Diary Adventures of LagosMums: DALM | Hacks for How To Have a Really Relaxing Holiday
Summertime and vacation go hand in hand like a burger and fries or akara and pap. For many parents, having a relaxing holiday when it involves children seems more like a myth than a reality.
This is especially true for parents who travel with young children. Many times, summer travel does not include any help, and you will usually hear mothers say that they need their own holiday from the summer vacation.
The Summer Picture
For many Nigerian parents, high on the list of how to spend the summer is traveling away from home for some weeks with their families. Most families do not travel with their domestic staff and often do so without their spouses.
Mum traveling with young children, no domestic staff, no spouse…It is not a holiday, is it? It sounds purely like stress! And it is a shame that after counting all your coins and adding them up to travel, you come back more stressed out than before you traveled?
So the question is, is it even possible to have a relaxing holiday when you travel? The answer is yes and no. Yes, you can, if you make some adjustments.
Holiday with Young Children
If you have very young children, you could decide not to travel alone with them while they are very young. We forget it, but for kids, being away from home can also be difficult for them to adjust to. Consider the possible change in time zones and a tired mum; it can be a recipe for stress.
So perhaps, while the kids are younger, you decide to travel closer to home or not go for as long. Lastly, you can plan your travel to places where friends and family are, so you can take turns watching your kids.
For me, when the kids were younger, it was hard to have a relaxing holiday. As they have gotten older and I have gained more experience, I have learned some hacks over the years for truly relaxing holidays.
The first hack is a digital detox
This was a new hack for me! This was the first summer holiday when, on return, I could truly say I was rested. The biggest change for me was going on a digital detox! Someone asked me, “You mean you did not go online at all for the whole summer?” The truth is that when you detox, you still eat, but in much smaller quantities and with greater intentionality about what you eat. The same goes for a digital detox.
Once I got off the digital detox, what I learned was that we are fighting a losing battle. See, getting online is like truly going down the rabbit hole. It is designed to keep you online. Perhaps you check your email, then you Google something. After this, you check your WhatsApp messages and then scroll through your feeds on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.
Or you could watch a video on YouTube, and the next one auto-plays. After this, you remember you haven’t checked Twitter yet. Oh, and there is now a notification showing you that the email you sent has a reply! Suddenly, you check, and it’s been 2 hours. Your children, who have been entertaining themselves, are now cranky because you have ignored them for so long, and on top of that, they are hungry.
You mama now feel guilty that you spent so much time online. Then you jump up, and since you do not have Mary Poppins to prepare a meal, you need to quickly prepare a meal. You can see how this is not exactly a recipe for a fun time.
This holiday, I decided that I cannot fake being in control of my digital consumption. I took a real digital detox, and sometimes for a full week, I did no social media.
Work-Life Balance
It is very easy to blur the lines between work and home life. I put an out-of-office message in my inbox that read “Work-Life Balance”. This helped me to manage their expectations, and I also did not have the pressure as an entrepreneur to always feel the need to respond to emails.
It was drastically different. My business is also digital media, so you can imagine how much time I spend on digital for both work and life. Going off was one of the best things I could have done.
Apart from the natural fact that the children were older, my biggest hack for a relaxing summer holiday was the digital detox.
In fact, my husband complained that I wasn’t even reading his WhatsApp messages! But at the end of the holiday, I can report that I am well-rested. I am back home to work and ready to face real life.
It is important for me to continue to monitor my digital consumption. I spoke to a friend, and she asked if I enjoyed my holiday. I said yes, I did, thanks. I feel really rested. She answered, “Wow, you are the only one I have spoken to who has said that.” We all really need to be more intentional to make rest a top priority.
We all really need to be more intentional to make rest a top priority. Share on XAnd for mums with young children, teach them responsibility early so they can enjoy it as well. The kids can make meals for themselves now, so thankfully, I don’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn to cook. They were also enrolled in camp, and this kept them busy and learning for hours every day.
We explored and did things that were both fun and educational, and so the holiday was not all about shopping and spending.
