5 Clear Symptoms Of Motherhood Burnout And 6 Gentle Ways To Recover

Are you unsure if you’re burning out, going crazy, or if what you’re experiencing is normal? If so, then this article is for you.

We take a deeper look into motherhood burnout so that your mental health can recover and you can get back to enjoying being a good mom, happy parent, and fulfilled Goddess!

What Is Motherhood Burnout

Motherhood Burnout can be experienced in a variety of different ways, and each mom’s experience of parental burnout is different. It is often reported to feel like a disinterest in motherhood, intense overwhelm, exhaustion, personal disassociation from parenting, and disengagement with life and your personal duties.

You may feel like the lights are on, but nobody’s home. Or that you’re going through the motions of life as opposed to being in the present moment and enjoying life—stuck in survival mode. Or perhaps you might feel like isolating yourself, and a loss of identity. You might experience intrusive thoughts telling you that you’re a bad mom and in the worst-case scenario maybe even suicidal thoughts.

SAHM Burnout Stages (Stay-At-Home Mom)

There are 5 key symptoms or stages of parental burnout. This is often known as ‘Stay At Home Mom’ burnout, but it certainly isn’t reserved for stay-at-home moms, it can affect all moms and fathers too.

Parental burnout doesn’t really discriminate, it can affect anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a new mom, an experienced mom with older kids and a new baby, a single mom, or a mom with a huge network of support—you can still experience motherhood burnout so it’s important to look out for the symptoms and avoid burnout by staying mindful and taking positive action for your mental health. 

One of the key ways to avoid motherhood burnout is by understanding the signs and stages, so you can improve your mental wellbeing and decrease your stress level. 

1. The Honeymoon Stage

This is the Stepford Housewife stage. Where you’re trying to do it all, and all the time. You have a new baby and it’s all go-go-go.

This stage may or may not feel good.

Some mums start feeling overwhelmed in this stage, while others don’t. Others feel like they’re crushing life.

But the underlying consistency is that—Mama, you’re doing too much, and it’s not sustainable. You’re taking on too much responsibility, compulsively putting everything before yourself, and not taking enough ‘me’ time to decompress.

You’re in survival mode, and yes you can do it (of course you can, you’re a Queen)—but for how long, and at what cost?

2. The Infancy Of Stress And Chronic Stress

Oh, lookie here. Some cracks are appearing.

Stage two is where the onset of chronic stress starts to appear. Perhaps you start experiencing more negative self-talk, fatigue, guilt, or sadness.

The onset of motherhood burnout can start showing in different ways, but you’ll start noticing either the physical symptoms or that your mental health is not quite right… 

In this stage, you’re still doing it all. But you’re starting to feel the effects of your actions.

3. Chronic Stress

Houston, we have a situation. The engine is spluttering and the wheels have officially fallen off. 

During this stage, negative self-talk has probably increased, and you may be experiencing anxiety, depression, and irritation. Your nervous system is out of sorts—so if you experience a stressful situation your stress response goes wild.

In this stage, you’re still somewhat managing the situation and doing ‘the things’ but you don’t feel happy and experience more stress than peace.

You are most likely experiencing high blood pressure, intense emotion, and sadness combined with guilt, possibly even anger.

4. Parental Burnout

The stage of self-implosion.

You may be experiencing sleep problems, or weight loss if you’re not eating correctly. Self-care may be a foreign word that you don’t understand.

Negative thinking has probably almost entirely taken over and in extreme cases, you may be experiencing clinical depression or suicidal thoughts. You may be turning to negative habits and weak spots to cope such as alcohol, drugs, or other destructive behaviors.

Life may feel impossible and you simply cannot cope. The slightest distress is unmanageable and you very well may be starting to store trauma.

5. Cyclical Burnout

The unfortunate new normal.

You don’t remember what it was like to not feel stressed all the time. 

In this stage, your burnout becomes a consistent cycle of habits and behaviors that keep the cycle of burnout going. It feels like there’s no way out and you’re at rock bottom.

How To Explain Mom Burnout To Husband

It can be hard to explain mom burnout to your partner, because the truth is, you might not even fully understand it yourself.

All the moms on Pinterest and Instagram seem to be happy, coping, and enjoying their newborn child—and their houses are immaculate?! So you might find yourself questioning why you don’t feel the same.

You might not fully understand why you feel the way you feel, or what to do about it, let alone how to explain to your partner that things are just too much.

The best thing is to provide your husband with resources such as this blog article, so he can read through it first, and then you can approach the conversation together after. This takes the stress off from you having to explain something that may be traumatic for you and extremely hard to explain.

When we are in survival mode and fight or flight our ability to communicate well and constructively decreases.

How To Recover From Mom Burnout

If you’re experiencing an extreme case of motherhood burnout such as clinical depression or suicidal thoughts then please go and see a medical health professional first and foremost. That being said, if you’re experiencing other symptoms such as insomnia and anxiety it can also be worth speaking to your doctor about your experience too.

You may or may not want to take medication, and that’s fine, no one is going to force you to. But it can massively help to get it off your chest, combined with speaking to someone who understands. 

Your doctor might also be able to provide extra help such as a therapist who you can work with to offload stress whilst also dismantling unhealthy habits, thoughts, and behaviors.

Not only that, it is often easier, to be honest about your darkest thoughts to someone outside of your community, or friend group, and that is not a family member.

Asides from professional help from a medical health professional and therapy there are steps that you can take for yourself to start dismantling your motherhood burnout symptoms and cycles.

Any practice or hobby that helps you to tap into relaxation is going to help you to destress and bring your blood pressure down. But you’ll also want to create healthy habits and strategies to avoid the ongoing cycle of burnout. Such as seeing if another caregiver can look after your kids whilst you embark on regular self-care activities.

Check out my article on self-love tips for some inspiration for self-care. You can also download my free habit tracker to make sure you carry out your self-care tasks.