To wonder how people survive years of juggling childcare and work?

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DC (3) is in nursery full time and both DP and I work full time and I'm constantly chasing my tail. DC hates waking up, is overtired in the evening and moans when dropped off at nursery (but loves it during the day). On a week day, a simple 5 minute delay can totally mess up the routine. I'm lucky to have a good, flexible employer but every day is non-stop and I'm turning into a scatter brain!

Given that DP and I want more DC's, I was wondering how on earth other people survive the sleepless nights and tiredness for years on end!

Poor Granniemcphee...she is just voicing an opinion...if you are finding it hard work out if it is the best course of action for all....if it is then crack on.

Green is right that both working full time isnt a big deal if you both do things at home. I have never experienced having to do hours and hours of work at home as if you have a dh and are organised there isnt really that much to do. I never get this I worked all week so we have to spend all weekend doing chores posts. I dont understand what they must be doing.

This is a how long is a piece of string thread because people's situations are so varied.
You always get people saying

1. Make DH pull his weight
2. Buy in help, cleaners etc
3. Leave work, it's wonderful as a SAHM
4. I'm a CEO of a multi million company and I manage
5. I gave up and it's ok

Unless your circumstances are exactly the same you don't have choices as the next person

FWiW I was helped by family when mine were very young, moved into using childminder, nursery combo as they got older, after school clubs...changed hours and took a flexible job to cope with teenager. Housework gets done at weekends bar the usual bathroom kitchen clean ups daily. I'm a single mum and time is the most precious commodity in my life. I am also really lucky to have my own house and a career. It has felt skin of the teeth existence at times.

Shocked to see previous post advocating leaving 9\10 year olds alone for up to a day????
I work full time (with lots of work to do at home,too) and two older children. My advice...share the load with hubby, different working patterns/shifts to help with juggling, lots of family support and definitely a cleaner. No point working full time and spending precious family days cleaning your house. It definitely gets easier, but something has to give...usually your own social life!!!

BerylThePeril
Shocked to see previous post advocating leaving 9\10 year olds alone for up to a day????

I thought that, but I think the poster meant when her youngest child reaches 9/10 she would be ok with leaving all of her children alone together

Yep it's hard. After years of grafting for other people DH went out on his own early this year so we've had to adjust in that he needs to go where the money is. I work 25 hours a week, term time and it's the best thing for us because I'm around to take/collect from school. But I find it hard that DH is away most of the time so everything falls to me; school stuff, house stuff, pet stuff, extra curricular stuff but that's just the way it is just now. DD also has a lifelong medical condition which can be difficult to control so I get so knackered sometimes. We have decided that we're going to get a cleaner for a couple of hours a week and someone to do the garden every few weeks because neither of us has any time to do it and it looks shit. But you kind of just do what gets you through I think.

Don't marry a farmer. As maninamansworld said they work far more than full time, always 7 days a week and generally unpredictable hours. There is no way, despite helpful advice from green that DH can contribute 50% in the home.

Do have good child care, plan well in advance, shop online.

If possible, work for yourself, then you get to call the shots.

Keep at it!

We managed by "tag-team parenting". If I was on a late shift, DH would go into work early. I'd drop the DCs at school/nursery before work, he'd pick them up at 4/4.30 after he finished work, then cook dinner for when I got home.
If I was on an early shift we'd do the opposite.
Lots of organisation, lists, and getting the DCs to help with housework.
Lots of times when one parent arrives home and the other leaves to drop off/pick up a DC, and frequent lift-shares with DCs friends.
Now they are older it's easier. DS (almost 13) and DD (10) are fine on their own for short periods, or together for a bit longer.
I have my own business now, so can supposedly scale work back a bit in the holidays, and DH can work flexibly so we muddle through somehow.
It's not easy, take each childcare/time tabling challenge as it comes, you'll find your own way.

