To be tired too?

[Grinchyboo]

Ok i get it! (Well I don't cos I don't have kids) parents are tired, they have sleepless nights and have to do all the jobs that come along with parenting but as a person who doesn't have kids am I not allowed to be tired as well?

I know there is gonna be back lash for this but honestly it's soooo annoying when I say I'm tired because I've been up half the night with phantom pains in my residual limb (amputated 5 years ago) or even if I've been out drinking the night before and I'm just generally tired. Or if i have had a busy week of walking here there and everywhere which tires me out. But people with kids are like "you don't know what tired is!" Or "how can YOU be tired? You have no kids keeping you up?" I've been told off for saying I'm tired by multiple parents as if it's a fricken competition? Surely ANYONE can be chronically tired? Everyone has their own levels of tolerance for sleep deprivation. It's especially annoying when my tiredness is dismissed at work but someone with a kid says it and they get special treatment. The other week my boss let a colleague sit and do paperwork all day(usually the managers job) because they were tired! Sigh

Tiredness is not usually a competition, but there is a world of difference between medical/having children tiredness and being a bit hungover/had a busy week tiredness . Surely as someone having a medical condition, you must understand that? If I moaned (as I have this week) about how exhausting it was being up with my sick baby all night for days, and someone retorted with ‘yeah, I’m shattered for being in the pub too long, gosh life is exhausting isn’t it?’, I’d wonder what bloody planet they lived on.

Welcome To mumsnet by the way, interesting musings for your first post.

Sorry you're in pain. The sooner people realise tired is not a competition and nobody can ever win the better!
I think there are different types of tired - tired from lack of sleep is particularly horrid and combine that with not only lack of sleep but being woken by the sound of a screeching baby - I guess that makes people in that position feel that nobody can be worse off than them even if this is patently untrue!
I think with stuff like this that 'smile and nod' is the only response that won't drive you mad!

I have chronic fatigue and people still say this to me. It's ridiculous. I'm about to have a baby and people are like "oh, you'll know what tired is then!". Really? There's a level beyond "so tired I'm struggling to breathe"? Hm, didn't think so. 🙄

No everyone’s situation is different. Kids are relentless though in that you can have disturbed sleep night after night for months on end whereas with a hangover although you feel horrific and exhausted you get to go home, look after only yourself and then recover! Sounds like heaven. I’d nearly get a hangover just to enjoy the recovery without kids hanging on me and waking me all night following night too.

Long term pain and illness that keeps you awake and effects your energy though is a terrible thing too. So anyone with that would have 100% sympathy from me.

Sorry Firstborn but there is a level above so tired you’re struggling to breath it’s ‘so tired you’re struggling to breath but there’s a child screaming in your face that you have to do 2 hrs of minding/feeding/holding with no break anyway’.

We all manage somehow. And it’s really not a competition. Life is hard some days/weeks/months no matter what people’s individual set ups are.

These are all fair comments I just sometimes think, it's probably true that I don't know true exhaustion in the way that a parent do, but there are times where I struggle to get through the day because I'm so tired and for me that's the MOST tired I can be! So regardless of whether i would feel more tired if I had kids, I should still be allowed to express my tiredness if yswim?

@Auntiepatricia I do kind of think that what your saying in your second comment is what I'm on about! That person obviously feels extremely tired but your saying yeah bit not as tired as it would be with kids !

Grinchy, do you not agree that suffering from chronic tiredness would be even harder with small kids demanding things from you on top of it? It’s simply a fact in this case.

The ‘competition’ between someone with chronic fatigue and someone well but with chronically badly sleeping babies is less clear cut and I would even bother to try and figure out which one had it worse.

Wouldn’t

Grinchyboo and Firstbornunicorn, the phrase ‘you don’t know what tired is until you have a child’ is the biggest cliche going. However, there is a grain of truth to it. No, not for everyone, and even my first baby made me wonder what the heck people go on about. Then my second arrived, and my goodness no, I had not known what tired was until that point. Tired to the point of feeling physically and mentally ill, tired to the point where there were days where I genuinely worried I was going to be a danger through clumsiness and delusions. That is not to say other people’s exhaustion doesn’t matter, that people without children cannot be tired to the point of breaking. However children only add to the situation, so any day to day tiredness (from hangovers to medical conditions) are exasperated further.

Tell people you don't play fatigue Top Trumps.
I have a chronic illness and a struggling autistic child. I'm beyond tired and would undoubtedly be less tired if I wasn't a parent to my son. However I try not to dismiss others fatigue and I don't compete with them.

@DoneLikeAKipper I completely agree with you and I realise that children would only make any tiredness a person already has worse, but it's frustrating that some parents just think childless people simply can't be tired or know what it is! But yes I imagine kids exacerbate things for some! My nephew never slept for my sister and she was a walking zombie for about a year! But she never made it a copetiom like some do

I have been very tired at points in life before having children, usually due to insomnia. The difference for me was that it wasn't every night, so there was a chance of catching up. With a baby, I was woken multiple times a night (and struggling with insomnia!) so there was no way of ever catching up. However if someone suffers from illness/insomnia that does affect them every night I can see they may feel the same.

I have lots of colleagues without children and I let them moan when they are hungover etc as I am the one who chose to have children. However you really can't compare this! If someone decides to stay out drinking until 3am they surely know they will be tired, and decide it is worth it. No-one would voluntarily be up half the night with a non-sleeping child!

