How Do You Have Energy for Hobbies After Kids Go To Bed? Tips for Exhausted Parents
It’s 8:19 pm, and I’m leaning my forehead against the hallway wall just outside my youngest’s bedroom. The baby monitor crackles because he left his stuffed bear propped right on the mic, and I can feel a hole in the toe of my sock where my oldest bit it during an after-school tantrum this morning. I pull out my phone to check the time, and a Reel pops up: a mom sitting by a lit Christmas tree, weaving a rattan basket, caption “After bedtime me time is the only thing that gets me through the day.” I snort, because my legs are so heavy I can barely make it the 10 steps to the couch. I’ve had a basil plant sitting on my kitchen counter for three weeks that I haven’t watered once, let alone touched the lump of pottery clay I paid $40 for back in August. I’m a zombie, same as you.
For a year after my second kid was born, I beat myself up nonstop about this. I read all the posts saying you need to prioritize your hobbies to stay yourself, not just become a mom chauffeur and snack machine. So I’d force it: drag my pottery supplies out of the back of the guest closet, set them up on the dining table, wipe off the crumbs from dinner, sit down ready to create. Two minutes later, I’d be asleep with my hands half buried in clay, wake up at 10:45 pm with a cricked neck and dried-out clay that I’d have to throw away, and feel even more useless than I did before.
I vented about this to my sister, who works as a pediatric occupational therapist, over coffee after a playdate last spring. She didn’t tell me I needed to be more disciplined or prioritize better. She just said it’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that my brain is out of fuel. All day, every day, parents switch tasks constantly: from packing lunches to answering 12 straight questions about why dinosaurs have tiny arms to wiping up juice spills to mediating Lego fights to answering a last-minute work email. Every time you switch what you’re focusing on, your brain uses up a little more glucose. By 8 pm, when the kids are finally down, your tank is empty. There’s nothing left to give to anything that requires even a little bit of focus. She also pointed out that most of those people posting their after-bedtime hobbies either have kids old enough to put themselves to bed, or they’re surviving on 5 hours of sleep and only posting the highlight reel, not the nights they fall asleep on the couch at 8:30.
That conversation changed how I think about this whole thing. I stopped trying to fit a big, hour-long hobby into the after-bedtime slot when I have no energy, and started testing small, low-friction changes that actually work for my zombie brain.
First, I stopped putting my hobby supplies away. I got into pressing wildflowers last year after we started picking them on our daily walks, and instead of shoving the press, tweezers, and cardstock back into a drawer after every use, I leave everything sitting open on my coffee table, right next to the TV remote. Getting everything out and set up used to be half the battle — it felt like a whole project just to get started. Now all I have to do is reach over. Most nights, that’s all the effort I can manage, and that’s enough. If I only have 3 minutes of energy, I arrange three clover heads and a daisy into the press, close the lid, and I’m done. I don’t have to finish a whole page or make a pretty finished gift or anything. I just did something that’s mine, and that counts.
Second, I stopped saving all hobby time for after kids go to bed. After dinner, my kids watch 20 minutes of Bluey while I clean up, right? I used to make myself scrub every dish and wipe down every counter before I did anything for myself. Now I leave the dishes in the sink for 10 minutes, pull up my chair next to the TV, and do 10 minutes of flower pressing while they yell at the screen about Bandit’s latest bad dad joke. They don’t need me to entertain them during that time, and the dishes don’t rot if they sit for 10 extra minutes. That 10 minutes early in the evening means that even if I’m completely wiped by bedtime, I already got my little bit of me time in. I don’t go to bed feeling like I missed out on being anything other than mom that day.
Third, I got rid of the rule that my hobby has to be productive. I used to think hobbies had to result in something I can show off, or make me money, or improve me in some way. Now, if all I do after bedtime is flip through a beat-up plant identification book I got at the thrift store for 5 minutes before I fall asleep, that counts. It doesn’t have to be anything big. It just has to be something that isn’t about anyone else’s needs.
Last week, the kids had a late bath and stayed up 45 minutes past their bedtime, and I got them down at 9 pm. I dragged myself to the couch, and I couldn’t even summon the energy to reach for my flower press. I just ordered a bad chocolate ice cream from the place down the street, watched half an episode of a silly baking show, and fell asleep on the couch before the first commercial. That’s okay. I’d already done 10 minutes of pressing flowers after dinner, so I didn’t feel guilty.
Some weeks I have more energy than others. When everyone’s sick and we’re up three times a night, I don’t do anything that’s not work and taking care of the kids for a whole week. Other weeks, when we’re all sleeping well and we’ve collected a big bag of wildflowers on our walks, I’ll even have enough energy after bedtime to glue a whole page of them into my notebook. I still don’t have an impressive after-bedtime hobby to talk about at mom’s night out. But I have something that feels like mine, and I don’t have to stop being a zombie to have it. That’s enough for right now.
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