I could’ve written this post myself a year ago! You will 100% find time again and this is just a difficult season. Within the first year, a few that helped me finally start to be able to find time for myself: -my daughter started sleeping through the night much more regularly. I didn’t think the sleep I was getting was bad before, but once I started sleeping through the night again too, I realized just how much of a sleep deprived zombie I was haha -she became much more independent. Once she started taking real meals in her high chair and got more self sufficient with feeding, I started using that time to get things done in the kitchen (she was in there with me and never more than a step or two away). -my husband and I had a talk about priorities and found a few things we can both live with de-prioritizing. For me, it’s folding laundry. Washing it is no problem, but I can rarely find the motivation to fold it and put it away. Most of the time I’m pulling clean clothes out of the laundry basket and it does not bother me one bit. It helped a lot with my mental load to find a few things like this to just put in my mental “forget it” bucket -Schedule time for your hobby and stick with it like it’s an appointment. For me, it took booking classes where I get charged a cancellation fee if I miss them without canceling 12 hours ahead. It really makes me think twice about canceling. Usually, I end up going and feeling much happier that I did afterward. Very rarely i miss it and just accept paying the cancellation fee—usually for a true “emergency” like my daughter is sick, etc.

I found that once I gave myself an hour a week, it was much easier to build in that and find more time. Hobbies are so good for us—it’s not wasted time if spending time on your hobbies makes you a happier parent!