The thing is, everyone with children at some point didn't have children. So they remember being very, very tired from working or staying up late or being ill, but they also know how that feels when you add in having children. So they're probably right, to be honest.

I don't have children yet, but I'm pregnant and all through the pregnancy whenever I've said I'm tired I've had people roll their eyes and tell me I don't know tired. I totally get that when baby is here I'll be tired a lot, but you can be tired for a million reasons, pain, stress, sickness, a bad mattress even!

Will never know why people always need to turn things into a competition. Take no notice of these people. Hope you manage to get some rest and feel better soon.

@michaelbaubles absolutely! Still no need to dismiss other people's tiredness though! This thread isn't dismissing that parents are VERY tired people sometimes, but that it is unfair that others are not allowed to be tired.

For the record, my condition means I am up in agony for at least 3 or 4 hours probably 2-3 times a week, I know not as much as some parents are up but I'm still tired

but it's frustrating that some parents just think childless people simply can't be tired or know what it is!

I don’t completely agree, I think a lot of it stems from being in a ‘parent bubble’. Not ok, still not a competition, but sometimes as a parent you (selfishly!) do wonder why other people moan about general tiredness, when you literally don’t know how you’re still conscious at that point. Doesn’t mean those people don’t have the right to complain, of course.

To make a comparison - let’s say you’re sat in A and E with a badly broken leg, and someone comes in with a bad-but-manageable cut. The guy with the cut has definitely a reason to moan about having an accident and being in pain, but the other dude with his bone poking out of his skin might wondering why the first guy is making such a fuss. Then someone else will come in having been hit by a bus, and make everyone else’s complaints look minor.

So not a competition, but I think there should be a quiet acceptance that one person can be more tired than another, depending on circumstances.

I totally get that when baby is here I'll be tired a lot, but you can be tired for a million reasons, pain, stress, sickness, a bad mattress even!

Again, the point people don’t get pre-children is, you still have all of that tired, plus a whole other life of tired on top. It’s really difficult to explain unless you’re in the situation. Not necessary having a child, any exceptionally stressful/life changing event added into your every day exhausting tasks. It’s like you are literally two people living one life, and neither of them get a break or enough sleep.

I don't mind non parents moaning about being tired. Everyone can be tired. And it's not fair to not let you voice that because you don't have kids.

For me personally I have never been as tired as when my kids were younger. I averaged about three hours sleep a night for 2.5 years (close age gap) I only really moaned to DH and best mate though. No one else really cares I think

@Chipsarelife perhaps it's just the people I work with?! I'm the only one without a child, and I don't understand what it's like to have kids, but they don't understand what it's like to have only 1 leg, but I don't go on about it to them when they need a sit down or something

I agree it's not a competition and I don't understand why people treat it like one.

But... complaining about being tired because you're hungover and get to go home and sleep for as long as you want is a world away from having been up all day and night with a baby or child and going home to the same for an indeterminable amount of time. Being exhausted because you've been up all night with pain/medical condition is somewhat similar as it's not going away (just without kids it's just you to look after iyswim).

I've been completely exhausted pre motherhood and it was hard, really hard. I was having an awful time and had insomnia for months. Then dd came along and didn't sleep more than 90 minutes for a good 6-7 months day and night, her record was 16 hours awake! and that didn't stop, she was a crap sleeper until 3, that's 3 years where I could barely function, I'd drive an hour to work and have no memory of getting in the car... if someone had moaned at me about being out the night before they wouldn't have got any sympathy but equally I wouldn't have launched into a monologue about my own tiredness.

It's not a monopoly parents have and no one should make anyone feel bad or small. After all parents chose to have children but nobody asked for illnesses.

Say that to them. In the same way that you can't understand having kids they cannot understand the horrendous pain you suffer and also the struggle of not having four limbs in day to day life.

They may just bring extra grumpy as they're tired!

I feel this too. I do have children and they're at school now. I have a chronic illness which means my fatigue is like a stonking hangover plus flu plus sleep deprivation all rolled into one
I sleep 16 hours a day and am constantly uncomfortable die to intense itching and pains and confused due to memory loss. When people say they are tired I do sigh a bit inside as it's all relative, but everyone is entitled to feel tired whatever their work/ health/ family situation.

I've had to just let it go. Just dropping my kids off at school wipes me out for the whole day but I'm not bed bound and can still shower / shuffle around the house/ make a sandwich of I rest in between. I can't do days out at theme parks or go swimming or shopping or take the kids to fun places but I'm trying not to focus on that and think what I can do.

@notsurewhatshappening sounds awful and I hope you get some support if you feel you need it! Oh to go swimming! I used to love swimming but now having my stumpy in anything cooler than about 30 degrees ends in agony! I do feel for you, but it's refreshing to read that you don't take tiredness away from people who don't have the same struggles

I will also say that before I became ill, when my second child was a baby I was extremely sleep deprived and also unwell with anxiety. Very poor broken sleep over a very long period of time, eg over a year, stress of going back to work with DH working away a lot etc
I was so sleep deprived I wrecked DH'S car, dropped baby on his head at nursery and made a horrible mistake at work. This was normal sleep deprivation from parenting 2 under 3 years old. But it was my choice to have them and there was an end in sight- they both now sleep well and are more independent.

In my experience, chronic illness is worse because there's no timescale of when I might get better or not. I just have to rest for now. My brain has turned to mush too.