If you’re like most of us moms, you’re trying to fit way more than 24 hours into every day (and have room to sleep a little too). Caring for everyone else can be pretty time-consuming, but there are actually lots of fun hobbies for moms who don’t have a lot of free time. Whether you’re a single mom, a stay-at-home mom, a working mom, or a combo of these, we’ve got your next hobby idea right here.
Go All-In on Rock Collecting
You know those hours you spend at the playground or park? There are rocks there, and in fact, landscape rock can be a great place to find agates and other cool specimens. If you get really into rockhounding, you can look for rocks while your kids play at the beach or explore a creek.
Make Some Magic (Tricks)
Who doesn’t want to be the mom who can do magic tricks (we all know that just keeping small humans clean, fed, and alive is basically magic already)? Get a few simple books on magic from your local library and study up. This is a great hobby to pick up and put down, and you’ve got a built-in audience in the form of your kids.
Trace Your Family Tree
It’s nice to have a quiet hobby for naptimes or after kids are in bed, and it’s even better if you can put it aside easily. Genealogy is basically like a giant puzzle to solve. How many generations can you go back? How much do you know about your family history? Join a service like Ancestry or do it on your own.
Quick Tip
Not sure what you might like to do as a hobby? Think about what excited you before you had kids. There’s probably a variation that will be easy to do in small bursts of time.
Make Your Own Wine (or Dry Wine)
Your kids have sippy cups and juice boxes, so why shouldn’t you? We love winemaking as a mom hobby because it’s happening in the background while you’re going through your day-to-day routine. You get winemaking supplies and set everything up, and then, you just let time do its thing. You can start with a wine kit (or dry wine kit) too if you want to make things even easier on yourself.
Take a Photo a Day
We all have a camera at our fingertips these days, so you don’t have to invest in a ton of expensive equipment or be a pro photographer to take pictures. The key is consistency. Set a goal to take one photo every day. It doesn’t matter what it is (your lunch, your little one’s scraped knee, the flower you saw on your walk, anything goes). At the end of the year, you’ll have a photo journal of your life.
Forage for Tasty Food
From herbs like mint to edible mushrooms, nature is full of tasty foods to augment your supermarket staples. Grab a book and get to know what you’re seeing. There are lots of edible berries too. Make sure you supervise littles and talk about what you’re doing so they don’t go eating everything they encounter, though.
Learn to Dance
Sure, a ballroom class would be fun, but finding a sitter is a pain. You’ve got YouTube, though. Learn any kind of dance you want and practice during naptime or in the evening. It’s even great exercise (and no one has to know you’re doing it if you’re self-conscious).
Get Into Geocaching
Geocaching is basically a giant treasure hunt. You use GPS coordinates to find little hidden stashes of notes, small trinkets, and other little things. It’s really cool as a hobby for stay-at-home moms or moms with flexible schedules because you can go out looking for caches when the trails aren’t too busy and get the kids out at the same time. You can use a geocaching app to help.
Try Your Hand at Nail Art
Doing your nails is about a lot more than putting on some polish these days. You can create funky designs with special nail art brushes and pens, practice different painting techniques, and more. This is a perfect hobby for busy moms because it doesn’t take that long to do, but you get to enjoy it for days or even weeks.
Watch Some Birds
Who says bird watching is only for grandpas? When you’re rocking your kids, making dinner, driving to work, or walking to the park, there are birds. Pick up a field guide for your area so you can identify what you see and keep a log. This can actually be a really fun hobby to share with kids too.
Upcycle Your Way to New Stuff
If you don’t have a huge hobby budget but want to try something fun, we love upcycling. You can hit up the thrift stores or flea markets or shop your own house for some fun things to use in new ways. What’s great about this as a mom hobby is that it’s easy to pick up and put down. You don’t have to do a project all at once, and you can even take older kids thrifting with you (a toddler in a thrift store is like a bull in a china shop, though).
Write Real Letters to Your People
From your best friend to your grandma, the people in your life will love getting a real letter or two. A text or a phone call is always nice, but you can hold a real letter in your hand and reread it anytime. Writing letters is easy to do while kids are playing, and if you get interrupted, you can put it away until you have a little more time.
Quick Tip
An added bonus of letter-writing is that you get to have a record of your days with your kids. I wrote my grandma twice a week in the last few years of her life, and when she died, I discovered a whole box of my letters that she had saved. They’re all about my kids when they were little babies.
More Doable Hobbies for Moms to Try
We’ve got even more ideas for hobbies for single moms, stay-at-home moms, working moms, and any other kind of mom. Try one of these:
- Joining a book club (or starting your own)
- Canning jams and jellies
- Coloring in adult coloring books
- Growing a garden
- Arranging flowers
- Making soap
- Biking
- Drawing
- Practicing martial arts
- Hiking
- Cross stitch
- Scrapbooking
- Stand-up comedy
- Journaling
- Sewing and quilting
- Writing fan fiction
- Collecting shells
- Decorating cakes
Make Time for Your Hobby
Making time for yourself can be as easy as finding the right hobby for busy moms. You do things for other people all day long, and doing something just for yourself, something you really love, is important. Try lots of different hobbies to find the perfect one (or ones) for you.
