To not have any idea how to cope?

[EssieTregowan]

I'm currently a SAHM although all three dc are at school, I have very poor mental health and have managed to stabilise it over the last few months by carefully factoring in A LOT of downtime. Dont get me wrong, I'm not sitting on my arse all day, but DH basically does the evening shift at home and picks up quite a lot of slack at the weekends.

His job is quite senior and they have a huge project due in the next six months. He has been 'asked' to work overtime to implement this. He already does a bit, like three hours on a Sat/Sun from home (he gets up early to do this), but he's now keen to, and basically has to do six hours both weekend days (he'll work 6am-12pm) and an extra couple of hours per day.

He has asked me if I can let him abdicate all housework responsibility while the overtime is needed. I am of course very happy to do this, in theory, but I'm panicking a bit about how I'm actually going to do it.

I currently manage to keep the house and kids ticking over, although we are constantly on the back foot with things like washing and there is always something to do. He currently does things like the bins, the garden, baths the youngest, cooks when I can't, does bedtime when I need to go to bed early, runs the hoover round at the weekend, stuff like that.

I'm probably being a bit pathetic but I'm panicking now about how it's going to work. I have my moments where I clean the entire house and get through a weeks washing in two days, but they are few and far between. More normal is doing the breakfast dishes after the school run and then having a nap until lunchtime . I also rely on him a lot to remember appointments and help with homework, and he won't really be available for this.

Are we fucked? I hate that I'm so fucking useless but we had a good system that worked. I need to entirely rethink stuff.

Please give me any advice you can, or just tell me to woman the fuck up (kindly though or I'll cry).

Write a 'to do' list for a week. I was a sahm for a while and it was my saving grace. First thing every morning after school run I'd prepare an evening meal, as so it could be cooked with minimum fuss when kids came home. That sense of feeling of being ahead of the day worked wonders for my sense of productivity. X

Thank you all so much. This is all really useful. I just need to not overthink it as well, I think.

The task probably seems mammoth now because you're thinking about it all in one go. As PP suggested write down all the essentials - clean clothes, some kind of food in the fridge, bins out, basic clean etc. Don't make things harder for yourself - get easy dinners ( a few salmon steaks chicken in oven, pasta and pesto, fish fingers) order online. Break it down day by day. e.g. Monday morning washing on, have nap, washing in drier, cup of tea, washing folded.

Tuesday clean bathroom etc. You can probably cut it down to an hour a day.

With regards to outsourcing: our circumstances are different, but as a matter of course my dh does next to nothing in the house, garden, etc.. I find gardeners and handymen so that I don't have to do it all. But we consider it to be dh, not me, who's outsourcing. After all, it's work that he would otherwise be doing. Would it help you to justify it if you looked at it that way?

My children are 8, 5 & 2 - the older two help with laundry, can sort their clothes into washing colours, then DH shoves it into the machine and presses start on his way out to work. They both earn pocket money for sorting the clean laundry and putting away in the right rooms and places. Beds I do on rotation, one bed once a week.
Dinners go in the slow cooker in the morning so they are ready for evening.
We have cleaners who come once a week and blitz the place. Gardeners in the spring/summer once a week.
We both work FT so some things have to be out-sourced - I would feel no shame in doing the same thing if I were you, your MH needs prioritising.

I agree with the advice above. It can be overwhelming when you think of housework as one big task. Break it down into smaller tasks and set yourself a small achievable goal for each day.

Try to dedicate a limited amount of time (e.g. An hour after school run each morning) to concentrate your tasks, whether that's doing the beds, hoovering, meal prep etc. You need to make sure you still get your down time.

Have you heard of the spoon theory? It's a very useful way of understanding how illness and disability can impact on our energy levels and ability to carry out activities of daily living.

butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

roundandroundthehouses exactly the same here

Jobs expand to fill the time you have. At the moment household stuff get allocated most of your time during the week and a fair chunk of your DH's at the evenings and weekends and some of the older DCs's (although I assume that is kind of neutral on the benefits!).

I mean this kindly, but most families with working parents dont't have anywhere near that amount of time to allocate to household stuff so it gets fitted in around the job. Your job is maintaining your health, and the house stuff gets fitted around it.

If you feel you need 3 hours to sleep/meditate/exercise/whatever helps you each day, then say you have 2-3 hours each day to get stuff done. Timetable it - 1 hour in the morning to sort kitchen, put on a wash and do one cleaning job. Then rest. After lunch say do one short job. Then rest. Then prep dinner before getting the kids. Or some variation taht works for you.

