to think i might be able to afford p/t work once baby at school?

[areyoureadyforpie]

would be really grateful for some help with this.

had a horrible pregnancy and first 5 month with lovely baby, and have had to do it about 95% on my own (no partner and not much support).

my housing costs are between £150-200 p/m (thank goodness)
my pay is about £15k gross
it seems I can go back to work when mat leave ends and afford to just work 2 days a wk (WTC will pay some childcare from what I can work out)

do you think I can still live on 16hrs p/w work when she is in school? as it looks like this is the only way i'm ever going to get any decent amount of time to sort out the dilapidated house and other things l need to do in order to have my second (and last) child so that my son doesn't grow up a lonely only child (we don't have enough support for him not to be lonely, no decent family nearby etc)

I know a hell of a lot about adoption

Maybe so but the idea that you'd adopt so your biological child wouldn't be lonely is a pretty horrendous burden to place on the child. Who has already lost their family.

OP your situation might well be complex. But from what you have posted, it seems that
You have a small baby
You will return to work PT and claim WTC to help with costs
You live in a dilapidated house without a suitable kitchen.
In 4 years time (I think) you will start sorting boxes
You will then look to expand your family via adoption so that your DS won't be a lonely only.
Your children will play happily together, making life easier for you.

I'm sorry to sound critical, but it really reads as though you are getting your priorities mixed up, you are facing possible disappointment if the DC don't get on (think of the age gap apart from anything else!), you aren't planning to tackle your housing issues for another 3-4 years, you don't want to work more than part time and you are asking about what benefits might help you achieve all of this.

Many of us want to afford more than one child ('lonely only' is offensive BTW), but we have to plan our families according to what is realistic, affordable and fair on those already part of the family. Many of us would love to work PT, but can't afford to. Many of us don't have support, many of us work for charities for low wages (which doesn't make us better than Anyone else).

I think you need to look again at your priorities, which should be first and foremost your DS.

Are you really asking if you would get enough governmental support to be able to work part time so you can unpack boxes...in 4 years time?!

I am not in the least anti benefits but I do want to see the money go to those who need it most and I'm not sure unpacking your boxes qualifies there..

unless I'm missing something?

And as pp's have pointed out if you don't have time for boxes you have no hope of finding time for a second baby!!

If you didn't write such cryptic posts, you might get more help.

There are lots of people out there who would love to work part time and have more children and a 'decent amount of time' to sort our houses out-most of us can't afford to and that certainly isn't what the benefit system was designed for. I strongly suspect that in 5 years there will be very little in the system to help you.

I will be amazed if you are approved for an adoption without a functioning kitchen, despite it being a childhood dream.

for all the haters, you have no idea, other than what I've actually written, about my circumstances

No-of course we don't! We don't know you-all we know is what you tell us.

That's why posts asking random people for advice are so much more successful when they give all the useful facts!

Off topic slightly but I'm laughing at a previous poster who suggested that a five month old sleeps 15 hours a day!!

mine didn't nap for longer than 20 minutes until she was 6 months old, and don't sleep through until 14 months. There was no time to do anything, she was constantly effing awake!

what I do want to say is that I know a hell of a lot about adoption, having planned, since I was a kid, to do

a great aspiration but unfortunately a rather romantic view of the reality. Have you spoken to LA or SS about your prospects of being approved, as a single parent with (presumably) birth child living in substandard accommodation? There are already more approved prospective adopters for under 2s than babies/toddlers ready for adoption in UK. Screening is rigorous and more emphasis on working with birth family except in the most serious of circumstances, which put the child at high risk of potential harm (drug abuse, dv, MH issues etc) or with health or disability issues.

Badger - 15 hours per day is the average, according to google and the babycenter.com . Both my dc slept longer than that, 12 hours plus 2x2, and the op didn't mention any sleep problems.

Ah that is problem, my baby hadn't read those websites :) I was in a mumsnet group with 90 other women with newborns born at the same time as mine, and none of theirs had either.

We all tortured ourselves with this kind of research and wondered what we were doing wrong.

I do wonder where they get these averages form!

I guess mums who initially have a problem of some kind, seek out a forum such as mumsnet. All those whose babies sleep well etc have no need to seek advice or comfort in numbers, so don't come on such forums. I know plenty whose babies slept.
Sorry to go off thread, but wanted to respond.

