The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Surviving School Holidays

My husband recently went on a holiday, which happened to overlap with school holidays. Which meant I had to survive 12 nights of solo parenting two kids, solo.

So, if you've ever been in the trenches of single-handedly managing school holiday activities, bedtime meltdowns, and the general chaos of small humans who need things constantly, this one's for you.

Here's what I learned, and the strategies that actually made it feel less like survival mode and more like… something I was genuinely happy and present for.

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01

Do Small Things for Yourself - Every Single Day

This sounds obvious until you're four days deep into solo parenting and you've eaten cereal for dinner twice. The self-care during school holidays advice isn't about bubble baths and spa days. It's micro-moments.

For me, that looked like:

• Getting dressed properly in the morning - not just activewear - because it genuinely shifts how I feel about the day ahead.
• A 3-step morning skincare routine that takes under two minutes: vitamin C, an anti-pigmentation serum, and sunscreen. It signals to my brain that I'm a person, not just a mum on duty.
• Leaving a cold water bottle on my bedside table the night before - such a tiny thing, but waking up to something thoughtful I'd done for future-me? Surprisingly nice.

I haven't found these to be luxuries but rather things that keep me from completely disappearing into the role of "mum who just keeps everyone alive."

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02

Create "Glimmer Moments" With Your Kids

This was genuinely the best thing I did, and I want every parent heading into school holidays to steal this idea.

I sat down with my 5-year-old and we made a list of glimmer moments together. A glimmer (if you haven't come across the term) is the opposite of a trigger. It's a small, safe, joyful moment. In a parenting context, I think of it as that feeling when you're actually enjoying yourself alongside your kids, and everyone's happy, and it's a little bit novel… even if it is just a small moment in time.

Our glimmer list included things like:

• Jumping in muddy puddles (something I'm normally too uptight to allow - but with the right planning, it's fine)
• Drinking Milo and warm milk together at night
• Setting up a proper movie night with popcorn and pillows on the floor

None of these are expensive or elaborate. But there's something about that one extra element that makes it feel special. Like you're deliberately giving your kids a childhood, not just getting through the days.

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03

Give Yourself Permission to Do Less

This one is especially for the strivers. The people whose instinct when faced with 12 days of school holidays is to create a colour-coded activity schedule so no one's bored and everyone has enriching experiences.

I am that person. And I had to consciously override it.

Doing less is not a failure. In fact, I'd argue that one of the biggest solo parenting tips I can offer is to fight the urge to over-program. What kids actually need (and what we need) is unstructured time. Boredom. Space to play. Time at home where nothing is happening and that's completely fine.

(Shout out to the Good Inside app - by Dr Becky for literally saving my butt this school holidays. This isn't sponsored, I'm just a big fan of the parenting skills she has given me.)

Yes, I had my glimmer list. But it's a list of options, not a schedule. The goal was more being, less doing. And honestly? My kids were more settled for it.

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04

Build Your Village Before You Need It

The fourth thing that got me through? My mum friends. And I want to be honest about this: building those friendships has been a deliberate, ongoing project for the last few years.

It doesn't happen passively. It means:

• Staying on the sidelines at soccer instead of scrolling through your phone
• Picking the kids up a little early so you can actually chat to the other parents
• Saying yes to playdates - which, let's be real, are as much about you sussing out the other parent as they are about the kids

I ask myself: would I want to be friends with this person even if our kids weren't the same age? That's the filter. And slowly, I've built a small, quality group of women whose lives are actually in sync with mine - same life stage, similar values, geographically close enough that we can actually show up for each other.

There's something really powerful about proximity in friendship. The friends who live nearby. Whose routines overlap with yours. Sometimes you drift from older friendships - not because anything went wrong, but because your lives are just out of sync. Those people can still matter to you. But you also need a gang who gets it right now, who can drop a meal over or take your kids for an hour because they genuinely understand what your life looks like.

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The Big Takeaway

If I had to distill it down: solo parenting (and honestly, parenting in general) gets easier when you stop trying to just get through it and start intentionally designing small pockets of joy, for yourself and your kids.