Hey mama. Welcome to the Inside Out Mamas podcast. I'm Brittany Turley, mom of six, and I know what it's like to feel stuck and overwhelmed trying to be the perfect mom, but everything changed for me when I learned that small changes on the inside can bring big results on the outside. Each week I will share simple, yet powerful inside shifts or outside tips that can transform your approach to mothering, helping you thrive from the inside out. Ready to ditch the mom guilt and enjoy this season of life. You are in the right place. School's almost out, and I don't know about you, but for me, it brings a mix of excitement and anxiousness. I feel excitement because it's my turn with my kids. I get to be with them more. I get more time to teach them things that I think will help them, and we won't have the rigorous school schedule. But I also feel anxious. I feel anxious because of all the change that summer brings. Being with my kids is wonderful, but is also more demanding of my energy, of my time. They're coming off of a set school schedule where they're used to being told what to do all day long, and now they have free time, and there is always a transition there of them not knowing how to handle that and complaining about being bored all the time. Which every summer tricks me, and at first I think, oh, I have to entertain them. I need to get them in activities. I need to help them do things. And then I come back to myself, and I remember that being bored is good for them, and they just need to remember this skill of entertaining themselves. So as we prepare for summer coming, I wanted to share a strategy that has made a huge difference for me and my kids. It's simple, but it's a very powerful strategy that helps reduce my overwhelm, replenish my energy. It helps my kids build their independence. It helps them learn how to be calm without a screen and it prevents evening meltdowns for both me and my kids. So the original idea for this strategy comes from the book on becoming baby wise, and they suggest giving crib time. To your babies. It's basically a time where you put the baby in the crib, not for a nap, but for time for them to play on their own, to be with themselves and to learn some independence. It also gives mom a little break. I did this strategy fairly regularly with my babies and I saw the benefits of it. When my oldest came home from the school for the frist summer I noticed that it was a hard transition. She was coming from having something to do almost the entire day and being told what to do when to now having all of this free time. And she wanted me to entertain her all day long. So when the babies would have nap time, I would often play with her during that time and kind of give her special time. We would play card games because that's what she loved to do, and this worked pretty well, except I never got time to be alone or recharge. And I was used to having some downtime because she had been at school all day and the younger babies and kids would have at least an hour nap where I could have time to myself to do something I needed to do, get some work done I needed to do, or just read a book or relax. I started to realize that not only did I wanna spend one-on-one time with her, but I also needed some time and she needed. To learn how to have time on her own. So this is when what I call downtime was created in our home. And what we would do is those who still had naps would go down for a nap, and those who didn't have naps would have. Downtime at the same time, they would go to their room, or if they were sharing a room, they would go to another place in the house and they could read, they could look at books, they could do puzzles, they could play with quiet toys. I would often get audio books from the library. Ones that they could follow along with, or even ones they could just listen to. I also, as they got a little older, would at the beginning of the summer, take my kids to like a craft store and let them, each pick out some kind of a new craft or a little project that they could work on on their own, like little wooden cars that they would put together or Rainbow Loom, just something they could do on their own that wasn't very physically demanding of them, and that was quiet enough so that the napping kids could nap. Then for me, when everyone else was having downtime, I could use that time however I wanted. If I needed a shower,'cause I hadn't gotten one in that day, I would do that. Sometimes I would spend that time reading, sometimes I would use that time to work on a project I was working on, or sometimes I would just get done stuff that I needed to do. Downtime lasted for one hour. It was just one hour when all of us could just have a break. A break from the hot sun, a break from all the activities and all the exerting of energy and a break from each other. And even though it takes a lot of effort sometimes to get everybody to downtime, it's still so worth it every time. Now, even though we've been doing downtime for. Almost two decades, and my kids, know what it is and they're used to it. My kids every summer still are in shock about it and so every summer we have to adjust. We have to spend time getting all of us adjusted to downtime. And they usually kind of fight me about it at first and hate it and tell me that it's no good and that they don't wanna do downtime. But after I'm persistent they actually start enjoying it because the summer months are hard. You're outside playing or going to a pool or doing activities, and it's hot, and your energy drains quickly. But you can tell as the summer goes on how they actually start to enjoy that time because really we all need it. We all need a break and time to just recharge. I've noticed as my kids get older, it's harder and harder because I have teens who have jobs and I have to drive them to those jobs, and I don't get to set those schedules. And so we've had to be way more flexible with downtime. Downtime for years at our house was one o'clock from one o'clock to two o'clock. The house was down and. We didn't have friends over and everybody took a break right after lunch. Now we have to be more flexible about it. And sometimes downtime. It doesn't happen till three o'clock, and sometimes we don't even get downtime during the day because of the activities going on or wherever people need to be. We're out of the napper phase so. We have more freedom to be out of the house all day long, and so it's been trickier, but even though now my youngest is seven and my oldest, that's still living at home will be 16. I still plan on having downtime. Downtime does take effort. It takes planning. It takes patience. But the benefits way outweigh those. I get a chance to recharge. My kids get a chance to recharge. I learn how to be calm and be with myself. My kids learn how to be calm and be with themselves, and they learn how to be calm without needing the screen to distract them, which is so important these days. I remember a couple summers ago I was really having a struggle with it, and the older kids were telling me how silly it was that they had to have downtime. None of their friends have downtime, so baby-ish. And I happened to find out from a mom that I really look up to, and she has kids that are a little older than my kids. So she's further along in her motherhood journey than me, and I found out that her house has something very similar. They all have downtime, but I think they all take a nap. Even though her kids are older, their house also shuts down for an hour each day, and she actually takes a nap. And that just gave me the energy and strength I needed to keep pushing forward in my house because. I really look up to her as a mom and I see how much her kids have thrived. So if this is something that you're like, oh, this sounds cool, I might wanna try implementing this, please remember to just be patient with yourself and patient with your kids. It takes time to get them used to, first of all, just being home from school. And second of all, now this new routine. Just be very flexible with yourself. We are never perfect at this. We have some weeks where it's just golden and we do it every day and it's great. And then we have other weeks where everything falls apart and we might not even get a downtime that week, but when I do it consistently enough, I get used to it. The kids get used to it, and it really saves my sanity all summer long. Now because I believe small changes on the inside bring big results on the outside. Each week on my podcast, I'm going to give you a small change challenge, something small you could do throughout the week if you choose, that could end up bringing big results to your life. So the small change challenge for this week is to make a plan for summer for what you will do to help both you and your kids get the time you need to recharge and rest amid all the summer activities. It doesn't have to be downtime. This is just an idea. You could try downtime and then morph it into something that works best for your family and for your situation. But find some way how you'll give yourself and your kids a chance to rest, learn some independence, and have time to yourselves. And remember, if the first version of what you decide on doesn't end up working out, just make changes and try again. And as your kids grow, you'll have to continue to morph it into things that will work for the new dynamics of your family. But it's so important that both you and your kids have time to rest. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Inside Out Mamas. My hope is that our time together inspires more feelings of peace, confidence, and joy in your mama journey. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss a show. And if you're ready to take these insights even deeper, head over to brittany turley coaching.com to check out my digital workshop. Designed to help you reduce daily mom overwhelm without adding to your to-do list. Thanks for listening. And remember, small changes on the inside, bring big results on the outside.