to feel annoyance when my childless colleagues keep saying how tired they are?

[sandyballs]

They don't know the meaning of the word

God they're doing it again, yawning and stretching, going on about their late nights down the pub. I've decided it's jealousy, even though I've been there and done that before kids and I wouldn't change my life now.

We had a friend to stay for the weekend (childless!) and she had to have an afternoon nap on Sat because my children had worn her out . She kept saying "is it always like this " .

yes i think you are
it's all relative

Oh don't get me started on this!!!! this has been bugging me only this morning, girl here in the office, still lives at home with "mammy" would admit herself that EVERYTHING is done for her - ironing, dinner on table, bed made etc and yet EVERY SINGLE DAY she comes to work moaning moaning moaning about how exhausted she is and how shes going straight home to have a hot bed and straight to bed AARRGGHH!!!

yes you are unreasonable. She's probably out all night partying and shoppiung - she has every right to be as tired as you.

Before I had children, I thought I knew what tiredness was. After the first 2 weeks with my DTS who did not sleep for more than 3 hours day and night, nobody can tell me about tiredness. That is why I have no sympathy for mothers of singletons.

I have been on my own with our nearly 3yo DTS since Thursday because DH is working away. I also work part-time. I have no family near (150 miles away) and because DM is ill, she could not visit. I took the boys to Sunday for a break yesterday . I exercise to counter my tiredness.

Sunday School

No. You're not. Give them a kick up the ar*e and tell them to shape up Any sympathy going begging is yours by right!!!

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Even with two young children I NEVER feel as tired as I did when I was young and working hard and socialising every evening! I was totally EXHAUSTED most of the time.

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Deep down inside, I do wander round thinking "Ha! You don't know what tired is, lady!" when childless friends or colleagues complain about feeling tired. Isn't it just a moral judgement, though? I've stayed up all night and gone to work knackered many times before having children, and I'm sure I was as tired then as I am now after being woken three times by a crying toddler, the difference is that this time it's unrelenting and as I've chosen to have children I don't get to choose not to be woken up by them. Also, I used to work 10 - 12 hrs a day when I didn't have children, and that was tiring, too. Now I'm first out! Having said that, I used to have a 9am meeting once a week and I, the only person with a small child, was always first in having prepared a lot more than some of my childless colleagues - and I never missed a deadline, either

I do remember being pregnant first time round and thinking that I was sooooo tired!!! I would take to me bed in the middle of the afternoon and DH would bring me tea and sympathy. Second and third time round with LOs to look after the memory of that just made me laugh that I was such a primadonna!

but if you've decided to have children and they keep you up, is that not self-inflicted also? i i often thought that i wasn't goin to be able to have a child... i'd have to say that during that time i may have said to friends with children that i was tired/hungover etc.

were they cross with me?
who cares?
would i have swapped their tiredness for mine?
in a heartbeat.

I work with a twentysomething who says, "I don't know how you do it".

We like her

OO wanted to stick pins in her childless colleague's eyes when she said this.

I'm with the 'you don't know the MEANING of the word tired til you've had children' brigade.

Depends on your lifestyle. I'm really tired with children, was really tired before children, but in a different way. Pre-children I was working full time, 6 days a week in a demanding job (teaching full time), but because it was a private school and I was commuting 45 miles each way, I had to leave the house at 6.45, so get up at 5.45 each morning, and wouldn't get home until 10.45/11.00 in the evening, having not had an evening meal, so wouldn't get to bed till 12.00, assuming I had no marking or anything. During term time I had NO life outside work, during the holidays I slept!

With children, it's a really different sort of tiredness - I spend far longer in the house, but have no time to myself, except the time on MN!!!!

and I had an extremely hectic and demanding social life in my twenties but nope, still nothing compared to the tiredness of 1.5 years of no sleep (as we had with dd)

It's also an age thing - I used to work full time, go straight to the pub, have a quick bite of something, go nightclubbing, get in at about 4.30 in the morning, up again at 7 and off to work..... Nowadays, there is NO WAY I could do that. And then, I wasn't even tired!!!

I used to moan how tired I was pre children, and now I am really embarassed about it. I think tiredness like illness is a self indulgence that you don't get to luxuriate much in if you are a parent.

However it is a different type of tiredness, I find now that I am back at work, as soon as I get home and have to launch into feeding and bathing I instantly forget about work because I'm doing other things whereas before I used to stew on things. Also now I don't have the option of working late or doing too much travelling but before DS I used to do lots of both of those.Oh and plus I used to lie in a lot and I think getting too much sleep makes you tireder.

Luckily DS is now a good sleeper, but after the first few terrible weeks, I swore I would never say I was tired again unless I had genuinely had next to no sleep for at least two nights running, and have kept to that.

There's a lot of smug, holier-than-thou attitude on this thread. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, as you're all so tired .

I've wanted children since my early twenties, and am pregnant with my first at 31.

I would have loved to have been as tired as my friends with kids.

Since that wasn't an option, I went out and lived instead.

And if I was tired in the office, I damn well moaned about it.

Just you wait boobobobobobobooooooooo.
You haven't got any yet. Come back in six months and tell us you're not knackered, dare you.

Course I'll be knackered WWW! .

Just think that Mothers aren't the only ones with the right to whinge.

I have three members of staff who are 47, 50 and 53. All childless - saying that the 50 and 53 would have dearly loved kids and they couldn't so I feel blessed that i have. They are not a problem at all.

However, the 47 year old (she drives us all mad), expects all of us (not just me) to work around her all of the time.

She is single, has a four bedroomed house (no mortgage), she works 18 1/2 hrs per week. The only think she does is goes to church. But oh my god does she moan about how tired she is. She expects us to allow her holidays when she wants them and she won't work more that two days in a row because it's too tiring.

Try my world love!

I think I am tired and I don't get the chance to catch up on sleep anymore.But I have to learn to live with being tired, I have a tolerance to tiredness that I didn't have before and I get annoyed with people when they should just bloody well put up with being tired like the rest of us.
I don't think people without children have he capacity to exist with the chronic fatigue that mothers do. I don't like people who moan full stop though.