To ask how all you parents do it?

[alreadyfrazzled]

We are a currently childless couple who work full time with a dog. We have a cleaner once a week for 3 hours - she does a lot of dusting but I still have to clean shower after her etc so not a full job.

Today I was flat out WFH (without a commute) - I barely had time for a shower, but my job isn't even particularly crazy hours - it's 5:30 and I'm done today.

Even though cleaner came today, I've still had to do more dishes, cleaned the fridge and taking more recycling out just now. Off to walk the dog for his third walk just now and will be back and barely have time to cook before a reasonable time.

How do you working parents do it? We want TTC soon and I'm honestly scared? Does time magically stretch to accomodate the extra tasks of being a parent? Do you have to get up at 5am every day? Does no one have a pet??

I'll clean my fridge if something spills or spoils 😂

We also have a dishwasher and tumble dryer for the winter months. And on hard weeks days I'll just focus on keeping the house clean instead of tidy. Washing is my proper downfall, it will sit for ages before I fold it 😂

I'd absolutely love a cleaner, even just once a week honestly. Just to take the pressure off me (SAHM and 5 months pregnant with a 2yo), even though my partner does do his share and more!
I guess you just get it done, you know things have to be done so you do it and that's it!

Terrible to admit it, but I work a bit less hard than I used to. E.g I might do an online grocery order while I’m on a zoom call, or get a load of laundry on at the same time. Over the last 18 months I’ve had to juggle work, childcare and homeschooling because of covid and inevitably I’ve not been able to put the same effort in that I was pre-covid.

Exercise: find ways to fit it into your day (run/cycle/walk to work), go to the gym on your lunch break, or have a regular evening class you go to and get DH to do bedtime. Men usually have no problem having regular child-free time, so unless you want to be the Default Parent, you should too.

I don't even know. I've been wfh since DS was about 2w. I have a dog walker but no cleaner. I just keep doing everything that needs doing.

I could’ve written your post word for word.

Me and DH both WFH full time and we have a dog, but we don’t have a cleaner. We’ve both also just started new jobs, so we’re both flat out with meetings and generally feeling drained by the end of the day.

At least one of us is up at 6.30-7am everyday to walk the dog before work, just about have time for some breakfast, then work all day til 5-6pm with a quick break for lunch. By the time we’ve done an evening dog walk (sometimes), general cleaning, made tea and fitted in exercise, I do often wonder how on earth we’d manage with kids too. I know that people do manage, but I just can’t imagine it

I’m leaning towards not having DC as I mostly feel very overwhelmed with the many demands of life as it is. I just don’t think I’m cut out for parenthood.

@Inastatus

Why does your dog need 3 walks a day? My lab only has one decent length walk.

Well a dog will need out for the toilet more than once a day. If you live in a flat then you have to take them out for a walk, albeit just a short one until they do the toilet. So that could easily be 3 walks a day.

We lower our standards

Much lower standards
Much much more tired
Have no choice but to get through each day and keep everyone alive

Lower standards, poorer mental health, time stretches a bit and stuff that was really important before kids just isn’t now.

But I don’t think many of us do FT work, kids, pets and rest of life without sacrificing our sanity a bit tbh….

@Salayes

What’s your partner doing after work while you do those tasks, take the dog for a walk and prep dinner?

Have you answered this question yet @alreadyfrazzled?

Because it'll matter, especially when there's another human being that needs caring for.

@Lulu2021

What I will also say is, I personally often thought I was exhausted pre kids. I'd come home from work and just collapse. Then I had kids and it honestly recalibrated my understanding of what tiredness felt like... 🥴😂

This bit to be fair I'm old now with a teenager and I feel a lot like you again in that I am tired after a day of work and a bit of cleaning in the evening feels like I've done a lot

I was pretty miserable with a young child though as I found the never ending drudge and insufficient time to do everything really depressing and wearing . I don't remember the details now but I haven't forgotten the general feeling of despair and of being trapped on a cycle of drudge and , particularly the tyranny of a rigid routine along with constant last minute demands on my time when DS started school .

Sorry op, I am a bit extreme though I don't mean to put you off. Most normal people manage fine with even more than one child and some even enjoy it. Not me I'm afraid I have a lot of executive function deficits and having a small child put a great deal of strain on those abilities. I managed to be reasonably organised but it was exhausting. I do everything at a much slower pace nowadays and I'm much happier for it

What Upwherethebirdsfly said. I've definitely sacrificed some sanity,l.

My house is more of a tip than usual at the moment, but I can't work miracles and I will not martyr myself over it.

