As I continue to build in this season, I’m learning that growth has a texture nobody warns you about. It stretches and challenges every old version of who you used to be. While I genuinely love who I’m becoming, I’ve also given myself more room to grieve who I was. My new world has a way of reminding me how small my former one felt — and that realization, as freeing as it is, can sit heavy. There’s a strange sadness in outgrowing yourself.
If you’ve read Letting Go of the Mom I Thought I’d Be, you already know this tension lives at the center of my motherhood journey. This has been one of those months. So consider this my love note to anyone who needed a soft landing to close out April. A honest look at the self-care for moms that actually works when you’re feeling low.
The Sauna and Steam Room Combo
There is something almost ceremonial about walking into heat with nothing but your thoughts and coming out feeling like a different woman. When I have the time, I do a full combo treatment — sauna first, then the steam room. By the time I’m done, whatever was heavy when I walked in feels at least a little lighter. My body remembers how to relax. Somehow, the rest of me follows. If you’re looking for an accessible self-care ritual that actually resets your nervous system, this one is worth building into your routine.
A Snack I Genuinely Love
This sounds small because it is and that’s exactly the point. Rather than reaching for something virtuous or strategic, I just want the thing that makes me happy. Right now that’s the Maxine’s oatmeal creme pies from Sprouts, and I will not be explaining myself further. Sometimes self-care for moms looks like a treat and absolutely nothing more.
A Hot Everything Shower With Shower Steamers
Not a quick rinse. An everything shower — the kind where you hang fresh lavender and eucalyptus, exfoliate, and let the steam fill the whole bathroom. The water hits your back. You take up space in your own routine. Adding shower steamers makes the bathroom feel like somewhere worth being. It’s fifteen minutes of sensory reset that costs almost nothing and gives back more than it should. A small act of self-restoration that doesn’t require a babysitter or a budget.
A Good Netflix Watch
Bridgerton. Obviously. Beyond that, there is real value in giving your mind something beautiful and indulgent to rest inside for a few hours. Especially when you’re in a season of heavy identity work and if you’re navigating what it means to step back from a career to raise your family — you know exactly the season I mean. Rest is not a reward. It’s maintenance. That particular tension is something I wrote about in I Have a Master’s Degree and My Job Title Is Mom Right Now. My Bridgerton era has zero apologies attached to it.
Intentional Connection
This one quietly does the most. Calling my parents. Texting a friend out of nowhere. Sending a reel that made me laugh because I knew it would make them laugh too. The form doesn’t matter as much as the reach — the small act of saying I’m thinking about you or this reminded me of us. On the hardest days, a genuine laugh with someone who knows you is its own kind of medicine. Connection is its own form of coming home to yourself, and it pairs naturally with everything else on this list. Spring has a way of opening us back up to each other — something I’ve been sitting with in Spring’s Healing Power: A Mother’s Reflection.
Hard days don’t mean lost days. Returning to yourself is sometimes as simple as heat, a good snack, a long shower, something beautiful to watch, and someone who makes you laugh. These small, deliberate choices remind me I’m still here — still building, still becoming, still worthy of care even in the quiet and the heavy. Real self-care for moms looks like this: unglamorous, personal, and enough.
If this resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it with another mom who might need to read it today. And if you want to keep exploring what intentional motherhood looks like in real life, come find me on Pinterest — where I share more of this journey, one intentional moment at a time.