Plan easy meals, ditch ironing as a whole concept, turn over beds one week longer in between, make the teenagers sort their own washing - read the working parent threads for time saving tips. Internet shop from bed if you need to.

If your Dh does the outside jobs and he can't then outsource them without a second thought.

If you had a physical problem, getting someone to help would be no issue at all. Just because it's a mental health issue doesn't make it any less real or a "lesser" illness.
Don't feel bad. Your health is important.
Don't feel shit because you feel like you should be able to do it. It's ok not to be able to. Do what you can and in moments of clarity and motivation, organise someone else to do the stuff you can't. xxx

Having experienced the blackest of depressions with periods of anxiety, I really feel for you op.

Suggestions as follows:
Get a cleaner
Buy a dishwasher
Get your teens to help you change the beds at the weekends
Do one load of washing a day
On-line food shopping
Meal plan and prepare the evening meal every day after the school run
Give yourself one school day per week in which you can totally rest or do something you enjoy and don't agree to ANY commitments on that day

Look at the Flylady website. The presentation is horribly cutesy but there are some good suggestions there among the ridiculous language such as, setting the timer for 15 mins and doing as much as you can in that time, getting your clothes for the day ready the night before, allocating different days of week for different tasks, cleaning the bathroom for 5 minutes every day.

Divvy up the absolute bare minimum - bins and washing up. Have some surface wipes in the bathroom and kitchen and wipe them over at some point during the day when the kettle is boiling or something. Keep meals simple - take out is fine once a week and eggs/beans on toast, jacket potatoes, carton soup with crusty bread etc are perfectly fine meals that take 5 mins.
I don't even spend 30 mins a day on housework and never have. I hoover, dust and do beds once a week and I iron only what looks creased. My house/clothes look a similar standard to friends I have who are forever cleaning, ironing underwear etc.

Great posts from Minesa and Happyhippy

Here's my basic weekly schedule -
Monday - light washing. Plan diary (birthdays, lift arrangements, school dates)
Tuesday - bathroom, dark washing, put shopping delivery away
Weds - towels, kitchen
Thurs - sheets, bedroom, put bins out
Fri - whites, sitting room, bring bins in
Sat - light washing, order online shopping, kids bedrooms/toy area
Sun - dark washing, ironing, tidy garden when I can be bothered.

On top of that, I have a notebook with 3 sections - urgent, mid and low priority. I do 2/3 urgent tasks a day, try to do 1 medium, and work towards 1 long term. E.g. Today I booked hair appointments, bought a birthday card and emailed the pension team with a query (short term). I started on price comparisons for car insurance (med) but didn't get around to doing any long term project.

I also follow Organised Housewife who sends emails for 15 min tasks Monday to Friday, e.g. Tidy one shelf or sort out Tupperware cupboard. Sometimes I can't fit these in, so save them up for when I have a burst of extra energy. Or these sort of jobs can be delegated to teens?

Invest in help if you can, delegate to the kids (even the 5 yo can sort washing). I'm sure your DH wouldn't mind putting the bins out once a week.

Keep a set of cleaning equipment upstairs so you don't have to run up and down the stairs endless times.

We've recently started doing Joe Wickes Lean in 15 recipes which are healthy, tasty and ready in 15 mins!

Rest. As long as the essentials are done, life won't fall apart.

The websites that supposedly tell you how to do do everything efficiently and quickly would be making extra work for me!

thats a lot of hours for dh with no breaks - make sure the employer doesnt take the piss _ i wouldnt sacrifice that much of my life, and i work at director level.

Why are you having a morning nap? Do you need to work on improving your sleep? Or have I missed a physical illness that requires rest? Or are you on meds that are leaving you drowsy?

I agree with planning/timetabling activity so you are working at a steady pace and not burning yourself out. Plus if you are suffering from low mood it can be hard to motivate yourself so planning can help.

Also plan yourself some activities that increase pleasure. Try to do one small thing a day that you look forward to. Even a nice coffee or a favourite TV programme. This will help to break up your day.

A very basic tip it to get a white board or one of those family calendars and get everyone to fill out appointments, after school activities etc. I would be lost without mine. I cant remember anything! Dh also puts in his meetings and overtime hours also.

Meal plan and shop online

Slowcooker for midweek meals - chilli, curry, stew

Get a cleaner, just do it. You have 4 kids, a dh working all hours and yourself to look after.