We were lucky to have flexible employers. We both reduced our hours when they were tiny and have gradually increased them so we are now both on 4.5 w.t.e and dc are 10 and 11. I'm not the only part timer in my department, so I don't feel it has affected promotion etc, but DH felt he was overlooked for training opportunities etc as the only part timer. We have coped by learning to live with a bit of clutter, and accepting that decorating etc will be slow. I can be flexible with my hours, so I do long days when DH is home, and 9-3 when I need to pick the dc up. We use after school club one night per week. When dd1 starts secondary in Sept, there. Will be one night when she lets herself in and is home alone.

Sorry, I meant 4.5 days per week, ie 0.9 wte. (4.4 wte would be lovely but wouldn't pay the mortgage)

Women's income is the key to a lot of happiness in life - I strongly agree with this, but understand that's a personal perspective.

I have two under 3s, work FT and have had short mat leaves with both. I have a senior position which brings in good (but not amazing) money.

We cope by:

• living in a small house (sounds odd, but there is less to do, less space for stuff so we are ruthlessly minimal...aware that this may need to change as the DCs get older and need more space.

• living v close to work. I have a 30 min commute.

• arranging a bit of flex with employer - I leave work about 5 to see the DC as long as I get back online later in the evening and finish up the last bits of the day.

• having a cleaner

• trying to enjoy the bits of housework you can't avoid - I stick the radio on, pour a glass of wine, rope in DH to help and have an evening of batch cooking, cleaning, laundry folding. Without wishing to sound like Mary Poppins, its not a terrible way to spend an evening

• never watch TV, get stuck online, or spend hours MNing (OK, maybe not the last one, but theyre such time sucks)

• DH works four days a week (this is a MASSIVE one if I'm being honest. I think if he didn't do this, I couldn't do my job, as there isn't the option for me to work less than 5 days at the moment, and I don't think I would be happy with the children being with nanny five days a week).

• nanny who the kids love and we trust (she also drives me up the wall, but they love her...a different thread).

• I love my job. It fulfils me, I like the people and I enjoy my day to day life more with work in it than I did on mat leave.

HandMini's views accord with mine and I also worked full time ( we both did) when we had two under three and had short maternity leaves and a nanny whom we tolerated (she was hopeless domestically but they got on well with her and she stayed for 8 years and came each day).

I like the juggling.

Keep all the balls in the air and watch them go round and round.

We have a great life with the work/home set up we have.

It can get very hectic but we all seem to thrive on it.

Green - I hear you! I swear our nanny causes more mess and chaos than the DC some days.

Morloth - I agree. I think you have to enjoy it and be able to give yourself a pat on the back just for getting through "normal" life and not cry too much when it all comes tumbling down.

Also remember that it DOES come tumbling down for everyone. I bet every WOHM has experienced being called home for a sick child / late to work / unable to finish something to best ability / being passed over for promotion / not feeling as together as she'd like to / missing out on gym/swim/other life. It feels rubbish, better to face up to that than deny it.

Also speaking as someone whose youngest are now teenagers, it gets very very easy indeed when they are older. Over this summer one of mine has not usually got up until lunch time. If you compare that to babies up from 5am screaming for a feed it is totally different and so much easier.

We did it for 6 months when DS was 2. It was hell. I had to wake him up at 6:30 to get him to the childminder's in time. The bus was full of working mums with pushchairs. All the babies / children looked like zombies.
Never again.

HandMini - and every dad with a DP who works outside the home has also had things impact on their worklife, that's the bit you have to both agree to, it will sometimes go wrong and both parents have to accept having DCs will have some negative impact on their careers.

OP - if one of you could drop a day in the office it might make life easier (even one day working from home so you can drop later at nursery and pick up earlier), and look at other childcare options if your DD doesn't cope with nursery all day. Nursery might be the easiest (it's one location, you don't have to do pre-school in a different location, you don't have to find just 1 person you trust, as a nursery there are several staff members so if your child's key worker is a bit crap when you aren't there and only good when you are there, there's other people who'll pick that up) - but a childminder doing the run to/from a preschool (or half day in nursery with a childminder picking up from nursery so they can do their pre-school at the nursery), might make it a less 'intense' and tiring day for your DC.

It takes some work if you are going to continue in your career without making compromises there. The compromises have to happen somewhere once you've had DCs, if work isn't it, then look at some of the tips on here and work out which other suggests compromises you can/want to do.

