You have more than likely clicked this link because you are a teacher about to become a Mom, a teacher who is already a Mom or maybe even a Mom about to go back to work full time as a teacher.
Full disclosure: I have not been a full time teacher WHILE being a Mom yet. But I am a work from home Mom, and balancing ANYTHING while becoming a Mom is just plain hard.
A little life update from me if this is your first visit to my page. I said goodbye to my job as an Autism k-4 substantially separate teacher in 2017. I was pregnant and decided not to return to the classroom (for now). I now balance staying home with Quinn full time… AND working on my blog full time creating resources for all of you. I LOVE this new job and I LOVE the opportunity to travel to do PD and teach teachers! But the balance is HARD. So I am sharing my tips for balancing work life and Mom life today!
1. Meal Prep
While I am technically home with my baby, I need every extra second to work. Things like grocery shopping and meal planning take a LOT of extra time. I cannot afford to spend the few minutes of nap time I have doing these tasks- so I enlist to help. Enter Hello Fresh (this is not sponsored at all, just my true opinion on what I do to save time weekly).
We started hello fresh to have 3 thought free meals planned a week- and it has been glorious! Each meal breaks down to about $8 a person- which is definitely less than ordering out and probably less than if I found a similar recipe online and had to buy many ingredients. I love that they send preportioned ingredients and that we can select our meals each week ahead of time ( there are about 10-12 options per week) I LOVE that we can try different foods… but they are still normal enough for my husband. Now that Quinn is eating real food with us (we did baby led weaning!) she also enjoys every hello fresh meal with us. She eats all of the ingredients (only thing we watch for is no honey before 1) and there is plenty of food for the 3 of us. The addition of Hello Fresh to our week has been a lifesaver!
When I was teaching we also did Hello Fresh! I loved that the box got delivered on a Monday and I had 3 meals ready to go that were healthy and QUICK!
Again, this is not sponsored, but if you want to try Hello Fresh you can you my code- you get $40 off and I get a credit towards a meal too!
Click here for $40 off your first box!
Another meal prep tip: I prep all my lunches at the beginning of the week- this way I don’t have to be scrounging each night or day. It may save me 10 minutes but that adds up quick and is more time spent with Quinn!
2. Leave when school ends.
USE your prep time. If you don’t have it- advocate for it. Avoid chatting with coworkers during this time. Use every precious minute to prep at school and get home to your babies! This is something I always have done- even before kids- for my mental health. When I was a first year teacher I would be locking the door with the janitor at ungodly hours. Once I learned to balance my time and work load- the weight was truly lifted. I relied on consistent routines in the classroom so I wasn’t always coming up with new work for each new theme or month (like simple comprehension!) I planned way ahead and started my independent work system for a plan free portion of the day.
3. Ask for help when you need it.
Whether this means at home (like a babysitter or house cleaner once a month) or at school (asking for help so you don’t spend 5 hours on something that only takes 1 hour… this was me when I wrote my first IEP and didn’t understand the program.) goes a long way. Getting help does not mean you are failing as a Mom or teacher- it actually means you are thriving and balancing!
Quinn is almost 1 now. It’s taken me a while to balance being able to work while being a Mom… and figure out naps so that can actually happen. So just like teaching, it takes a year to figure out anything new in life! Don’t be hard on yourself- you are doing great!
