to even if you have to take the kids to the park. Just sit on the bench and relax for a minute while they play.

Tip 16: Get enough sleep

This is number one on the list if you are feeling at all depressed, sad, achy, sleepy, angry. You need to prioritize your sleep. When your kids go to bed, do not stay up and binge watch that Netflix show you have been dying to see. GO TO BED!

Related Post: 11 Tips For Sleep Deprived Moms That Really Work

Tip 17: Drink Coffee or Tea

Caffeine is a life saver in the beginning of life as a stay at home mom. It helps you stay awake and helps with the brain fog. Just don’t drink it too late in the day because you will affect your sleep.

Tip 18: Be as Healthy as Possible

Fitting in exercise and healthy eating may be the last thing on your mind, but it is very important. There are a whole list of exercises you can do right at home with your baby or toddler. You can also make exercise fun like a dance party, a nature walk, or a bike ride.

As for eating healthy, it is so tempting to just eat the rest of your child’s grilled cheese or chicken nuggets because you are too exhausted to make something for yourself. But keeping a healthy diet through pre-prepping and healthy choices can help raise energy levels you need to keep up with your kids.

Tip 19: Have a designated regrouping spot

This may sound weird, but there are times where you just need to go have a breakdown, or maybe you just need some silence.

I cannot tell you how many times I would just go and sit in my super freezing garage just to have some silence. I would be able to hear the kids through the door, so I knew they were fine and playing, but the gift of that silence was sometimes the only thing that would get me through the rest of the day.

So find that spot for yourself. The place where you can go to just get away from the noise and chaos for a few minutes without actually leaving the house…and I can tell you, the bathroom won’t work. They always find you there.

Tip 20: Learn all you can

Learning through books can help you understand kids in ways you never thought you could. I remember the first book I read when I was at my witts end. My toddler was throwing fits after I brought the new baby home.
The book was Happiest Toddler on the Block. I still recommend this book to anyone who has a toddler because it helped me to see my own toddler from a different perspective.
It taught me how a toddler thinks and how you can relate to them in ways you never would have even imagined doing. I recommend this book to everyone.

Tip 21: Find The Joy In Your Day To Day Life

Over the years, my husband has really kept me level headed in my life as a happy stay at home mom.

Let’s face it, we all have days when we wish we were doing something else. When we think we missed our opportunity to be more and do more in our lives!

But then you have to remember what you would have missed. You would have missed seeing your kids grow up, being a part of every meal and good or bad day at school. You would have missed the funny stories and at home family dance parties.

And in the end, remembering that these are the things that really matter in life are what will truly make you a happy stay at home mom.

Embrace the stay at home mom life,

Julie Hazard

As a stay at home mom myself, I have found ways to keep myself sane and organized while loving what I do …be home with my kids! After 14 years of being home, I realized other moms may benefit from some of the tips and tricks I have learned over the years. Join me to learn ways to manage your home and life as a stay at home mom so you can make time to enjoy the best part…family. Things I love…feeling motivated, Harry Potter, being outside, and digging deeper into my life and my family’s life in order to make it better. I have a Degree in Biology and am also a freelance writer.