The Workingmums’ guide to finding a quiet moment

It’s the end of a long day when demands on your time and patience have been pretty constant. You’ve got past the frazzled hour after dinner so how can you ensure you get a much needed quiet moment all to yourself? Workingmums.co.uk has some suggestions:

1. If you like a nice bath – and even if you don’t – it’s a good excuse to slip away for 20 minutes. Ensure you have a lock on the inside of the bathroom door, although there is a danger this can work against you, eg, small children locking themselves in the bathroom at 8.44am on a school day. Ensure that said lock is securely fastened as it is likely to be pushed very hard.

2. Also ensure that someone else is in charge in your absence or 20 minutes of relaxation could mean 1.5 hours of cleaning up afterwards. Otherwise you may have to wait until the kids are in bed and asleep. NB bathing at midnight has the danger of you falling asleep in mid-wash.

3. Have a very good reason, if possible including charts, diagrams and Youtube tutorials, on why bathing alone is a Good Thing. Do not relent despite pestering. Bathing with children can be fun, but it is rarely what you might call “a quiet moment”.

4. Do not accept messages posted under the door. Say you will review the messages “in due course” unless there is a threat of imminent death. Refer all issues such as sibling disputes to whoever is in charge in your absence. Make reference to the need for a cooling down period and for both sides in the dispute to put together their legal case for formal presentation in 20 minutes.

5. If baths/showers are not your thing, find another sanctuary or alone time and build it into your daily routine. All the above still applies. Exercise such as jogging is a good one, but ensure you make out that it is really, really hard work and not at all enjoyable so that you are not followed by a posse of fellow runners, several of whom will inevitably ask to be carried home 10 minutes later.

Remember you are in this for the long term and long term endurance strategies are what will see you through. Anyone who thinks the hard part was the baby years has just not lived long enough.

*Picture credit: winnond and www.freedigitalphotos.net.

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