Seven ways to turn a bad day back around

Here’s some ways to turn a bad day back around…Motherhood; it’s all hearts and flowers, and sitting around gazing in wonder at your amazing baby, isn’t it?

Apart from when none of you have slept, everywhere’s a mess, there may or may not be teeth on the way, your child is emitting a low-level grizzle even Calpol can’t remedy, your hair is 90% dry shampoo and you don’t have a second to do anything, yet all anyone wants to know is “just what do you do all day, exactly?”

Don’t get me wrong, motherhood is wonderful, unexpected, awesome in the true sense of the word. But some days are just plain old bad days. Especially in the early weeks and months, when you’re still trying to find your feet and get your dry shampoo-coated head round everything.

So here are my seven suggestions to try and turn a terrible day into a good one (one idea for each day of the week, in case it’s really that awful):

1. Get out of the house, every day. Because everything seems better in the fresh air. Go to the park or just take a quick walk, even a trip to the supermarket counts (ours is up a hill, so is practically a whole day out)
2. Tea… I’m not a coffee drinker, but a big tea goes a long way. As well as the caffeine, it’s just really warm and soothing
3. …and sympathy: a mini moan to your mum or other mums really helps (what did people do before text and Twitter?)
4. Focus on the positives. Even if you’ve not managed to achieve much, there must be something. Did anyone get dressed? Did some of you eat food? And remember, it could be worse
5. Put on some power pop or upbeat music, and make everyone have a bit of a dance around (don’t always play nursery rhymes or children’s songs, as listening to too much of these can drive you slightly crazy)
6. Then there’s the old end-of-the-day failsafe, a giant glass of wine with your name on it. Clearly, you won’t find the answers in the bottom of a bottle…really…but this will make everything seem that little bit brighter
7. And bed: Failing all of these, there’s always tomorrow. It can’t be nearly as bad, can it? Mainly because it hasn’t happened yet…

These are mine, what are yours? Hopefully they will be of some use next time there’s an unexpected attack of the dreaded teething (yikes).