The Mental Load of Mothers: Sharing It to Breathe and Avoid Burnout

It is 11 pm. Baby is finally asleep, and your head is still spinning: only three size 2 nappies left, the vaccine appointment is Thursday, the in-laws come on Friday, the favourite bodysuit is too small and nobody has thought about tomorrow's dinner. None of it shows, and yet it all weighs. This is the mental load of mothers, and it often explodes in the months after a birth.

The good news is that it can be shared. Here is how to recognise it, make it visible, divide it, accept family help without getting lost, and spot the moment when tiredness becomes exhaustion that needs support.

Mental load: what are we talking about?

Everything you have to think about before doing. Buying nappies is a task; noticing there are none left, choosing the right size and planning when to buy more is the mental load. It means anticipating, organising, checking and remembering, all the time and often for the whole family.

With a newborn, the list suddenly grows: breastfeeds or bottles, nappies, sleep, paediatrician appointments, vaccines, paperwork, visitors. Naître et grandir observes that the parent on leave often carries most of this load, to the point of advising couples to review how they share tasks before the return to work.

In Morocco, the figures show where we start from. According to the latest national time-use survey by the High Commission for Planning (HCP), carried out in 2012 and recalled by Le Matin in 2025:

• women spend on average 5 hours 5 minutes a day on domestic tasks and household care, men 43 minutes;
• they do 87.5% of unpaid domestic work and 84.4% of childcare;
• over fifteen years, from 1997 to 2012, men's participation had risen by only three minutes.

These figures measure time spent doing, not time spent thinking. A new survey is announced for 2026.

Early-months tiredness or exhaustion: how to tell the difference

Tiredness is normal; exhaustion that sets in is not. The Quebec fact sheet on adapting to parenthood notes that it is not unusual to feel emotional, mental and physical exhaustion in the first months, and that for most parents this state is temporary. Lack of sleep makes you irritable, impatient and less focused, reminds Naître et grandir, and if it goes on it can bring symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Parental burnout is something else. Psychologists Moïra Mikolajczak and Isabelle Roskam, of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), describe it in four stages:

1. exhaustion: you are at the end of your rope, physically and emotionally;
2. distance: you look after your children on autopilot, without putting any emotion into it;
3. saturation: you no longer take any pleasure in being a parent;
4. contrast: you no longer recognise yourself, with the shame or guilt of no longer being the parent you wanted to be.

According to the same team, it affects about 8% of parents each year in Belgium. Their 42-country study of 17,409 parents (2021) shows huge differences: from 0% in Cuba or Pakistan to about 9 to 10% in Belgium, Poland and the United States. Rates are higher in individualistic cultures, notably Western ones, where cultural values put parents under more pressure. It is a condition distinct from depression and from occupational burnout. If sadness is what dominates, also read our article on baby blues and postnatal depression.

Making the invisible visible

You cannot share what the other person cannot see. So the first tool is a list, written together:

• everything that comes back every day: meals, laundry, dishes, bath, nappy changes, nights;
• everything that comes back every week: shopping, cleaning, the stock of nappies and wipes;
• everything that falls on a fixed date: paediatrician appointments, vaccines, paperwork, such as the birth declaration due within 30 days;
• everything that is never seen: remembering the gift for the sbou3 (the naming ceremony on the seventh day), warning the nanny, buying more saline solution.

Then hand over whole areas rather than one-off favours. "Can you buy nappies?" leaves the load with the person who thought of it. "Nappies are your job" really transfers it: checking the stock, choosing the size, buying more.

Last point, often the hardest: let the other person do it their way. The Quebec fact sheet on fatherhood reports that fathers get more involved when the mother encourages them by giving them latitude, and that looking after baby from the first month strengthens their confidence for later. A bodysuit put on back to front has never hurt anyone. Dad will find more ideas in our article on finding your place as a father from the first days.

Nights, meals, mornings: sharing in practice

Nights are often the first thing to tackle. Naître et grandir suggests taking turns: one gets up, fetches baby, changes and resettles them while the other sleeps. If you breastfeed, your partner can bring baby to you and take care of the rest; milk expressed in advance also lets them give a feed on some nights. A 20 to 30 minute nap while baby sleeps helps you hold out.

For the day, especially when work resumes, the same guide advises fixing morning and evening routines: who drops baby off, who picks them up, who prepares dinner, who gives the bath. Our article on going back to work after leave details this organisation, and the one on baby's broken nights what really helps sleep.

Mother, mother-in-law, sisters: accepting family help

In Morocco, family is often there, especially during the nfissa, the forty days after birth. It is a gift: Mikolajczak and Roskam count outside help among the resources that protect against burnout, along with a partner's support, accepting your own limits and your child's, and time for yourself. Naître et grandir encourages letting someone else look after baby or the chores so you can sleep, read or simply rest.

But help must lighten the load, not add to it. A few ideas:

• say precisely what would help: a dish, a load of washing, the eldest taken to school, an hour of babysitting so you can sleep;
• keep control of decisions about baby, while thanking people for their advice;
• lean on current recommendations for safety points, such as putting baby to sleep on the back: it is no longer your opinion against your mother's;
• limit visits that require hosting, with tea and cakes: suggest a short slot.

Parental burnout can be treated

Parental burnout is not a lack of love, nor a weakness. It happens when demands pile up for longer than resources can make up for, explain Mikolajczak and Roskam: perfectionism, difficulty managing stress, disorganisation, a sick or disabled child, no one to share the load. Left without help, it damages sleep and health, can bring a wish to run away and suicidal thoughts, even more often than in depression, according to their work. It also raises the risk of neglect and violent acts towards children, including in parents who were not that way before, and weighs on the couple, adds a UCLouvain press release.

It responds well to treatment. A group programme of eight weekly two-hour sessions, tested by the same team on about 150 parents, brought them on average below the burnout threshold in two months. In Morocco, start with the professional you already see, a GP, gynaecologist, baby's paediatrician, or go straight to a psychologist. Simply say: "I am exhausted, I can't cope, and it is lasting."