I’m a Pediatrician and a Mama Mindset Expert. My Daughter’s Hair (and My Life) Were a Mess Until I Found This Critical Solution

My daughter’s hair used to be a perpetual mess. Clumps of dried pieces twisted together, matting against her head like a tangled rat’s nest, little bits of lint hiding in the nooks and crannies. “We just need to give it 20 good brushes,” I’d tell her as we headed off to school each morning, chasing her with a spray bottle full of water. She’d scream, fight, hide from me — anything to avoid my desperate attempts to tame her wild locks.

When you have a child with sensory processing issues, personal hygiene becomes a potential battle at every turn — the water in the shower is always just a little too hot, the tags on her clothes are a bit too scratchy, the toothpaste is incredibly spicy, the hairbrush feels like a knife running along her head. A haircut? Like torture.

“I think you might want to reconsider this look for next time,” I remember the stylist telling me when we took her for her first trim. Bangs would be just adorable, I’d decided, not thinking about how nasty the sensation of hair falling into my daughter’s eyes might be. I looked up to watch my two-year-old wincing and gripping the salon chair as the scissors swiped by her forehead, grazing her extra-sensitive skin.

I wasn’t going for a glamour shots look. Just put-together would’ve be fine by me. My bar was set pretty low, but even that goal was hard to meet for years. We tried post-shower detanglers, special combs, deep leave-in conditioners, everything. But, because she tosses and turns at night, rubbing her head on her pillow, and wouldn’t let me brush anything through for fear of pain, we ended up with either a grease ball on top of her head or the same painful knots again and again. I’m not that vain, and, yes, it’s just hair, but not being able to find a solution for something that seemed like it should be so simple to solve — and that every other kid’s parent I saw in my pediatrics clinic seemed to be able to easily figure out — was more than irksome. The hair struggle represented all the other struggles we faced as a family whose kid struggled with neurodevelopmental differences: with managing her outbursts, with dealing with the stress of our work and home lives — with the heavy weight of feeling like we were doing a lot, but not doing a lot very well.

Until I found a solution one day: the shower hair brush. On a Tuesday, searching again in Target for some magic potion to cure my daughter’s unlucky locks spell, a sparkly piece of plastic designed for in-shower hair brushing caught my eye. I took it home, she brushed her hair in the shower when she shampooed and when she conditioned, and her hair returned to its intended form in a matter of minutes. There were no tears, no screams, no fights. There was a solution. My daughter started taking regular showers just so she could brush her damn hair. It was a miracle. I cried I was so happy. “Let’s buy eight of these things!” my husband said after eight days straight with no early-morning hygiene confrontations.

I’m not telling you this story so you’ll run out and buy stock in a hairbrush company, or even so you’ll buy a single one of their products. I’m sharing about a silly hairbrush because, just like how I thought maybe something was just wrong with my grooming abilities or that I’d have to accept the mess of my daughter’s hair (albeit a small problem in the grand scheme of things) forever and just live with it, I used to take the same approach with my whole life. I used to think that the reason I felt constant inner conflict about my professional aspirations, my day-to-day family duties, and my personal needs, was because there was something fundamentally wrong with me — that I wasn’t working hard enough or invested enough, or maybe even smart enough to figure it out. It wasn’t until I discovered a framework, a sustainable systems-based solution that makes sense, that I was able to a) give myself some more grace and b) be more effective in all areas of my life.

As working moms, finding a system for managing home and our professional endeavors can seem exceedingly complicated — like a mythical magic potion. I know, though, that finding a work-life solution that actually works is like finding a solution to my kids’ rat nest mess. It’s elusive and mysterious only until it’s staring you in the face in the cosmetics aisle at Target.

Here are 5 ways you can develop a sustainable strategy for navigating your work and home life with less stress and more satisfaction.

Batch To-dos

Instead of spending all week thinking about what you need to get done to make your life happen, take a chunk of time to make a plan. A half hour should work just fine to organize your day or your week (maybe less once you get really used to this method). Then, set aside another hour or 2 to, in 1 sitting, try to move through as much as possible on your list. If you’re still not done once the timer goes off, plan another 2-hour chunk in a few days. Compartmentalizing our to-dos reduces our mental load, allowing us to be more mindful throughout the day.

Refuse to Equate Chores and Errands with Self-care

Sometimes I take a vacation day, and I spend every minute of it running errands for my family. Usually, by the time 5:00 pm rolls around, I feel tired and grumpy. I often wish I had just gone to work. At the very least, I feel disappointed and wistful about how I used my time. Errands are a necessary evil, but don’t get them confused with quality moments alone or with your loved ones. I manage to get most of my checklist items crossed off without lifting a metaphorical finger. You can too (hint: the next 3 tricks are the key to my success).

