Before minimalism was even a thing, I embarked on the journey of reducing the items I own, buy less, save more and invest my savings. But the key factor why I decided to become a minimalist was becoming a mom of twins.

 

The background on why I decided to become a minimalist

 

Having kids can be overwhelming. Now double it up and put yourself in a new country far from your support network (your family and friends). Well, that was me in 2012. I had moved from Barcelona to Sweden 3 years earlier, had a job, an apartment and my husband. We were living in Stockholm when we found out the news. I was pregnant. 4 months into the pregnancy, we found out we were going to have twins!

 

After the shock had passed, we started thinking and making some big decisions. Our apartment had 64 m2 and only one bedroom. It would be very tight to keep living there with 2 babies, 2 cribs, double wagon, etc. We didn’t have any family in Stockholm, so we decided to sell the apartment and move to Malmö (south of Sweden), where my husband has his parents and relatives. We thought that it’s always helpful to have family around when you have kids, not alone 2 kids at the same time. I was welcoming ALL the extra hands I could get!

 

You know the saying: “You never know how much stuff you have until you need to move”

 

Well, my husband and I were used to live with limited amount of stuff as we moved a lot due to our career. So we are used to have only clothes that fit us right now and items that we truly love of mean something to us. But when the babies came along, suddenly we have soooo much more stuff to manage!!!! Having twins and needing to care for them without extra help is overwhelming enough, but the amount of stuff we suddenly acquired and got when we had the babies drove us crazy. We felt we were losing control.

 

I was on maternity leave for 1 year, and during this period I remember debating with myself, should I pick up the toys from the floor and organize the home before my husband comes home? I know he liked to come home to an organized home. I did too. But I knew I would need to pick up the toy again in a few hours. So sometimes I thought, what’s the point?

 

 

I read blogs and watched videos of other moms saying that it’s ok to have sticky floors and messy homes. This means kids are happy and playing. But I didn’t feel good in a messy home. And if I don’t feel good, then I can’t be a good mom or wife. BUT I had no energy left in my body to clean, cook or organize.

 

I was frustrated, hormonal and SUPER tired. I was tired ALL THE TIME. Something needed to change. I needed to gain control again. I needed to simplify. That’s when I decided to become a minimalist.

 

Here is how I started to simplify and gain back control in my life:

 

• I put the babies on a schedule. This meant I would feed them every 3 hours (the period necessary to secure they don’t get dehydrated nor feel super hungry). The concept of feeding them when they are hungry was leaving no time for me to do anything. And often I would panic when they both cried at the same time.

 

• The schedule routine would give me 1 hour every 3 hours to be able to rest or organize, depending on my energy levels. This is how every 3 hours looked like: (picture of breast feeding)
  • Breast feed baby 1
  • Breast feed baby 2 (when they wore 3 months old I started to breast feed both at the same time during the day. This gave me back some extra time)
  • Complement the feeding with formula. Here I fed both at the same time. (I didn’t have enough milk to satisfy both)
  • Play with the babies
  • Change dippers
  • Put them to sleep and have time to myself
  • Alarm goes on and the cycle repeats

 

• Kids had mainly educational toys and not very gender specific toys or clothes. This simplified as almost everything could fit both babies. (My twins were a boy and a girl)

 

• I would sell or donate everything that didn’t fit them anymore to reduce the amount of stuff in our home. I also sold all my maternity clothes. I didn’t see myself getting pregnant again very soon.

 

• I would buy most things they needed for the next age/size range from second hand. Whatever we had as new was mainly gifts from relatives.

 

• When kids’ birthday, Christmas and other gift giving season was coming, we shared with the family the items we were needing at that time and they could choose something from the list to give as gift. They could of course give something that wasn’t in the list, but that simplified their life and ours.

 

 

The benefits from the changes I made

 

Having this routine and having reduced the amount of stuff we owned, gave me more time to recuperate myself from the constant tiredness I felt before. It gave me energy to start to socialize with other moms in my neighborhood.

 

Here in Sweden, the pediatricians group together new moms so they can share their experiences as they are all going through similar challenges. From this group, there were some moms I connected stronger with, and we would meet for a walk with the babies in the mornings and eat breakfast in one of our homes. As we were all in the same transition phase in being new to motherhood, nobody judged anybody when coming to each other’s home for breakfast. We just wanted to talk to another adult who understood how we felt.

 

But until today, they remember how they felt when they came to my place. They were shocked on how it could feel so spacious, fresh and in order with 2 babies to take care (none of them had twins). The answer was my formula of owning just enough and not feel the huge urge that new parents have of buying many cute clothes to their babies or tons of toys. Just to later realizing that their babies have grown and there were clothes they never even wore.

 

I even start to go to the gym when the babies were 6 months old!!! I would take the babies to the gym, park the wagon in the gym lobby and put the babies on a blanket over some yoga mats. Then I would train in front of them, so I could watch them and train at the same time. They would be so tired after having to take in so much information (with the music and people around) that they would sleep deeply after that. It was perfect! During that time, I would take a shower and eat in peace and quiet.

 

Meaning of minimalism

 

 

Minimalism means different things to different people. That is because we all have different intentions, values, lifestyle, hopes and goals. Everyone has a different reason why they decided to become a minimalist.

 

I see minimalism as a tool that helped me find more freedom. It:

• helped me to gain control and time to focus on the things that really matter to me (my family, my health, my relationships).

 

• showed me how I can dramatically affect my life and surroundings by being intentional on my decisions and removing the things that distract me from my goals.

 

• helped me to save more money as a byproduct, which has given me more financial freedom.

 

The definition of minimalism depends on your own values and intent. Ask yourself “WHY” you are seeking minimalism? The reply to your question will allow you to be a lot more intentional during your minimalist journey.

 

Whatever you are going through now, you have the power to change. It demands a clear sense of direction, persistence and consistency. Things you do every day become habits and your habits determine how you live.

 

Now you know why I decided to become a minimalist. Why did you decide to become a minimalist? Go to our Instagram and share it in a DM or on comments on the post. Join the MML community and find support for your journey. It’s a lot more fun when done together with a group!