Working parents - how do you do it all?

[MalmMumma]

Just that really. I have a 2.5 year old DS, work 4 days, in a very busy, relatively stressful job and trying to progress to the next level within the next year or so. I feel like time runs away from me everyday and before I know it, it's time to go home and I've not achieved everything on my to do list. By the time we sort or tea, bath, bed, our own dinner, get tidied up, make lunch for the next day, do any washing etc, it's 9pm at the earliest and if I log onto emails at that point, I'm either totally ineffective/exhausted or can't sleep when I go to bed after too much screen time. Does anyone have a magic solution other than ! How do you juggle all the balls?

Foxy, you do know that your mattress is likely full of dust mites regardless?

OP - Don't compare yourself to others. You never know how much extended family help some parents have (its an eye opener when you do find out...) and that makes the world of difference.

Sick days (either you or the kids), school pick ups and holidays, work trips, childcare fails....all made much easier with GPs to hand.

If you don't have family to hand you'll undoubtedly find it harder, no matter how organised you are...because its undoubtedly harder.

I was going to offer , but you know tequila is a good alternative. However, when my kids were toddlers, I used to have a nanny, and made a deal with my boss. I go three days at work, while the nanny is taking care of the kids, the other three I take care of the kids and the nanny is off. And the Sunday was the day me and DH call the nanny to watch after the kids, so we can spend the day all by ourselves. It worked for me, because I was able to go to work, watch the kids and have time for myself and DH.

How do any of you manage after-school activities? It's something I can't figure out, unless I engage an after-school nanny or similar.

I used to work a 40+ hour week plus an hour commuting. DH was travelling most of the time. I hired an after-school nanny who did homework with the children and took them to and from after-school stuff.

It wasn't so much the term times that I struggled with - it was the holidays that defeated me.

Sunday was the day me and DH call the nanny to watch after the kids, so we can spend the day all by ourselves

I don't get that. I feel as though when I'm working FT, we don't get enough family time. We have our evenings as the grown up time and the odd bit of babysitting, a few times a year (usually for a wedding!)

Different strokes I suppose

I don't work in the evenings when I go home any more. Occasionally have late and early conference calls but actual work - No.
I do sometimes if DH is away but that's rare and I never log in on a weekend.

I work from home one day a week and that gives me two extra hours of work time and often no meetings at all.
Cleaner does the heavy lifting
Get spare room ready as soon as guests leave. Try to prevent DH from using it as a dumping ground for random shit in the meantime.
Division of labour. DH does pretty much all of the cooking now while I run around getting laundry on, doing school bags and lunches once the kids are asleep.
We meal plan but the majority of our meals mid week are quick and easy. Fish and salad, a naice ready meal, meat and salad. A lot of soup during the winter.
I mostly buy work clothes now that are washable. M&S Autograph etc. but it's a v small capsule wardrobe added to very infrequently. I work in a conservative environment so there's no pressure to look trendy which is handy.
Have a dedicated 1 night a week to work late and claw back stuff that's not been done.
I do a lot of personal stuff at work but I work 8.30-5 and usually eat a sandwich at my desk so I feel that it's fair if I spend 5 mins doing an ocado order
If DH is out / working late, baths often go by the by to keep on track.
We split sick leave for the kids, anything more than 2 days we might ask MIL to come to London [2hrs away] but otherwise we are on our own.
Unofficial agreement about who's career is taking priority at any point in time. It could be time of year / risk of redundancy / simply who is the higher earner or ability to be / who has less flexibility / on call that week. What goes around comes around and my DH is fantastic.

What gives :
I never exercise and am overweight
I have gone 12 months between haircuts. I could / should spend a lot more time on my personal appearance and clothing.
My career has somewhat plateau'd but I climbed the greasy pole before kids as I knew it would be difficult after that. No good answer to that one. I definitely regret not having children when I was younger but I seriously doubt I would be where I am now.
Our social life as a couple is poor and we often book weekends in just for us as a family to chill and recuperate from the week. We've stepped back from frequent contact with a lot of long term friends as we simply don't have the time to keep all the balls in the air.