Breathe

You will be fine, I swear. My SIL was like you, her dh had to work away one night a week and she didn't know how she would cope. He did all the things your dh did. She found her own way to cope. Kids dropped off then she had a nap, after nap dinner was put on to be ready after collections. Housework divided up with the kids and herself. They coped. We coped also, now I find it crazy that I was panicking, but its fine and actually has been good for my mental health.

Sorry pressed enter too soon. By my mental health, I have found the routine, the having to have things to do and lists have helped me get out more and do more. I was becoming a recluse, anxious over even leaving the house. Now I miss my morning walk and once a week coffee out if I don't get around to it.

You have lots of great ideas here. You definititly need a nice new notebook so you can write down all your lists.

I also echo what topcat said, is your DH getting breaks etc. It sounds like he will be working 7 days a week for 6 months. That's not good for his mental health! Why is he being asked to do so much?

Essie there has been some great advice on here but also I would like to add as someone who has had Mental health issues in the past, try to stretch your stamina a little too. Look up pacing of long term conditions like MS, sometimes resting too much makes you tired. Look at what is just time consuming and if you had organised/ energy would be ok vs what you find stressful doing and see if you can find help or different ways of doing the stressful stuff. For example I don't mind changing the beds or matching socks once I get round to it but I found making complicated evening meals stressful whilst managing the kids. You don't know how you will cope, although you are naturally worried about the stress, if you can manage this positively, hopefully with the right support, it could be an opportunity to push to further step to recovery! Good luck!

Draw up a housework schedule, make it really detailed because in breaking it down to that level of detail you are listing lots of small jobs.

E.g.Mon
1x colour wash clothes
Change linen on your bed
Living room - tidy, dust, sweep floor

And so on. That way you can work down the list, each task is relatively small & takes 5-15 mins, then you can cross it off the list.

Get a large year planner and put it up in a prominent place.
Everything (& I mean everything) goes on the planner. If it's not on there it doesn't happen.
Check it first thing every day.
On Sat look at the week ahead - do you need to get a birthday card/ gift?, plan a quick meal one evening due to the children's after school events etc sort it out in advance.

Good luck, this is perfectly do able with some planning.

There's loads of really easy stuff you can do in the slow cooker - literally minutes to prep. I am a fairly functional cook and nothing i make tastes amazing but we are all fed and no one has scurvy. The benefit of the slow cooker is that you can set it off in the morning, or after lunch, or whatever then if you have to have a break in the evening your teens can dish it out and eat it and feed the 5 year old. I can post some "recipes" if you like.

You should definitely get a cleaner as well. You are very important and you need protecting. Mine puts away laundry for me so I do a load every evening, then in the morning take the dry clothes off the airer, hang the wet ones and put the dries in a big Ikea bag. She sorts it and puts it away once a week. And irons DHs shirts (nothing else is ironed). And changes the beds and towels.

You can definitely do it.

It could end up rather pointless for your DH to have done some of the extra work if you end up hospitalised with a health crisis, and he has to let work down suddenly by taking the next week off. So I really think that you should be setting up as much practical support as you can initially - you can then lower the cleaners hours or cancel altogether if your health remains good.

I'd say:
Get a cleaner so that the house is decent once a week. (And also so that the cleaner knows your house and could do more if needed at short notice, just in case.)
Set up a weekly auto grocery delivery (you can do this with Ocado) of simple but nutritious food to fit in with your meal plan.
Increase how much your teenagers do at weekends.
Try to build up gradually, not taking on loads more overnight.

The batch cooking and freezing meals is good - if at the start of the day I know the evening meal is sorted, it makes me feel calmer during the day which can have the knock on effect of making me more productive. I suffer with chronic migraine and regularly lose days to pain, where I am bed bound and vomiting. To offset the inconvenience I have now learned to try and be ahead in vital areas so that if a migraine strikes then I am not lying in bed worrying about how everything is going wrong domestically. So, a couple of meals as back up in freezer. I shop online now so in 2 clicks can have at least my usuals delivered. I have a spare set of school uniform for each child ready. I also have a dog so I have got to know a good dog walker who I can rely on if I can't get out with the dog. Have you got a selection of people who could help if need be? Ie. A local ironing company? A cleaner? It may give you peace of mind to give them some work in a non - urgent situation so that if you do need to call on them you have got past the initial introduction stage (which can be a faff). Do you have someone who can collect 5 year old from school if you need? I think your honesty about the effect of MH problems on your domestic set up is great and that you're being really responsible. I hope things go smoother than you are anticipating.

for gods sake put yourself first instead of waiting for it to go wrong.