Cozy hobbies are all the rage right now and for good reason. They pull us away from screens and into the present moment, capturing our focus on something creative, productive, and mentally stimulating.

They encourage us to learn a new skill, and often those skills can be hyper-practical to the slower lifestyle so many of us aim to embody. Skills like baking, mending, and gardening provide useful outputs, while hobbies like crochet and embroidery add beauty and function to the home.

But cozy hobbies may feel out of reach for busy moms who are just trying to get through the day in one piece. Between the morning rush, a full day at work, and the pre-bedtime whirlwind at home, little energy remains to take on something entirely new.

Someone at work once asked me how I had time for all my cozy hobbies, and the answer was simpler than even I thought it could be: you make room for the things you want to do. If you're wishing you had a little more time to take up a new hobby, the reality is that you are the only one who can realistically evaluate where your time is going and where a new hobby might fit in or replace those activities.

Keep reading to learn some simple tips you can use to start integrating cozy hobbies into your busy mom life. And if you're intrigued but unsure where to start, check out this post for a list of cozy hobbies that work well with mom life.

Tips for Integrating Cozy Hobbies into Your Busy Mom Life

Keep your hobbies out.

My toddler loves to color, so we keep a coloring book and crayons on the coffee table in the living room. In our playroom, the dry erase board and markers are always available for him to use. We keep his favorite things accessible to him. Why should your favorite hobbies be any different?

Sure, maybe you need to keep them out of reach of little exploratory hands, but what are some options you have for making your favorite or newest cozy hobby accessible to you in the spaces where you spend the most time? I love keep a crochet project basket that has all my yarn colors, my crochet hook, a tiny pair of scissors, and my current work in progress inside. I carry it around the house based on where my toddler is playing and it's always available for me to busy my hands by adding a few stitches.

Integrate your cozy hobbies into your home, and you'll find they much more readily integrate into your life.

Parallel play with your kids.

So many cozy hobbies that are great for moms also have a kid version! Think coloring books, reading, junk journaling, puzzling, crafting, and more. Turn cozy hobby time into a family activity by breaking out the hobby supplies and spending time hobbying together.

I find that my toddler is often interested in what I'm doing when I "play" my own hobby alongside him, but like most toddlers, he comes and goes. I'm typically able to make progress on my own hobby while he switches between playing independently and asking for my help in his own activity.

You could make your cozy hobby time extra special by designating one afternoon or evening a week to family hobby time and getting everyone involved. When you normalize your engagement in hobbies around the kids, they want to be part of that special activity, too.

Involve your kids directly in your hobbies.

While you might want to keep your embroidery project or watercolor painting as a something only you get to work on, there are tons of cozy hobbies that kids can be involved with directly. Baking and gardening are just two that come to mind. My son loves to harvest tomatoes and check whether the watermelons are ready. Inside, he helps me crack eggs and stir my batters and doughs.

When you let your kids come along on the cozy hobby journey, they get to learn new skills alongside you. Who knows - they may even stick long term! Regardless of whether they become passionate about that hobby, you'll have spent quality time exploring and learning alongside them, and there truly isn't a better way to infuse their childhood with magic than that.

Reduce your expectations.

As busy moms, we often fall into the achievement cycle, pushing for some accomplishment, then pushing for the next without even acknowledging we blew past the first. That energy has a way of seeping into hobbies, too.

It starts with learning a few chords on the ukulele and then dropping the hobby as a whole because you couldn't play an entire song at a professional level. Or starting a crochet blanket like mine and beating yourself up because the rounds take so much longer now that they're...the size of a medium sized blanket!

These are hobbies, and cozy hobbies at that. The point is to stop doom-scrolling and put your mind and hands toward something a little more gentle and creative. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to make you money. You can take it apart, start over, or quit at any point if it didn't turn out or you don't enjoy it. Let it serve its purpose without forcing greater meaning onto it or passing judgment about yourself based on your first attempt.

Maybe you'll one day be showcasing your quilts at the state fair or maybe you'll be donating that fabric you bought to a craft recycling organization in a few months. The point is the exploration, not the end product.

Perhaps most importantly, don't make motherhood the scapegoat for denying yourself activities and interests like cozy hobbies. You are capable of designing a motherhood journey that allows for creativity, exploration, and fun both with and without your kids' involvement. Pick one cozy hobby you've always wanted to try, and use the simple tips in this article to infuse it into your life.

More Ways to Integrate Slower Living as a Busy Mom

• The online yoga studio for busy, working moms seeking a slower way of life offers monthly pre-recorded yoga and meditation you can use to sink into a slower pace, plus a slow down framework where you can restructure your most overwhelming challenges into peaceful, rhythmic routines that support you and your family.

• Two-minute Reset Meditations for Routine Calm Days includes ten completely free two-minute meditations for you to capture a moment of calm right now, without spending an hour at the yoga studio or taking paid leave.

• The Mama Naturalist on my website and Substack is a space where I share both conceptual and practical guidance on slowing down, connecting to nature, and living seasonally.

• Mindful Moms Digest offers exclusive yoga and meditation classes, nature stories from a wildlife biologist (me!), and free, supportive resources including links back to every blog post for busy, working moms journeying toward a slower, more seasonal way of life.

• Cultivate Calm Mornings is a structured series of three yoga workshops that supports you in transforming your morning routine from chaotic to calm.