My baby also slept nowhere near that!
10 frequently interrupted hours overnight, and barely at all in the day - 40 minutes if I was lucky (she was the same at nursery, it wasn't my fault )

Tbh, I also wouldn't have said that I had a problem with sleep in a post like the OP's... because it wasn't that far from a lot of people's normal.

All that said, the OP still has time to sort out boxes for keep / throw / charity.

Easily.

You have a box of bits, you sit down with baby, you take things out one by one and hold them up. Lots of chat to baby about what it is and what shall we do with it. Let them play with it if appropriate. Give them the "to throw" box to empty out everywhere (slightly away from the keep / charity boxes. Easier at 7 months than most other ages I think.

If the OP can't sort out boxes and manage a baby, then I think a PP might be thinking along the correct lines that OP is a hoarder, or there is some other MH issue involved.

And as for OP saying they need a second child cos they can't entertain one on their own?
Yes, it's hard some days.
Yes, it's bloody boring some days.
(no matter how much you love them)

But for the love of god, having 2 is not the answer to feeling unable to adequately parent 1

I'm a single parent of one (through non-traditional means!) who planned to have two which didn;t work out so I have some sympathy for your position.

The only good reason to have a second child (route to that child is relatively unimportant) is because you desperately want a second. Whether they will make a good sibling to your child is something that cannot be guaratneed so cross that off as a reason for doing it.

As a totally lone parent by choice you should in all conscience do some proper contingency planning - work out what will happen if tax credits are reduced or removed and how you will cope with that and if you have a contingency plan that works then go for it.

If you are considering adoption then any adopted child will need their own room and will need to be a minimum of 2 years younger than all birth children so your child will need to be at least 2 before most councils will take you on.

You mention possibly adopting a child over 5 which means you are talking in 7 years or more so plenty of time to plan and build up a financial cushion.

You need to consider that adopted children may be way needier than birth children and after-school clubs can be challenging for them so you would need to consider working part-time anyway but your spare time is unlikely to be doing house improvements. You can't assume a school age adopted child will be able to play nicely with you birth child - they may well be big issues that need you to supervise very carefully.

Good luck.

Oh and as a single person one of the things you will be quizzed on quite carefully is your support network because you really really need one when you adopt so you need to start putting one in place now. I have found much of my support has come from parents of friends of DS that I didn't know when planning. SO start thinking about that whilst your DS is a baby and try to forge some supportive links to other parents.

arethereanyleftatall - this was/is an active facebook group that evolved through pregnancy, newborn to toddler over 4 years. it wasn't a one off problem shop. honestly, no one had babies that slept like that.

or maybe they did, but they kept it to themselves to avoid sounding smug.

I think that's probably true badger - the smugness bit.
If someone says 'I'm knackered. Had 1 hour sleep last night.'
There's not many people who'll say
'Gutted. I got 9 hours straight.'
So, it seems like it's not very common.

You'd be surprised, at the start a lot of people were sleep boasting. A few weeks later when they were on their knees with sleep deprivation like the rest of us, we all supported one another. It was actually quote joyous and life affirming.

If you are lacking in empathy, I can understand why you might miss this.

OP,, if you are still there, don't have another baby!

badger my DC1 slept loads. My mum asked if there was something wrong. I kept quiet. More than 15hr per day.

Then we had DC2 and my mild but quiet smugness bit me very hard on the bum.

Why so cagey about how you got pregnant?

I would say she's Helen Archer, but she hasn't emphasised her strong family support.

My DS was sleeping around 21 hours at 6 months - he didn't just sleep through the night he slept through the day! He literally woke up only to feed every few hours between the hours of 8am and 7pm - I was starting to get seriously worried! Then some sort of internal switch was flipped and he stopped sleeping in the day other than a 20 minute after lunch siesta from about 8 months.

My DS was sleeping around 21 hours at 6 months - he didn't just sleep through the night he slept through the day! He literally woke up only to feed every few hours between the hours of 8am and 7pm - I was starting to get seriously worried! Then some sort of internal switch was flipped and he stopped sleeping in the day other than a 20 minute after lunch siesta from about 8 months.