3 Things Not to Feel Mom Guilt About

Being a mom is like being a teenager all over again. You worry that everything you say and do, ever decision you make and everything you wear/don’t wear/want to wear is being judged by others. That’s the problem with almost every mom around. We’re all so busy thinking like this that we forget realize that most other moms all feel the same way. Here are three things to stop feeling mom guilt over right now.

Leaving the Kids at Home

No one should ever feel guilty about leaving the kids at home with grandma and grandpa or a trusted sitter for a few hours. Moms and dads need time to recharge and be adults. You need time to unwind and relieve some stress. It doesn’t matter if you want to have a date night or just go to the grocery store all by yourself – don’t feel bad about leaving your kids to relax a little.

Not Being Perfect

We all want to be the best mom on the planet, but at the end of the day there are going to be so many failures in your parent you forget how many. Stop focusing on perfection and start focusing on quality. So you accidentally tripped your child and now she has a big bruise on her forehead; she’s fine and you didn’t mean to do it. Focus instead on how much fun you had playing the game of tag that ended up causing you to trip her. That’s the memory she’s going to treasure.

Not Following the Mold

Every mom feels she’s not doing something right. The mom whose kid is almost two and still doesn’t sleep through the night feels she’s done something wrong to break her kid. The mom whose kid sleeps through the night after being introduced to an evening bottle of formula at a few weeks old feels she did something wrong, too. Since you both feel judged by the other; you automatically become defensive.

Awake at night mom wants to believe that you let your infant cry for hours at night so that you could rest and she’s a better mom than you because she didn’t let her kid cry it out, even though you didn’t. Fresh and rested mom feels guilty that her kid wasn’t gaining enough weight and her doctor asked her to supplement because it made her feel like a failure.

Some feel guilty because they know they made a mistake somewhere and to correct it is going to be very difficult. We all do it. Let’s stop judging other moms and worrying that other moms are judging us and let’s instead encourage one another.

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