Off-load the Tasks That Drive You Crazy (or That You Don’t Do Well)

I’m not always good at cleaning my house. So, I hired someone who is, to take care of the number 1 task I don’t need or want to do. Hiring a house cleaner reduced my stress, forced me to organize my house the night before she arrived each week, and gave me back my precious time, so I could spend it on more important things, like anything else.

I’m also not great at cooking weekday meals other than spaghetti and meatballs or chicken teriyaki out of a freezer bag. I shine when it comes to holiday meal extravaganzas, but my husband is a weekday wiz in the kitchen. Since he and I both know I would probably succumb to takeout every night if he didn’t cook consistently (and because we keep working at being parenting teammates), he wears the chef’s hat in our home most Mondays through Thursdays.

Automate

Remember, you are not the only person who can take care of your home, your kids, your bills, or your calendar. The running list of tasks that fills your mind all day long — the appointments you need to make, the dry cleaning you need to take in, the groceries you need to buy — is unhealthy, and it steals away your ability to focus on the here and now. One way to reduce your mental load is to simplify the number of tasks you have, either by getting rid of them or by delegating them to someone else. For the tasks you have to attend to, reduce your time thinking about them by automating.

Thank goodness we live in a modern world where, for a small fee, we can automate almost everything we do. I would wither on the vine if it were not for autopay and internet grocery and household goods delivery services. Diapers, wipes, sippy cups, household items like paper towels, hand soap, and toilet paper — I get them all from online ordering.

I do not want to spend my time in a big-box store for basics. Wholesale grocery shopping in person gives me a headache. The regular grocery store is not much better. It’s fun to pick out something to add to our family meals or to carefully select a few specialty items when I’m out and about, but using my “me time” to head solo to the store wastes my time. Hauling 2 little people around as I try to shop is also less than ideal.

Instead, I order groceries and household goods every week using online apps and have them delivered to my home within 2 hours. Look for sales or free shipping to help lower the cost. My bills are all on autopay. I shop online for kids’ clothes, focusing on quality basics that can be handed down child to child, when possible. I would rather spend a little more money but only have to shop 4 times a year (with some fun, “let’s get a special outfit” outings sprinkled in) than pay less per item and have the clothes last less than a month. Another good tip is to shop the clearance racks and pick some items for your child for the next season. This requires a bit of a guessing game on sizing, but a little bigger is usually a good move. I have go-to sites I use regularly for clothing and shoes, so I’m familiar with the sizing and fit — both for my kids and for myself. This is very budget-dependent, but, especially if you have multiple kids and they are the same gender, buying quality over quantity makes a big difference.

Use the Car to Strategically Multitask, even if You Don’t Use It as a Personal Office Like I Do

The car is your friend, even if it’s not your full-on office like it is mine. Research shows that multitasking generally decreases our productivity, but, in the car, the same rules don’t always apply. The car can be a place to get a lot accomplished in a short period of time.

“I get some of my best work done riding in the passenger seat on family vacations,” says working mother Kara, a mom of 2 and a teacher. “I pay bills, research vacation spots, and sign my kids up for swimming lessons. It’s like the car creates this special little bubble where creative thinking and strategizing somehow becomes easier.”

I’m in full agreement. I think I wrote about half of my first book, The New Baby Blueprint: Caring for You and Your Little One, riding shotgun in a car, and most of my blog ideas come to me while I journal on longer trips. Something magical happens when you have your headphones in, your partner is listening to sports radio, and you have no other distractions.

Decide Doing What Matters is More Important Than Doing It All

Efficiency makes a difference. Our work environments can make our days more pleasant. Single-tasking makes you more productive. That said, when we believe the world’s lie that we should or can do everything well — when we put too much on our proverbial checklists in the first place — we fail. Instead, focus on doing a few things well, the things that are in alignment with your priorities, and find ways to push the rest of life’s clutter further to the edges of your centered vision for your life.

Most working moms are conflicted — pulled in a million directions, juggling it all, but hardly ever feeling effective in any one facet of their lives. Life has its rat’s nests, complications, and problems, but a framework gives us a North Star. A framework gives us something to guide us when we get off track, a super cool hairbrush we can use when things get a little tangled up. Committing to taking care of ourselves, making space for what matters to us, paring down our obligations, using our resources efficiently, and relying on others in our village to support us along the way — these are the things that make motherhood much more than manageable. They make it — dare I say — breathtakingly beautiful (even if as moms our own hair is pulled into a messy bun half of the time).

This is a modified excerpt from The Working Mom Blueprint: Winning at Parenting Without Losing Yourself (American Academy of Pediatrics, May 2021).