Being exhausted becomes second nature to the point you don’t even realise your exhausted anymore. Single handily you’re responsible for all areas of your families needs. Juggling finances, making sure homework is done, feeding the tribe and managing their social lives. Having ‘me’ time can replenish your energy levels and remind you that you’re actually a person too. To keep you running on all cylinders, here are some of things I do to reclaim my precious ‘me’ time.

Although the idea of getting up earlier first sent me further under the duvet. I now enjoy it. I set the alarm just 20 minutes earlier than I need to. I refuse to use this time to get ahead of the housework but to have a cup of coffee in peace. To just listen to a quiet house can be bliss. If you’re a diary writer you could use the time to write. It did take me a week or so to get into being up 20 minutes earlier but now it’s a must for me.

My children are getting to the age that they want to stay up later and have different bedtimes. I have solved this by implementing a constant 8pm rule. They both have to be in bed at 8pm . The youngest to sleep but the older one can read in bed. Now that they both know this happens every night and that I am strict on it, there are no arguments and they have even been known to take themselves off to bed at 8pm when I have been stuck on the phone or caught up in something and lost track of time.

I have a night off once a week. It doesn’t cost me anything as it’s a night in. I am lucky they go to their dads one night a week so this is my night. I refuse all housework, all calls and most times don’t even have the TV on either. For me it’s a pamper night. I do my nails, eyebrows, bath then curl up in fresh clean bedding. For me that is my total bliss. If there are weeks they don’t go to their dads, I still do this but compromise by starting my pamper routine after they have gone to bed at 8pm.

Children are born with an inbuilt ability to know when you’re in the toilet. It’s at that exact moment they suddenly remember some long elaborate tail they need to tell you and continue to through the bathroom door or one child decides to half kill the other child. But shower time they are never anywhere to be seen. So I have hidden in the bathroom cabinet ‘posh’ shower gel. It’s my one luxury on my shopping list and no one else is allowed to touch it. It may be only 5 or 10 minutes but it counts towards my sanity.

Being a working mum, I obviously have the dreaded school runs on the way to work. After I have safely deposited the last child to school, I switch off the radio and drive in silence. It is only a brief journey to work but driving in the silence has a calming effect that sort of grounds me before I start work.