Working mum to stay at home mum

Jeni Dibley-Rouse - 9 Jan 18

I have been both a working mum and now I am a stay at home mum.

When I had Joe I went back to work after 11 months and everything worked well. I worked in a job share with a guy who also had children and we both did three days each, he covered both of my maternity leaves so the continuity was there. When I returned the second time he left to pursue his career as the next Ed Sheeran, something he always wanted to do, which is amazing, go CHRIS!

I always knew it was going to be hard going back the second time as an extra person to the family dynamic makes it tricky. My company honoured my three days a week and were very accommodating and offered flexible working.  I had long days and shorter days so I could be around as much as possible.

Leaving my job was not a decision I took lightly and quite frankly something I thought I would never do as I LOVED my job and LOVED working but after some careful consideration it seemed the right time to become a stay at home mum. I believe my company would of offered more flexible working but I knew that my job needed to be done in the office and would almost become redundant if I was to do it from home. I was the Head of Scheduling in a post production company that makes adverts. I was the person that would solve people problems and get adverts delivered on time by finding creative ways of “creating” time when there wasn’t any.  This was a face to face job which couldn’t really be done on the phone or over email, so for me working from home wasn’t going to work and I felt I would just end up doing two jobs badly. We worked out how we could survive because after commuting, childcare and my addiction to Itsu and the odd Friday lunch tipple the figures where doable, so we took the plunge.

As in any new job it can take a few months to get up and running so here are some ways I’ve settled myself into becoming at SAHM.

Accepting I’m not Supermum 

My expectations did not meet the reality, I thought the freezer would be full of home cooked meals, I would paint furniture (never have I done this before), fit in five gym classes a week, create an amazing healthy eating plan that I would rotate every 3 weeks, and quite frankly it hasn’t happened. The food shop still arrives with the quick fix meals and I still always forget something, every bloody time. I’ve given up trying to make furniture nice as there is always a child defacing it with stickers, crayons or dirty hands. I do make it down the gym but it’s not five times a week and most importantly after a bit of time I’ve said this is ok to myself.

I’ve made some new mates

I’ve filled my work friends gap by seeing my friends more and making new mates that are in the same situation. I feel this is a pretty natural thing to do in life as you are drawn to people who you share common interests to you. Luckily Mums the word online popped up at the right time and now I wasn’t working I could attend more of the Mama meet up day events. They always hit the nail on the head with their speakers, they really do smash it out everytime. So as you all know my hobby is writing this blog which can be a bit of a lonely world unless you actually meet other bloggers!

Instagram, now if someone had said to me you would be going out for a drinks night with someone you met on the Instagram a year ago I wouldn’t of believed them but this has actually happened and it was bloody great. These “getting to know other mums like you” with a glass of fizz are popping up all over the place, to name a few Lorna who does a great event called PIZZ UP   based in South West London and in the South East Mama Mixers.

It’s the little things that count 

When your boss is yourself a little inner self praise is good for the soul.  The other day I said to my husband “I have simple goals these days if my children have brushed their teeth, eaten food, and slept I’m happy” because quite frankly this is not achieved everyday.

Write lists, lot of lists

So when I was working I would have lists of lists etc and work through these lists to get the job done. When I first started out as a SAHM I was always trying to do everything at once and obviously I couldn’t achieve this so I’ve started using the   Bullet Journal concept to get organised and even though I don’t use it to the levels others have it has really helped.

The soundtrack to my life 

I really enjoy music of any type really, I used to listen to it on my commute but now the commute has gone I’ve started to inflict my musical taste on the kids more and they actually quite like it, I can’t sit in a silent house there always has to be sound in some shape or another.

So this is the phase I find myself in now and it’s going ok, I will be honest I don’t really know what is the next phase is but I’m just enjoying it whilst it lasts.

Jeni Dibley-Rouse

I'm a mum of two children, Joe (5) and Grace (2), married to the husband and I quit my job of 15 years in post production TV (mainly working in advertising with a few documentaries) to run the family full time. I enjoy laughing through every phase of being a parent with the Joe and Grace.   I look on the brighter side of life 99% of the time. I'm aways on Instagram doing an insta story of our day to day life so if you fancy it come and follow us over there too @everythingisaphase

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