When I had THREE KIDS IN THREE YEARS, I asked every mother with multiple children older than mine for advice. The response I commonly got was this: “We don’t know! This will just be a rough patch for you-it will get better as they get a little older.” Whaaaaat!? I could NOT accept that. I was determined to find a small way in my sleep-deprived, child-crammed days to make my life a tiny bit easier. I was praying for Heavenly Father’s help and decided to do what anyone should do in this situation-call my grandma! She raised 7 kids and gave a small piece of advice-teach them something new. Although toddlers can’t go around doing chores, there was something they could take away from my energy-spendings by learning to do it themself. One example was teaching Ember to climb into her highchair herself. I taught Tavon to put the clean utensils away using the step stool. I taught Ali to throw her own dirty diapers away. These may not seem like much, but it was a huge help to me when I was hugely pregnant with our 4th! My grandma was comforting to me, addressing the fact that it would take even more of my patience and time, but that I HAD to take the teaching time to hand some of my effort to my kids.

I was also inspired to ask this in quieter moments-What can I do to make my life easier later? Eventually, I came up with a short list of things I had to do before I went to bed. I knew that if I didn’t do the dishes before bed, the food on them would get dry and harder to clean. My house could also stink, and I wouldn’t have dishes to eat breakfast or cook with the next day, until I washed them! It was easy to see that making sure the dishes were done before sleep would save me a lot of time the next day. Other items on my short list included taking out the garbage, spot wiping the table and counters, and making sure the laundry was switched to the dryer so I didn’t have a sour load in the morning. If you notice, most of these things centered around the idea that although my home might be cluttered, I didn’t want it to stink! When I was able to ask the question “What can I do now for later,” I could do anything from deciding on what’s for dinner, to put my clothes out for the next day.

I want to address something really quickly. Try not to get bitter or blame when you feel overwhelmed like someone should be helping you. It does more harm to you than anyone else. You can always ask for someone to help you, but if they say no or are unreliable, that bitterness is not a help to you. The time you could spend blaming other people could be spent on your knees asking for additional guidance or researching new ideas/routines that could be more effective. I soon came up with my dry erase board method. This is a small magnetic dry erase board on my fridge where I write things I need to do, and things we need from the store. This way I can take a picture with my camera before heading to the store and I never lose my list! My calendar is for appointments at specific times in the day and my to-do list is what I turn to the other times. It is a HUGE mental relief to get my brain out on that board and know I don’t have to keep remembering things or re-think what I should be doing. I need to remember to thank my past self more haha!!!

One of my favorite things to adopt into my language when I had my 4th baby was the “turn” talk. Multiple children needing attention at the same time gets SO overwhelming and it can be easy to yell. However, when someone came up to ask or tell me something, I would say, “right now it’s Ember’s turn, you’re are next!” and then if someone else needed me I would say “I am helping Ember right now and then Tavon is next so you are 3rd. I will ask you what you need in a minute, so try to remember what you need!” At some points, everyone is in line for their turn, which is fine! BUT the great thing about it is that you can insert your own turn haha! when I did workouts at home I would tell the kids, it’s mommy’s turn for 15 min, and then you can have a turn.” It worked okay, and I would try to do it before they usually got up.

I believe in you. I believe you can find a way! You ARE capable of finding ways to be more efficient in your hours, your days, your years. What worked a month ago may not work next week. Don’t be afraid to try new things and to give yourself a break, too. That to-do list will never go away. But you know what will? Your babies. Your babies will grow up. Now is not the time to have a perfect house or to care what relatives think so much when they come over. What is important to you? As you can see above, having a house that didn’t stink was important to me. Reading with my kids, listening to music, and being physically active is also important to me. There are things that just have to get done (like dishes and laundry and dinner…every. single. day. LOL) so be effective in your efforts to do those things so you have more time to enjoy what matters the most to you. Have faith that you can do it and ARE doing it, not fear that you will never measure up.

I hope this helps inspire you to have confidence (and I hope you get some sleep soon)!

Your friend, Jexi