We had an au pair for 4 years while DH spent 2 consecutive weeks away and 2 consecutive weeks at home, on a regular enough pattern (in that, sometimes his trips were longer but generally left home Sunday lunchtime and got home mid-morning Saturday 2 weeks later for that whole period, so only 1 full weekend at home a month, and having to still fit in visits "down home" to DPs and DPILs on some sort of frequent basis). That helped as AP brought DD to school and collected her from afterschool club in crèche/later on from afterschool club in school a few evenings a week.

Creche had afterschool activities (mostly optional for an extra fee). School also has a very good programme of afterschool activities run by PTA, and afterschool club also run by PTA means DD can do activities in school and go to afterschool until 6pm - and I get there at roughly 5.45. So she's tried a range of sports, chess club, French, guitar etc (things like drama, musical theatre, book club, debating, art, gardening, lego, and good few sports are all options).

DD learned to swim at lessons in another school - started Saturday mornings, had to move to 6pm class one mid-week evening when she progressed to level 4 (which we could JUST get to), and AP used to do it by taxi for another year when we had to go to an earlier slot. But as it was getting unsustainable, was just the point where DD was a confident swimmer so we were happy to drop it.

She does sports at weekends - hockey and gaelic games. But as gaelic has needed midweek training since last year, we've been slowly dropping back on that. We could make it but she's exhausted midweek.

Scouts on Saturday mornings, sailing Saturday afternoons (right beside each other), computers Sunday mornings before hockey (well - we did that for 2 years but she knew lots were on waiting lists and was happy to drop that this term voluntarily). I can get her to all those easily enough. And she wants to be busy.

I am a leader in Scouts, and used to play hockey so practice that with her. DH enjoys practicing gaelic with her.

Holidays are interesting. Sailing school does full days (9-5), and the local Uni has sports camps with pre/post care from 8.30-5. DD loves the sailing so does 3 weeks (DH drops and does a lot of collections those weeks - childminder who does the 1 hour in the mornings in school terms is happy to do either/both if DH has to travel). She wants to do the sports camp which is near my office, so commutes with me and I do that week. A week with Granny in the country. And we usually manage to find another camp with long days somewhere, or the minder can do afternoons for us, for the other week.

And sailing for most of the holidays during the school year except Christmas - which we tend to be off ourselves.

But all that does take thinking ahead and finding things that DD will be interested enough in and that there are spaces in.

How do any of you manage after-school activities? It's something I can't figure out, unless I engage an after-school nanny or similar

My kids only do activities at school / after school on premises and then the CM picks them up. They are both EYFS age though so it would be tricky if either of them were particularly talented at something I guess.

I work FT Mon - Fri in a high responsibility, high pressure job. DH is more than FT - works every day except Sunday - as runs his own business. 2 preschool DC.

I start work at 8am so DH gets DC to nursery in the mornings and I pick up in the evenings. Nursery provide dinner, we get snack ready the night before.

Dinners are generally easy to throw together meals or something from the freezer. I always make a double batch of meals such as bolognaise sauce or chilli for the freezer. I meal plan every week and do main shop on Sunday afternoon. Only pick up milk or bread midweek if needed.

Kids are only bathed when needed - usually few times a week.

Laundry - I put in a load every night (on a timer) and hang out to dry before work. Ironing kept to a minimum.

We have a cleaner for 2.5 hours per week. This is the single best thing I have done for us as a family as it means our weekends are free.

Saturday is my day with the kids and Sunday we have a family day as DH is off. I never cook on a Sunday either DH does or we go out.

My PILs cover some sick days for us if they can. Otherwise we decide who will take AL depending on our schedules for the week. I also travel with work from time to time and PILs are great at helping out.

