Or is this set-up unsustainable and shit?

[AnnaHorribilis]

I’m having yet another thoroughly miserable day (it’s becoming an almost daily occurrence now) and I’d just like a reality check — is this a totally crap and unsustainable situation or am I just in need of a grip? Wondering if this could be PND, even?

DH and I have 3 young children: 4, 2 and 9 months.

My husband works full-time; I am a SAHM by day but WFH (web-related) in the evenings. I earn roughly half what he does, if that’s relevant.

The 4yo goes to a local preschool for her 15 funded hours a week. The younger two are with me full-time. The 9mo is still breastfed and will not be put down for more than 5 mins, and will only sleep on me, day and night.

So, after the older two go to bed, I feed the baby with my laptop balanced on my knees behind her, and work like that from about 8-12. She’s ill and teething at the moment so not settling at all, but I have to just keep swapping sides and carry on because she won’t settle otherwise and I have deadlines to meet.

When I’m too tired to work any more, I close the laptop, slide down a bit on the sofa and sleep half sitting all night, with constant wake-ups from the baby.

DH sleeps in the bed upstairs, usually also working late, and if the older two wake up early or in the middle of the night, they go in with him.

I do all the housework, shopping, and any “life admin” (sorry, I know MN hates that term but think birthday/Xmas cards and presents, bills, insurance, tax, appointments, everything). After previous outbursts about this (from me), DH now does most of the washing up in the morning before he goes to work, leaving the dirtiest pans etc. as he washes cleanest-dirtiest and they won’t all fit on the drying rack 🙄

So my day is basically: get up with the baby; get all three children bathed and dressed; put wash on; make breakfast for everyone; walk eldest to school for 9; come back and look after two or three preschoolers all day as well as any chores that need doing; make dinner for 6 so we can all eat together when DH gets in; bedtime routine; work with fussy baby on top of me; sleep/not sleep sitting up all night; repeat.

Is this normal/expected when kids are this age? I just feel like there’s absolutely NO fun or downtime in my life at the moment.

I’m also not enjoying my children at all. I’m knackered and bad-tempered almost all the time and it feels like they’re always complaining, bickering, crying, making mess, demanding things, etc. etc. etc. I know they’re not, and they’re actually lovely children who I love to bits, but I’m just so worn down and snowed under with everything I’ve got to do.

I feel like a totally crap parent at the moment. I snap at them and feel awful for it, but my temper seems to be getting shorter and shorter by the day. I feel on-edge, stressed out, angry and tearful a lot of the time.

Sorry that was so long! 😭 Basically AIBU to be feeling this way, does this sound like too much to cope with to you or am I just not resilient enough?

You have to wash them, dry them and store them. That is significantly harder than throwing them away

I’m still breastfeeding because we were lucky she took to it well, and so far carrying on has been the path of least resistance.

Same with the sleep, I suppose. I’m always too tired/busy/lazy to make the change “tonight”, so on it goes, the same problems.

To be honest, I don’t even know where to start with the sleep. But will definitely look into it since that’s the consensus here.

Reason for cloth nappies is both financial and environmental; I’m really keen to keep up with them for both reasons but I’m also willing to consider taking a break for a bit if it would take some of the load off.

You need childcare in the day OP. Your oldest has 15 hours, I presume 3 hours a day. Send the 2 little ones as well. Maybe pay for an extra hour for the oldest and do 3.5 hours a day, 4 days a week. Then use the other 3.5 hours (taking off drop off time) and relax. Have a bath, chill and watch crappy TV, go for a swim or whatever you want to do.

Then I bet sleep training will be easier. And I bet you are more productive work time, and your dh needs to help with sleep training/night weaning. And you need your bed as well.

Don’t have a dishwasher, nor the room and funds for one, sadly.

By the way @HildaSnibbs we love that book! My life feels like that atm.

