'Five Minute Mum': the book which has made me happier!

Can a book change your life?

Well, that might sound like a pretty dramatic question to ask but, in the case of ‘The Five Minute Mum’, I can genuinely answer yes!

I’m a mum to 3 young boys and I’m running my own family photography business in Cheltenham, so life can be pretty hectic. Like so many parents out there, I constantly feel as if I’m getting it wrong and as if I’m not doing enough. And that’s particularly the case in those hours between school pick-up and bed time. I’ll be honest, I’ve often arrived home from collecting my oldest from school and just stuck the TV on so I can get dinner ready and keep the chaos to a minimum.

Then I found the ‘Five Minute Mum’.

I started following her on Instagram initially and something resonated with me immediately. Daisy is warm, friendly and most importantly, relatable. She loves her kids but she also wants to have five minutes to herself to drink a cup of tea and scoff a cadbury’s creme egg in peace! And she wants to make sure that the time she spends with her kids is fun, meaningful and worthwhile. So her Instagram feed and her new book ‘Give me Five’, is crammed full of ideas in order to achieve this.

There are just a couple of key principles which are integral to its success:

the activities and games are ones which only take 5 minutes to set up. And it’s so true. Everything is based on stuff you already have lying round the house or easily to hand and it literally only takes a few minutes to prepare.
You set up the activity and leave it out for the kids to find. If they don’t want to play, it doesn’t matter (it only took 5 minutes to set up after all! Who can recall spending hours setting up a ‘super fun’ craft activity only for the kids to give it all of 3 minutes before walking away to play with some else?! Oh yes, I’ve done that many a time!) and if they do, then the game begins!
And that’s it! Play with the kids, give them some focused attention, enjoy it together; or let them crack on while you get some washing in the machine and catch up on some emails knowing they are doing something fun and worthwhile!