When you have children your time to yourself is limited.
When you have a disabled child, you get almost no time to yourself.
Our evenings are taken up with seizures and settling Ethan.
We are lucky that Ethan goes to his Dads every other weekend which gives us 4 evenings to ourselves a month.
We try to have a date night on one of those nights because it is so important for us to spend quality time together un interrupted.
Me and my hubby are a great team but we need time to reconnect as people rather than just parents.
Over the last year I’ve had to learn different ways of self care to get myself through.
Steve and I will tag team through the week and take it in turns to get up and down.
In order to survive the last year we’ve had to take it in turns some evenings to have early nights.
When you think of self care you automatically think of baths and face masks. These are great but its also important to go a bit further and find techniques you can use to relax your mind as well.
So whilst I use these as mentioned below, I’ve also found other ways to really relax my mind.
On those early nights I’ve found that making my skin feel good has helped relax me more.
A face mask followed by some calming music and a magic mask called a space mask has helped me relax to sleep.
I highly recommend the space mask to relax tired eyes and relieve tension headaches.
I have also been doing a lot of mindfulness throughout the day.
Its really helped to calm me before the day and I’ve used the breathing techniques throughout the day to calm me when I’m feeling anxious or stressed.
I have found doing some colouring in the evenings has given me something to focus on rather than my thoughts going crazy in my head.
It’s perfect for me with having to get up to Ethan as I’m not constantly pausing a TV program!
Although we do still watch TV programs they just takes longer to watch with all the pausing!
The last thing that’s been helping to keep me feeling more myself has been some gorgeous roll on aromatherapy scents.
My best friend bought them for me and they help relax me during the day with the use of the different smells and herbs.
Its so important to look after your mind and I really have found these things have helped to relax me more and to allow me to look after myself ready to face day to day tasks with Ethan.