Oh sweetheart, you are not a horrible person in any way! No-one can live like this for months on end. You need rest, you need sound sleep sometimes. Your baby needs to learn to sleep not on you, and they honestly can, because even co-sleeping older children don't sleep on their parents!
Is there any indication baby has reflux, hence preferring to sleep on tummy? Or is it just they're used to your warmth and heartbeat?
With my youngest, I managed to get him to sleep next to me, with my hand on his chest for the warmth/weight. Might help transition?

Oh OP - I totally feel for you, this is entirely untenable, from the point of view of your mental health.
However, financially I don't know how much you 'need' the money from your job, or how able you would be to afford childcare.
If you absolutely need the money, and can't afford childcare, I'm not sure what you can do. (Possible to cut spending in other areas?)
But if there's ANY financial lee-way, I would either pack in the job (for now) or put the youngest children in nursery for enough time for you to get your work done.

I really hope there's something you can do to change this horrendous situtation. Otherwise your mood will get worse, your temper shorter, and you might start resenting DH and the DC, which would not be good. You are way overworked and it's not right. Good luck OP

@AnnaHorribilis are you self employed ? Your four year old is entitled to 30 free hours not 15. And at your dc age a twice weekly bath is perfectly sufficient.

And I bf them both until 18mo, so you don't have to stop, you really don't. But baby does need to sleep not on you.

Thank you so much everyone ❤️ I was half expecting a volley of “YABU, you chose to have kids, this is what it’s like” but I’m feeling motivated to make some serious changes now. We can’t go on like this.

Dinner and bedtime to do now so I’m going to disappear for a bit. Thank you so much.

get your husband to do bath and bed routine of an evening, less for you to do in a morning.
its difficult but you need to get your children in a routine, you need time alone of an evening even if you are only just working

No pain no gain. You need to "take some annual leave" and sort the baby out. Sleeping on the sofa is not on.

Do you get out to mums and tots or anything? I had to have a routine when they were small otherwise I'd have gone mad.

Weekends - get out as a family for a walk every Sunday. Even if you don't want to. Probably kept us sane in the early days.

Find a babysitter and go out at least once a month.

Make the sleep training of the baby your DH’s project to research, please. Make him take ownership of this process. You can still breastfeed daytimes and a goodnight feed, but past 8pm baby becomes your DH’s responsibility to soothe.

This is made easier if you can totally absent yourself from the process. Hotel room = ideal. Otherwise ear plugs and a closed bedroom door.

get your husband to do bath and bed routine of an evening, less for you to do in a morning

Please read the thread, she says she needs to do morning baths because she uses cloth nappies and the children get sore otherwise.

I don't think it's wrong to suggest viable alternatives to what she's doing - yes the WHO recommends breastfeeding for two years, but that's a worldwide recommendation and a robust, solids-eating nine month old is different from a newborn. I'm a long-term breastfeeder myself but let's not get all judgey about it from either side. Bottles would possibly be easier, possibly not, it's up to the op to decide.

One disposable at night could very well ease a burden and simplify a routine for their family - why is it wrong to suggest such an idea? I also used to use cloth but nighttime cloth nappies were huge and took up a lot of the nappy washload. Just skipping them at night will make less washing for her, for a start. And fewer baths. So why not try?

Good luck to you, op. I wonder if maybe you have been trundling along, doing things the same way you did for one child or even two, and having the third has tipped you over a bit. Making a few changes won't hurt anyone but may well help make life easier.

It sounds absolutely horrendous, my heart goes out to you.

There have been some great suggestions about more nursery hours. Another thing that occurs to me is that your dh could cook dinner when he gets home at 6, then you could all eat together at 6.30-7ish?

I bf for a year but at least got to lie down and sleep though was woken up every two hours - thought that was bad enough! Can you use some annual leave at work to take a few days off and work on breaking this habit of baby sleeping on you? Hope things get better x

I think the very idea of "enjoying" three children under 5 is absolute madness. One child finished me off and he was a brilliant sleeper and nver made any kind of a fuss. i can't possibly imagine tryng to live with 3 under 5's. I'd probably emigrate on my own.

Sounds hard going, you’re working 20 hours per week plus doing everything else. You need to stop thinking of yourself as a sahm because you’re not, you work part-time. That might help with increasing your expectations of dh, he should be doing half the household chores.

