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Balance has never been a one-shot solution for me. In fact, I'd say the best "tip" I can offer new moms is to remember that balance is a constantly shifting negotiation.
If there's one constant in parenting, it's change. This can be great--like when the baby finally outgrows the colic or the reflux or starts sleeping more than two hours at a time (I won't even offer you "through the night"). But it can also be rotten, like when teething sends your formerly easy-going angel into a 24-hour misery spiral. Or, to offer an example from my own household, when the toddler who is too young to really potty train learns to unfasten every kind of clothing she owns--fastened in every tricky way her parents can imagine--while simultaneously developing a fascination with the contents of her diapers.
My own balance tricks got thrown into perpetual motion last year when my family moved three hours away from my partner's place of work. Now she is gone three or four nights (and four or five days) per week, leaving our former routine in shambles. Since the former routine included her rising with the children when they awoke at the crack of dawn, and bringing me a wake-up cup of tea to bed three hours later, I have found the change to be a challenge, to say the least.
New nap schedules (that is, kids who have started refusing to nap), first-time school attendance and new expenses requiring me to work harder for money than I have in the first five years of parenthood have thrown me out of whack as well.
At the moment, I have reorganized my work schedule to fit within the narrow school hours of my older daughter. Three of her five school days a baby sitter watches her sister. The other two, I wing it. Sometimes I can work, other times, I spend the whole time reading Sandra Boynton board books and laughing over and over again at the same joke ("Hat!" my toddler declares, while putting something on her head that is NOT a hat.)
Balance these days is about sorting out what really, really matters from what just matters in a perfect world and most of all from what doesn't matter much at all.
I tend to get bogged down in things that don't matter at all. Arguments on the Internet for example, matter not one whit, but can consume my energy and concentration for hours--even when I'm not actually involved in them, but merely following along. Recently, I made some major shifts in how and when I use my computer and that has put things back in perspective.
Things that matter in a perfect world, but not all that much in the long-run are going to be different for different people. I do find that I need a certain level of physical order in my home. So I spend a little more time cleaning than some might find necessary. My house is never as clean as I'd like it to be, but the trick has been finding that sweet spot of acceptable, and keeping things from slipping too far in one direction or another from there.
What really, really matters after I set these lesser things aside is perhaps, obvious: quality family time. But as obvious as it is, it's amazing how often it gets put on the back burner if we all don't attend to nurturing it. And here is where, ironically, the new distance in our family has been helpful. The limits placed on our time together have really helped us clarify the importance of spending time together when we have a chance.
Balance now means a balance between one-on-one time for the various members of our 4-person family as well as all-together time. Our weekends have become predictable, but happy. The out-of-town mom spends much of Friday afternoon and Saturday morning on re-entry to parenthood, spending time with the kids and giving me a break from them. Saturday afternoons we all do something special together, if only walk to the park and a cheap restaurant for grilled cheese sandwiches. Sunday morning we all go to church and Sunday afternoon and evening is never-failing Date Night.
So far, it's been working for us for the better part of a year.
What works for you?
