Are You a Stressed Mom? What Do You Do to Relieve Stress?

Before I had children, I thought I had a pretty stressful life.

After I had my first child, I discovered I hadn’t had a clue what stress was yet!

I had no idea what I was doing with a new baby and felt ridiculous asking for help since I was an older mother – I felt like I should know what I was doing. Now that I look back, I’m sure I was experiencing some depression.

Experts now think that 15 to 25 percent of new mothers have some depression due to the stress of motherhood. They believe that this could be alleviated by having more of a support system. New moms are reticent to seek help because they want to appear proficient, and when they don’t feel that way it leads to stress and depression.

I know I would have fared much better if I had had a support group.  I went back to teaching when my baby was eight weeks old. I felt guilty about leaving her, but relieved that I’d be somewhere that I knew what I was doing! I so wished that there was a teacher/mother support group to rely on – a group of people who either were there or had been there, done that and survived, and were willing to talk about it and share advice. Now, I try to reach out to new moms to offer support if they’re willing to share.

Moms can be stressed out for all sorts of reasons. What are some of the top ways to reduce stress?

A survey condicted by parenting.com and TODAY.com found that the things moms miss more than anything from their life before kids is time to themselves. More than 25,000 moms were interviewed. Next in line is their pre-baby body and sleep.