To ask for tips from working single parents?

[solomam]

I'll start by saying that I am not a single parent in the true sense of the word because I do have a partner. But he has started working away every other week and so from a practical perspective, I am technically a single parent every other week because I have only one pair of hands.

I work 4 days, I have a stressful job and a lengthy (ish) commute. I have 2 DC - one nursery aged and one older. I am absolutely EXHAUSTED from my first week juggling it all by myself. No family support so it literally is just me when DH is away every other week.

Any tips, please, from single working parents? How on earth do you do it?! Do you all have extended family support or are you as frazzled as I feel right now? 😩

I think the short answer is to buy in help if you can. I don't see the point in stressing yourself, your children if you are able to pay for cleaner, childminder, babysitter or Housekeeper etc. - peace of mind.

There are no extra points for doing it all yourself especially at the risk of your physical and mental health.

On week your partner is there batch bake freezer meals for using on week you are on your own. Also worth trying to find another single parent and befriend as you could be each others back up emergency.

Do as much as possible the night before to prepare for the next day.

Don't worry if you don't do all the housework.

Make sure the kids are involved with getting things done too if they're old enough.

Don't be afraid to ask for help from friends and family, childcare, play dates etc.

Also... Yes it's fine to ask for help from amazing single parents in here but it's not ok to berate someone who points out you aren't one.
If you'd been a single parent you really would get that.

I was a single parent who worked full time and did a degree at night as well as parenting. I had help from family and friends as well as a bit of wrap around care at school. That helped me lots. But it did puss me off when friends who had husbands working away or on a lad's weekend even would say "oh I'm a single parent at the moment ".

This.
You aren't a single working parent.

You still have dp finances and emotional support on a bad day. Do what every other person does and get organised. When dp comes back you get to have a lie in or dp can take the kids for an hour while you shop or do whatever needs catching up on. So you're going to be tired for a few days rather than permanently...how nice.

It's not the same.

@thefiddlerselbow

Thanks, I've been a single parent for many years with eldest 🙄

Literally ignoring all the unhelpful guff now.

Yes I'm considering this - we have been looking at getting a cleaner. I'm just not sure how I feel about someone else doing my housework as I'm quite particular about things!

Even the practical side is somewhat different given there are two parents with 48 hours per day to split between earning and childcare. Sometimes looking after your kid without the other parent physically present is not remotely comparable.

So why do you need to ask for tips??

I think it's the practicalities the OP is seeking tips on. She clearly recognises the difficulties that single parents face and is just asking for a few tried-and-trusted pointers. Give the girl a break.

@SpringIsTooFarAway because it was an entirely different situation back then and I had my family around me. Not that I need to justify to anyone why I'm asking for support ffs

@Englishash

Thank you! Jesus you come here at a low point struggling to ask other mums for support and you get torn apart. What's the point

I also wfh but that's only in the last two years. I would say try to get some kind of routine going (clean bathroom on a Sunday, change beds, do washing etc and get shopping for the week. That way you know what you have to do and roughly how long it takes.
Start setting expectations of what the kids need to do (put clothes away and tidy up after themselves when old enough).

Tidy up as you go.

If commuting by train can you do admin stuff on there?

Why don't you ask married women whose husband's work away for tips, surely this is a far more relevant scenario?

I would say when your DH is there he helps you prepare for when he is not, I appreciate he can't physically do stuff, but equally you are only working for half the time he is away anyway. Not entirely sure what you are finding difficult about those 4 days, is it how long a day it is? You will get used to it and any change in routine is tiring. As you and DC are out for those 4 days, the house shouldn't need much doing during that time and you can clean/tidy/food shop/cook on the day when your children are at school/nursery and you arent working.

My child had dinner at nursery and later at the childminders that used to help me.
I caught up properly with cleaning at weekends when they were at their dad's.
Now a cleaner comes once a fortnight which is amazing.
I didn't do anything social and used to go to bed at about 830 cos I was so tired and lonely. (Bit sad now I read that back)
Agree an emergency pizza or 2 in the freezer is a must.
I didn't do as much reading with them as the school wanted (their school is a bit pressured) but they really read well now so no harm done.
It got better.