Re the cloth nappies I never had to bath mine on a morning, but if it makes things easier I would use disposables just on a night.

Can you hand the kids over to dh when he gets back from work and he can cook tea and get them sorted while you get a couple of hours work in? Or you could even prep stuff to put in the slow cooker if you get any spare time during the day.

tbh I think you will continue to struggle until you are able to
Put the baby to bed at a reasonable time
Sleep properly in a bed

If you need to work in the evening, you need to start prioritising yourself and that may mean stopping breast feeding and getting your baby into a routine of sleeping in a cot. I actually think you will make yourself ill if you carry on with the current arrangements.

I am not discouraging the breastfeeding but frankly someone bringing the WHO recommendations into this when OP is on her knees is bonkers.

BF babies often are harder to look after. OP has an incredibly difficult situation and needs to make it easier for her sanity.

I had to stop breastfeeding when I returned to work. A lot of women have to, as much as they’d love flexible babies who can deal with mum Not being there at certain times, it often doesn’t happen.

The way to stay sane is to realise you can’t do everything, no matter how much you want to.

What is your DH doing while you juggle a baby on your breast and work??

Something has got to give! This can't go on. Agree you need to sleep train, your DH needs to do it while you work if must be, with some ear plugs.

Personally I'd drop the life admin, surely no one in your life would object to you temporarily stopping buying cards and presents (and if they do they don't deserve to get them in the first place), get all your bills on direct debit, insurance renewals shouldn't take more than an hour per insurance per year, what's taking the time there? What appointments do you have? I'd drop all the non essentials.

I agree with others that rigidly sticking to cloth nappies when it's affecting your mental health is crazy, get your DH to do the baths at night and use a disposable nappy overnight.

Would it be easier if you weren't tied to all eating together, again crazy to do that if you don't need to and bh your DH is a lazy arse if he doesn't do all the washing up, selfish twat

you shouldn't be working in those circumstances, that's ridiculous. get more childcare to cover the baby. and sleep train your baby! they are 9mo. I'm not surprised you are fed up this sounds intolerable,
but it also sounds like you need to help yourself before blaming others.

OP I also just wanted to say I Have total sympathy with just crashing through day by day doing your best and not having the energy to make changes. This has happened so many times to my family also. It’s completely understandable

Op are you entitled to the 30 hours free childcare for the eldest as you are both working?

To some extent, three under three is going to be challenging and exhausting unless you have a lot of help, so it's not like you're failing here, you're in a situation that is hard. But it does get a lot better as they get older. Even so, you sound in a particularly difficult situation and like you need something to give before you crack. Just because it's a difficult situation don't ignore the fact you could also have PND or depression - the stress of your situation makes it more likely so see a GP if you're thinking that could be a factor.

So you are working (outside the home, not including all the work you're doing looking after 3 children all day) 20 hours a week and earning half what your husband does and he is working a full day at work and 4 more hours in the evening?

It sounds like it would be a good idea for you to do more employed work and your DH to cut his hours to free up your time in order to improve your financial situation.

That's a bit of a medium term strategy, though. More immediately the sleep training is important. Your husband needs to take the baby at night for a month or two (yes, initially it will hell). Also, he should take the baby in the evenings and do his work while tending to her for a while too. And can I suggest you lower your standards on somethings to try and get sometime to enjoy life again. At weekends on one day plan on a family pajama day watching movies together, go out for a walk, visit family or friends. Then on the other each take a half day to yourself at while the other manages all the kids on their own. Try and break the routine so it doesn't feel like the days all bleed into one long slog that never changes.

If you have any family who will babysit or you can afford a babysitter one a fortnight or once a month then do so. Make sometime to keep up your relationship with your husband because that was the relationship that made the children seem like a good idea, right? You don'w want to lose it. - And make some of this DH's job. You seem to be both stuck in a bit of rut (pushed there by the pressure of three kids and few resources) you both need to be putting the effort in and providing the direction to make your life seem good again.