Self-Care Mummy Blog Series - Week 23

This New Year I’m talking all about Self-Care as a mum and how important it is to take that time for us. Every week I’ll be bringing you a new guest blog post with some top tips and hopefully throughout the next few months we’ll have put together an amazing list of different ideas for self-care.

This week is Lisa Norman.

Tell us a bit about yourself - who you are, what you do and a bit about your family:

My name is Lisa Norman and I live in Lancashire with my husband, my little boy Neil and German Shepherd. 

I am a civil servant by day and run my own little business in the evenings and weekends called Presents For Preemies. I set my business up after having my little boy 10 weeks premature. He wasn't expected to survive delivery but against all odds he did! We had a tough stay on the neonatal unit and after having him home only 4 days he went into respiratory arrest and we had to resuscitate him at home. He has been in and out of hospital since but is getting bigger and stronger. 

I later discovered that family and friends struggled to buy us appropriate gifts so I set up my business to provide thoughtful and useful gifts for premature babies. Gifts that parents of a preemie can use and not put away and wonder if they will ever get chance to get it out again.

What do you do for self-care as a mum and how do you make time for self-care?

his is a tough question! As mum's I think we are all busy and probably put ourselves at the bottom of the list of priorities. 

To start with I definitely didn't make time for myself, I didn't know where I was magically going to get this time from!

I realised I had to put myself as a priority occasionally or I was going to burn out and be useless to my little boy.

My husband works shifts so he can't always put my little boy to bed but he does once or twice a week. I use this hour to have a cup of tea, watch one of my programmes, read, paint my nails, listen to music or even take a nap!

What are your three top tips for self-care for mums?

1. If you need help ask! It sounds so simple but verbalising what you are finding difficult can be really hard. I was diagnosed with anxiety and PTSD, once I asked for help it got so much easier

2. Take a step back! I used to get so frustrated with my husband for not getting things right with my little boy. In truth he wasn't getting it wrong he was trying to find his own way of doing things and I would take over if he didn't do it quick enough. I wasn't giving him a chance. Once I completely removed myself so I couldn't intervene I felt like a weight had been lifted.

3. Check in with yourself regularly! If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed then take 10 minutes to think about what is overwhelming you. Then break it down so it's more manageable. Some days all that gets done is me caring for my son and that's Ok! Nothing bad happened because I didn't clean the house from top to bottom.

Are there any products/businesses/podcasts ect that you would recommend for self-care?

Lucy Baker runs a fab group called Confident Women Forever - she really helps teach techniques to get you feeling confident inside and out. 

I co-authored a book called Mumprenuer on Fire 3. Over the 3 books 65 inspirational mums in business have been featured, so any of these number 1 Amazon best selling books will have a story you can relate to!

You can see more of Lisa over at:

Website | Facebook | Instagram

I hope you enjoyed reading this lovely guest blog post by Lisa all about self-care as a mum! Be sure to check out the blog next week for another guest blog post all about self-care!

Have a lovely day!

Emma x

If you would love to take part in this blog series please head to our website here!

Photo © Forever Green Photography.