I ditched the big career for a job in a school-you can’t have it all as a single parent. I do find your post quite patronising as at least you have your DH to talk to on the tough days

My DH works away for months at a time. For me it's the MN cliches of a) cleaner b) meal planning and online shop c) paying for school lunches d) ensuring I work in a flexible field (very career orientated, but I remain in the public sector so I can work flexi, WFH etc: WFH was life changing to managing when DH is away).

Also I try to use my lunch break on me; the only time of day I can get some exercise in, just a walk usually, sometimes yoga depending on if I'm office or home that day.

“Why don't you ask married women whose husband's work away for tips, surely this is a far more relevant scenario?”

this.
surely you’ll be able to utilise your husband to help out when he is there which isn’t an option for a single parent. And you’re likely to be better off with 2 incomes so I would have thought buy in some help? Use a childminder for longer hours? Put your child in nursery the day you don’t work? One of you look for a different job/ reduce hours if it’s in achievable

Single parent to one. Work long hours. Absolutely no support with childcare other than what I pay for. My tips:

Get a cleaner and don’t sweat the state of the house too much. Clean enough is good enough. Do as much surface cleaning as you can bear to day to day. Enlist your kids if they are old enough.

Get the best childcare and babysitters you can afford. Even if you can’t really afford them, you need them.

Plan ahead

Online shop. No one needs to spend a quarter of their weekend in the supermarket.

Meal plan and batch cook. I tend to have a revolving roster of meals four days a week. DD cooks (and chooses) on two and the last is a freewheeling day. But it saves a lot of stress not having to think about what to cook all the time.

Dont beat yourself up about not being able to go to everything you’re invited to and don’t let people bully you over this. If you can’t do it you can’t do it.

If you can wfh, do it as much as you can. I do most of my work between about 5.30am and 8am and after 9pm.

The single most important thing for me was having a progressive employer which wasn’t full of clock watching arseholes. When my marriage failed and I no longer had support with drop offs and pickups I had a meeting with my boss and told her my situation meant I couldn’t guarantee being able to get to my desk at the exact right time each day but that I would work twice as hard as the people who worked 9-6. She was thankfully supportive to me and I may have been stuffed if she hadn’t been. But being prepared to work at times that are awkward for most people goes a long way if you can’t do regular hours.

Single parent of 4 and I work shifts. Honestly you can’t afford to be particular about things! I don’t live in squalor but my standards are low. I do laundry after my 12 hr shifts, I have a robot hoover, I wack bleach down the loo when it looks gross. But my house gets a full clean maybe once a month. I also have an au pair, might be worth a thought. Good luck.

Lower your standards. Really.

Prioritise your health. If you have to look at a messy house and go out for a run so be it.

Good breakfast and start to the day.

As a single parent, I'm not at all offended by what you've asked but on a purely practical level I do think it's slightly the wrong question. Just in the sense that I think the strategies I'd use if I had another person around half the time would be different to the ones I need to use knowing I'll rarely have anyone else about - no judgement in saying that; I just mean I think it's something you could use to your advantage.

Because what I'd do in that scenario is use the time I had support to get super set up for the time they weren't there. I'd batch cook and get meals lined up ready to go. Big supermarket shop that week. I'd do larger elements of housework (hoovering, say; or more involved laundry like bed linen) only at two-parent times, and literally not touch them the rest of the time. (Or, you know, get the other parent to do those things while they're there). The vast majority of things that need doing in a home can perfectly well wait a week, so it's actually fairly workable to just spend your solo weeks on getting the daily necessities done and leave other stuff to build up.

A few basic principles:

• Beans on toast is a perfectly legitimate dinner. More broadly, aim for weekday dinners where all you need to do is heat something up, and maybe boil one element (if it involves pasta or rice).
• Don't iron. Anything. Ever.
• Get everything set up the evening before so all you need to do in the morning is stuff food into people, stuff people into clothes, and leave the house. (I'll be honest, I don't even do the food bit. I give my toddler his breakfast on the bus.)
• Reflect on what parts of the day you find most difficult and streamline them to the absolute simplest they can be. My whole breakfast-on-the-bus thing came about through doing this, and it works much better than what we were doing before.

Thanks all - these are very helpful tips!

So my plan is:

• Get better at batch cooking when DH is home so we have meals quickly ready to go during the week

• look into getting a cleaner but otherwise lower my standards some more 😱

• online shopping as much as possible so only smaller top ups are needed mid week

• breakfast on the go for DC on a work morning

Will start with these and see if it helps!