All cleaning up, putting dishwasher on, checking work emails gets done after DC are asleep. I also make a rule to stop at 9pm so I have an hour for TV, Internet, book before bed.

Also very occasionally I take a half day from work, leave DC in nursery and just have some time to myself.

I could do with exercising a bit more but will hopefully start something again if DC2 ever starts consistently sleeping through the night

Long chalk yes I Hoover the beds every few months

Is it not necessary to change bed sheets weekly then? Maybe I am wrong !

I'd like to change mine weekly but it's usually every 10days/2wks. It's mainly the washing. I'm drowning in washing!

I'm exhausted just reading all the things that we parents have to juggle - although I wonder if mums take on too much working and running the home. How may men are fretting about online shopping on their lunch break

The most important thing for me is that our children have all their meals at childcare or school during the week. DH and I just have to cook for ourselves in the evening, which we can do after they're in bed, so we're not rushing home to get dinner on for starving children at 6pm.

Apart from not having to stress about meals, it massively reduces the cleaning and tidying we have to do as 80% of the mess in our house is generated by prepping or eating.

I just do a quick tidy when they're in bed and try to get a wash on - I don't do any other housework in the week. I clean the bathroom and change the sheets at the weekend, and I might hoover if I have the time. That's good enough for us.

I'm actually not too sure how we manage it.

Until recently, I worked two jobs (one of them my own business) and DH worked full time. That's now changed to just me with my own business--or it will next week. Somehow, we've managed to stay on top of things just between us.

DD1 is 3 and does get funded hours now. We actually put her in nursery at about 18m, because she needed the socialising and I needed the time to work on the business (I didn't have the second job then but did Open Uni study).

Sheets get changed weekly (especially the girls) but that's just because I love fresh sheets on the bed. We've slipped this last week because of lots of other stuff going on. Dishes have piled up the last two days but I'll be doing them tonight once DH is home and we've had dinner. Might as well get it all done at one time.

DH does all the cooking (his choice) and takes care of the garden on his days off and I get the laundry done throughout the day and do general tidying up. I make sure we get a day off together each week and we use that to do the bigger cleans in the house and put stray toys away. throughout the week, the kids toys tend to get left overnight now and then because we're just too exhausted and I don't see the point putting them away when I know they'll be played with the next day. Just two days ago I told DD1 that she didn't have to put her game away because she would be playing with it the next day. When she'd finished with it the next day, she put everything away herself. She's now at the age where she can tidy up after herself, although doesn't always like to.

I do have to-do lists because I'm such a scatter brain (baby brain, I claim).

We don't have high standards. As long as it looks neat when people are over, that's all we care about. Our parents are also laid back and will help if they come to visit and find that we've slipped somewhere. Both are two working parent households and know how hard it can be. My DM sometimes forgets that working from home actually means working but never mind...

Things will change for us very soon for us. DH stops work next week and I'm only doing one job now. It'll mean he's the sahd and I'm setting work hours so I'm working during the school hours to spend more time with my girls.

Good luck with it. Don't worry about things slipping now and then. You're not Wonder Woman

Cleaner plus shirt service
After school clubs that are helpful for homework
Grandparents for emergency childcare
Batch cook, ready meals and eat out a lot
Don't worry about attending everything at school
Split childcare
Don't compete with others
Have one child!!

School craft projects can fuck off. I'm not spending Easter building a sodding Tudor house thanks.

That made me laugh so much!

I'm lucky that my school offers cheap breakfast and after-school club. I was paying twice the amount for the same service privately. So I save the money I would have spent which covers the holiday club. I found a great reasonably priced one where the lady who runs it is not phased at all about ASD (DS1 has this). Occasionally I'll look after my friends DCs on a day off and she'll do the same with mine.

My work has flexible working. While I'm not very flexible as I'm bound by the wrap-around care at school it does mean I can take some time if needed and work a couple of hours at home. I don't like doing that very often. Had enough of working evenings as I'm too tired!