[blparent] finding time

[David Andrews]

The things I would add, as a single parent who 
has the kids part of the time is that everything 
is a phase and you will get through it -- and it all does get easier.

Dave

At 12:23 PM 4/14/2011, you wrote:
>Hi Nikki and all.  Finding time is something I 
>struggle with.  I've had Michael for almost 16 
>months but I had the life before motherhood for 
>roughly 34 years.  So the transition has been 
>hard for me.  I often wish I could go back to 
>that other lifestyle.  However, like everyone 
>has said, your life is changed when you have a 
>child so here are some things I do to make sure 
>I find time for myself or for my husband and me 
>as a couple.  We have a list of people in our 
>community we trust to babysit; they're all from 
>our church so if we need an evening or afternoon 
>out, we can just call and set something up with 
>one of them.  One thing to do is take one night 
>get-aways if you can afford it.  We started 
>doing them once a month but found it to be 
>expensive so we don't do them as often.  It's to 
>your advantage to have a strong support 
>system.  Sometimes, I have my parents take 
>Michael for a whole weekend and we won't go 
>anywhere, we'll just stay home.  If getting away 
>isn't an option, one thing you can do is get 
>stuff done while the baby's asleep.  Michael 
>takes 4 hour naps in the afternoon so that's 
>time for me to do stuff around the house, read, 
>watch a movie, or whatever.  When Michael goes 
>down for the night, that's the time that my 
>husband and I spend together.  Of course, that 
>works because Michael sleeps through the 
>night.  I'd also say steal whatever moments you 
>can.  It's tough, but doable.  I do have to 
>commend all the single moms and dads out 
>there.  I don't know how you all do it but as 
>they say, you gotta do what you gotta do.  Hope 
>some of this helps. Leslie -----Original 
>Message----- From: Nikki 
>[mailto:daizies304 at comcast.net] Sent: Wednesday, 
>April 13, 2011 3:29 PM To: blparent at nfbnet.org 
>Subject: [blparent] finding time         For the 
>single moms or dads, how do you find the time to 
>do things for yourself? Do you have to give, 
>sacrifice every moment of the day to your 
>children? For the new parents, is it hard to 
>give up your freedom, if it was unplanned? How 
>do you compensate and are still able to get 
>things done or do things for you as if the 
>children didn’t exist, like life beforehand? 
>How do you make life easier?  _______________________________________________