Have you ever heard the story of the teacher who filled a jar full of pebbles and asked the class if it was full 'yes, yes it's full' they all said. Then the teacher took some fine and and slowly poured it in to the jar where it filled the gaps as it was poured and the jar was jiggled. 'is it full now?' asks teacher... 'yes yes, now it is full' they say. Then the teacher takes a cup of water and pours it slowly into the jar until it is too the brim. 'Now it's full' the teacher says.
The motto of the story is you keep taking up slack until there is no more slack.
It's like that.
Hopefully your plate doesn't get any more full than the brimful of water version as beyond that it's where madness lies, but anything up to that is copable, you just keep going up gears you didn't even know you had.

Fine sand that should say ^

Standards drop.

My house is not immaculate its a shit tip, you just survive and get used to it. I used to do more at work. Now I'm out the door bang on time but I also prioritise better because I have to. My bullshit radar is seriously calibrated & if it's not essential I'm not fucking doing it.

[quote hotmeatymilk]@Motherland101 Your life sounds lovely and your priorities echo mine, right down to the fish fingers . I used to be organised and had a proper Instagram aesthetic and now I’d rather have a sit down than create a bloody sideboard vignette, and rather splash about in puddles than tidy up. I hold onto the thought that one day my house will be lovely again, but I won’t have a small, joyful child around, so I should enjoy the chaos and the fish fingers while I can.[/quote]
@hotmeatymilk it's utter chaos, but thank you! Reading your post reminded me of the endless amount of pictures I can't post on social media because the background is just bloody messy - need one of those blurring apps 😅 7pm 🍷 indeed (but I'm game from 5.30pm normally if you really want to push it!!)

This might be a controversial view, but IMO what happens is you start off with 1 baby and being on ML. You get to grips with doing chores with 1 hand, or with a baby in a sling, or in short spurts. it's not too bad (my house was never tidier than at this point in my life!). This isn't so bad you think, as you get used to it.

Then you level up with MOBILE BABY, and it's a new level of hard, but you've got the foundation there. And you get better at it. Then you add work into the juggle. Then (if you have more than 1), you have the joy of pregnancy + work + toddler, and it starts to get REALLY hard. But you manage, and baby is born, and you get a slight break going back to toddler + baby. And then you have toddler PLUS the mobile baby that you found hard last time again. Its still really really hard, but somehow you manage it, even though you'd have thought having two of them first time round would be undoable. Etc, etc.

For me, i found babies and maternity leave were a gentle introduction to parenting (yes they don't sleep as newborns - they are often just as bad a couple of years later), and so it allowed you to become more efficient over time. It also helps lower your expectations of evening relaxation (what's that?)..

Its tricky to fit it all in, but i wouldn't swap it for anything.

@TorySteller at least there's two of us

@LavenderAskew he is office working so didn't get home until 6:45. He's currently doing the washing up. But I think the scheduling referenced by PPs will be key here. He'll do what he is told needs doing but I'm doing the organising.

@bumblingbovine49 it is my fear that this is how I will find it. I'm already looking forward to teenagers who sleep in

Clean fridge maybe once a year, never had a cleaner and have 2 kids and run a business, you just find a way to manage

@TopCatsTopHat that's a great analogy thank you.

You adapt and work it out, OP.

It's a bit like when you're at uni and find it a real drag to get out of bed for a 9am lecture twice a week. You literally can't imagine how you'll manage to get up and out for 9am every day when you get a job.

Then you get a job and you get up and out for 9am every day.

You can't imagine how you're going to manage with a baby, but the baby comes and your life adapts, things change, jobs you'd have seen as essential in your pre baby life suddenly seem far less essential, you adapt (as far as you can) to the tiredness and suddenly there you are, managing with a baby.

You can't imagine how you'll every manage with an older child and another baby, but then another baby comes along and your life adapts again, and suddenly you're managing life with two. And so on, and so on. Standards will drop in some areas and you'll become more efficient in managing others.

What you'll almost certainly do is look back on your pre-baby life and wonder what on earth you did with all that time. I can't imagine the weekends I used to have in my twenties before the DC came along, I must have had literally hours to myself but God knows what I did with it all.

Haha, yes, the levelling up! “I’ve got the hang of this— oh FUCK it can climb!”

Bloody DD had colic and stopped screaming at 4 months, got teeth at 4.5 months and started screaming again, then started crawling at 5.5 months. There was a fortnight window, I think, where I got a wash on and hung out, and ate some chocolate and contemplated hoovering (didn’t do it but I THOUGHT about it), then I embraced the laundry-pile-and-fish-finger life for life.

I do as little as is acceptable and have no free time.
I just hope as they get older, things ease and I get some time back.

I can't get past the idea of anyone dusting.

OP, you would manage because you just would.

Oh it's frustrating but the house just can't be cleaned top to bottom like the old days. Two children under 3 stop that. And the jobs to do list keeps piling up. It's annoying and worse when people visit as I hate imaging it through fresh eyes! But, I'll live. And the house will get cleaned, slowly and eventually.

A cleaner once a week for three hours doesn’t mean no other housework needs to be done for the rest of the week....🤔