To find part time work with kids hard..

[bobbyeatsocks]

I'm going to sound pathetic but I'm really struggling. I only work 2.5 days a week but I'm finding it difficult with the kids. Either after little sleep from the youngest.. or I'm forgetting things for the eldest to do with school. I feel like I'm giving only 50% of myself to each.. and for only £500 after childcare going into the household income I'm wondering if it's worth it.
I'm always tired, have various different viruses at any given time.. I just feel something needs to give. I don't know how people do it.

To me that sounds dreamy. I work full time. The key is organising everything in advance. I don’t go to bed on a Sunday until everything for the week is organised all shirts ironed etc. keep a comprehensive calendar, use reminders on your phone ( this is a life saver) keep on top of life admin every day.

If you can't manage being parent and working, quit working. Obviously if that's not a possibility due to finances then you'll need to come up with a different solution

How old are your kids? Once the youngest has got through a year or so of nursery it should get easier germ wise

Eldest is 7 and youngest is 1 at Christmas x

This also, I work full time, 12 hour shifts and have two toddlers, you've got to be organised. Sunday's are spent preparing everything for the next week, clothing, school uniforms, meal planning/prepping, house cleaning..etc, so there's not really anything that can be forgotten during the week. I have 4 different checklists to ensure everything is done.
I take a high dose vitamin D tablet every morning this time of year to help with the tiredness.
Most of us don't have a choice on working full time and being a parent

Your youngest is very young. Many people are still on maternity leave at this point. Cut yourself some slack!
In the long run, you will be contributing to a pension as well as just your monthly salary, and £500 a month adds up. Childcare expenses won't always be there .

1! Blimey! Cut yourself some slack! A lot of people are still on mat leave. Do you have a partner? Are they helping out? If kids get sick or whatever i think they need to look after them so you can work etc.

ONS says only 30% of mothers with a one year old work full time, so it's not the case that most women in OP's position work full time.

Ahhh cross posted!

OP, without sounding harsh, you need to put your big girl pants on. If you're household can afford for you to work part time, that is a privilege. If you had to go back to work because your household couldn't afford for you to be a SAHM but part-time was a compromise, you need to find a way to make it work for you and your kids.

I work full-time, 37.5 hours a week and I am a single parent with child's father not in the picture. I have to be meticulous in my house hold, if I am not, I suffer and my daughter suffers.

I find having a weekly planner appended to the fridge helps A LOT.

I put all of the reminders on there, anything I need to buy, any after school and weekend activities on there too.

@LittleMooli well the more who say it the better, as lots of other posters will say it's fine as they worked full time with 17 kids etc.
It will surely get easier as the infant grows up, and nursery hours start etc.

It sounds like you just need to get a bit better with managing yourself. If you are forgetting things that need to be done for school then get a better system in terms of a to do list or calendar.

If your youngest isn't 1 until Christmas then you can't have been back to work for that long so you probably just don't have a good routine yet.

As for whether it is too hard, obviously people balance part time or full time work around kids all the time. You don't specifically need to stay at home because life is so busy with a 1 and 7 year old that there isn't time for part time work. Many people also wouldn't be able to just turn their nose up at £500 a month.

That said if you don't want to work around kids obviously that is a different conversation and something you and your husband need to sit down and discuss.

I would say you need to look at this differently and remember that it’s normal to be exhausted with young kids (it’s hard work!). Being more organised will help make things less stressful and a good multivitamin will help too

As others said, your youngest is very young. It gets easier as they get older.

I'm a single parent and work full time. Google calendar is my lifeline - absolutely everything goes in it, even things I'm confident I'll remember, with notifications on. I like a colour code, personally, but it's not vital. I use Alexa reminders too.

Organise everything the night before so mornings go (relatively) smoothly.

Come up with a solid morning and evening routine. Write it down, with times, giving yourself a few minutes longer than you think you need for each bit. Set alarms to keep you on track. This was a game changer for me in terms of not feeling overwhelmed. There's no longer the stress about how to get everything done, because I know exactly what I need to do and when.

Make sure you do something for yourself. I find yoga helpful.

If you can afford to quit and you think you and your family will be better for it, go for it.

Most people are tired when they have a baby. It comes with the broken nights.

Only having to work 2.5 days a week sounds like a wonderful balance.

Just repeat "It's only a phase" over and over. Try and remember when dc1 stopped waking in the night, and life got a lot easier.

As seems to be happening already, you’ll get lots of people telling you how lucky you are, they have it worse etc etc. Which might well be true, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find it hard! It is hard and it’s ok for you to feel this way. It’s down to your individual circumstances whether you can afford to stop working or not. Personally I work part time and like the balance/ pension contributions. But do what’s best for you and your family and remember it’s ok to find things tough.

Oh here we go. Here comes the 'you have it lucky. I work full time and I manage it' brigade.

If you work full time, you have to be organised. You don't have a choice. If you work part time you think you've got loads of time to do everything but actually, you don't manage your time properly so you almost feel more overwhelmed than a full timer.

How much does your partner help? I’m part-time and so are quite a few of my friends. We all agree that we end up doing pretty much everything at home ‘because we’re part-time’ so it’s expected, but still have demanding jobs 3/4 days a week. And then that becomes a lot.

I have no idea how anyone works with young kids either. It must be a stressful nightmare. I was a SAHM til the youngest went to school and any jobs I've had since have been school hours only.

Are you married? Could you afford to be off for a while?

Then get organised.

I work full time. You need to organise your time. I deliberately chose remote jobs so I could be at home for the school run. I do as much as possible after DS (4) goes to bed. Then weekends are for enrichment / bonding time. I cook every meal from scratch (as that’s important to me) but am ruthless about outsourcing / delegating the bits I dislike - eg DH does the laundry, ironing and washing up, I have a cleaner, etc

That’s because there’s no such thing as part time professional work. It’s a trap. All jobs are full time - part time ones just make you do everything in a shorter window. I have always worked full time, remote jobs and used flexible working strategies like compressed hours to get my free time.

It’s not that you don’t manage your time properly if you’re part time, it’s more that you’re expected to do everything else. I mean if you’re full time, you’re simply not available to take your child to Afterschool activities or to a party or to an event at school. Someone else will do it or they just don’t go cos they’re in after school club or nursery anyway. I’ve done all 3 of SAHP, part time and full time when my kids were younger and I felt I did more rushing round when I was part time than I did full time.

I actually think having 2 full time working parents is not a natural state to aim for within a family and is no good for any member of the family, even teenagers who often need as much parental support and attention as toddlers! Taking the choice away about whether we want to do it or not is the biggest failure of the 21st century developed world. If we’re not careful we’ll end up like the USA when it’s the norm for tiny kids to be in FT daycare because paid maternity leave is only 12 weeks and where paid annual leave is only about 10 days.

i know PT work can seem just as busy and tiring a life as FT, OP, but the obvious advantage is that you are there as a hands on parent much more than someone who works FT. It is worth it. Your youngest is still very young and life just IS hard generally when they’re that age.