But there is no magic trick that makes it easy without anything having to give - sorry!

I am pregnant with DC2 and am now really concerned! We have no support and both work ft but I do 2 days from home which helps massively. I collect and DH drops when I'm in the office as I start early to finish early.

I have found it with one absolutely no problem. I am going to get a real shock when DC2 comes aren't I?

I have an amazing flexible manager which is fantastic but it can be a demanding job.

It's hard. Very hard.

I cracked under the pressure of a full time management role and two primary school aged DCs and am now looking for a p/t job after 3 months at home.

DH is self employed, so has some degree of flexibility, and we share all household/childcare responsibilities equally - it was still miserable.

I refuse to jack in my career, but I refuse to spend my last young years being a stressed out workhorse.

Yes, it's very hard sometimes. I work pt at the moment but my manager is disparate for me to do more hours. I might, when dd2 starts school next year. I'm lucky that my employer is generally sympathetic to me as a parent and appreciates our monumental efforts to not let any childcare "issues" get in the way as it were. For example, we use an awful lot of paid childcare in the holidays so we aren't disappearing every school holiday. We share time off for illness equally. I'm incredibly organised dh is learning very slowly-.

What we struggle with is the emotional blackmail from our families. MIL cannot get her head round working when you have children and piles on the guilt regularly. It's completely wrong. What she cannot see, however, is that because I've been working, I have kept my career going: I am in a relatively senior position and have higher earning potential than DH.

Yes, it's very hard sometimes. I work pt at the moment but my manager is disparate for me to do more hours. I might, when dd2 starts school next year. I'm lucky that my employer is generally sympathetic to me as a parent and appreciates our monumental efforts to not let any childcare "issues" get in the way as it were. For example, we use an awful lot of paid childcare in the holidays so we aren't disappearing every school holiday. We share time off for illness equally. I'm incredibly organised dh is learning very slowly-.

What we struggle with is the emotional blackmail from our families. MIL cannot get her head round working when you have children and piles on the guilt regularly. It's completely wrong. What she cannot see, however, is that because I've been working, I have kept my career going: I am in a relatively senior position and have higher earning potential than DH.

Yes, it's very hard sometimes. I work pt at the moment but my manager is disparate for me to do more hours. I might, when dd2 starts school next year. I'm lucky that my employer is generally sympathetic to me as a parent and appreciates our monumental efforts to not let any childcare "issues" get in the way as it were. For example, we use an awful lot of paid childcare in the holidays so we aren't disappearing every school holiday. We share time off for illness equally. I'm incredibly organised dh is learning very slowly-.

What we struggle with is the emotional blackmail from our families. MIL cannot get her head round working when you have children and piles on the guilt regularly. It's completely wrong. What she cannot see, however, is that because I've been working, I have kept my career going: I am in a relatively senior position and have higher earning potential than DH.

Senatus, by comparison my two year old wakes by 6 every day and is raring to go by the time his dad takes him off!

As others have said it's really hard and exhausting but you get through it. If you can afford it can one of you go part time or when dcs are at school work flexible hours. I've found NHS and local government are the most flexible employers. It was really important to me to keep my career going as I'd spent years training for it and I enjoyed it. being out of the workplace for too long can really sap your confidence about going back. HTH

I found it manageable with one but with two DC in two different child care settings the wheels came off and I gave up work for my sanity and their sanity (after the child care and travel I wasn't making much at all anyway, although the big loss is my career path which is essentially buggered now). So, I'm afraid I have no answers for you. If DH had been able to help more with pick-ups and drop off, or even just more with household logistics, it would have been feasible. However he works long hours, which is made more bearable by the fact that he does earn good money so at least he can support us all. However it's not the co parenting ideal my younger self had imagined . . . . but one day I had sat at work having a meeting about 'improving internal communication' and I started thinking that this was the third time in 2 years I had had a meeting on this tedious subject, and then my mind went to how I was going to have piss my boss off by leaving early to pick up DC who would anyway be knackered and grumpy, and return to a house devoid of basics like milk and loo roll, and I just thought ' why am I doing this, this is not living'. It's a hard one, hang in there. xx