I'm so exhausted from working full time and having young kids

[Feelinglikeamoan]

I'm in my 40s, I work full time, I have a preschooler and a primary school aged child. I'm fucking exhausted.

I've always worked full time, we could never afford to reduce hours. I'm burnt out. A normal night's sleep is 6.5 hours during the week. There are simply not enough hours in the day to get more sleep.

Also, I work in a really stressful health care role which adds to my exhaustion.

What makes it worse is that I'm the only one out of my friends in this situation. All of my friends with kids have either one parent working part time, or not working at all. Many of them have grandparents nearby providing significant support with childcare giving them time to rest.

I just wanted to moan. I feel like I don't get to enjoy life much as I'm so busy and exhausted. I've felt really upset by reading a few threads recently about people retiring in their 50s. It made me feel sad that I'm already so exhausted in my 40s, and I won't be able to retire until I'm around 67.

My biggest sadness is not being able to spend as much time as I'd like with my children. I wish I could work less and see them more. I feel like I'm letting them down by not having enough time for them.

One of us sits with the three year old to get her to sleep. I know she values this time with her parents, and it helps me feel less guilty about her being at nursery. But yes, it is time consuming.

Been there and parent now dead. It's bloody tough isn't it.

It's bloody tough. Hats off to you all.
What makes me really angry and sad about it all is that your workplace treats you like there is something wrong with you having a job and small demanding children and you get the strong impression that they are not at all happy when you have to run because someone has thrown up or fallen off a climbing frame - they clearly think that you shouldn't have this job, because they can't possibly think the child shouldn't have a mother. But actually no one thinks that mothers should be supported to stay at home. so which is it? Should no one have children, if women are all supposed to work full time, and no one working full time should have kids?

Of course that's kind of what's happening, and the falling birth rate is seen as a problem - at the exact same time as women who do have children are treated like shit.

Mine are older now btw but I remember those days so so so well.

Workplaces have no loyalty towards you. you get nothing for it but the monthly pay and they'll get as much as they can out of you for it. And then the second they want to throw you under the bus, they will

Every night I think I must get to bed earlier. But we're only doing the basics. We don't have a dishwasher which is a pain. Kitchen is too small.

That's because I'm doing 4 long days and 2 hours of travelling.

Unfortunately I can't do any work on mh commute due to confidentiality (I work in health).

Dh's job doesn't involve any conference calls. His work is very technical. So no opportunity for multitasking. He stops briefly for a simple lunch so wouldn't have time to prep dinner. He's self employed, so no official lunch break

Thanks for all your supportive comments and solidarity.

No advice as such OP, we do it all, not have it all but keep going, apparently it gets easier. I am not there yet, but hoping..💐

I found just associating more with other FT working parents helped. Our afterschool club in huge primary was full of kids every single day like yours.
It's v hard and relentless

Daft as it sounds some weeks I use 1-2 hours on a Sunday to make 3-4 basic meals we can then reheat - spaghetti Bol sauce / sausage & mash / stew of chilli etc. we have a pizza night once a week too. Then whoever gets home can just reheat something. By doing it in one go the pressure is less in week

I’m the same. 3 DC under 10 and I work 60-80 hour weeks. I get around 6 hours sleep a night if lucky. I’ve explored a lot of options. I’m leaving my awful H later this year. I am hoping it will make a difference. I feel like I am giving myself cancer.

OP just to let you know I cried when I read this. I literally could have written it word for word myself.

No advice. All the love. It feels impossible and I genuinely feel on the verge of a breakdown most of the time. The constant guilt about not being a 'proper mum' the constant stress about the job.

You are very much not alone, if that helps in even a tiny way.

Another FT parent here with 2 DC in primary school. It is hard. For me not quite as hard as in your case as my days are 9-5 with a 30min commute, but I do 5 days so there is no break and then straight into a weekend of sports/parties/chores etc.

Can you reduce your hours to just do 4 normal days?

But What are you doing from 9:30pm to midnight?? Why do you need to do anything then? Surely between 7:30 and 9:30 you can make dinner and lunches for next day and eat and wash up etc. So you can just relax at 9:30 or get to bed early?

All the house work can be done at the weekend or on your day off on a Friday?

But if DC go to bed at 9.30pm and you don’t go to bed until 12.15am.
Thats 2.45 hours of activity, if it’s both of you that’s over 5 hours. Even if you take away the odd hour working that’s enough time to clean an entire house!

I don’t have a dish washer either, washing up doesn’t take that long, I also wash up as I am cooking. Whilst one of you is putting DC to bed or should be enough time to do what you need to do - clean kitchen, empty washing machine.

Meals when you are working/mid week should be fairly simple anyway.

I think you really need to assess what you are doing in the evenings. The house doesn’t have to be pristine. Do the basics and get to bed.

Sounds like your DH isn't actually pulling his weight to me. If he isn't commuting he needs to be spending 10 mins putting dinner in the slow cooker or something at least.
But I feel for you.

It does get easier. Aged 3-5 was the worst. I did 4 days then too but now it's 5 days with them both in school. I was never at the pre-school gates either, and felt terrible.

School is a bit easier. I do shorter days two days a week so the kids do BS club and AS close two days. So I see some parents sometimes. And also playdates and parties become less frequent when the parties become smaller and everyone just invites their closest friends.

I'd just ride it out. Batch cook via the slow cooker as much as you can. Buy in help - cleaner (you aren't at home that much so there shouldn't be loads to do). Air fryers are an efficiency godsend. Bored of Lunch 30 minutes meals are SO EASY. I can put on at 5pm and let everything cook itself ready for when the kids get home. We all eat together which also saves time (or we reheat whatever they've had)

This too will pass (kind of)

That sounds incredibly hard. I hope you get to the chapter of your life without your awful h soon.

I'm going to make a note of what we're doing as we go along next week to assess how we're spending our time. One evening a week a lot of time is used up taking the older one to her hobby.

9.30 bedtime does not always happen. Sometimes it is more like 10. We've spoken to the health visitor who said it's within the realms of normal.

He is absolutely pulling his weight. He does more than me due to my commute.

We don't have a slow cooker. Surely things need choping before you put them in? I see no benefit to him interrupting his working day for that when he can do it in the evening.

Lots of solidarity @pateandbrie. I wish I could give you a hug in real life.

Why does he have to interrupt the working day? He could do it in the morning? Or 5 mins before he picks the kids up? I might be wrong, but your posts suggest that he is waiting for you to get home to do everything together.

I've thought a lot about whether I should do 4 "normal" days but I don't think it would work with the nature of my job. We're under staffed and there's always work that needs doing. I'd just end up working for free.

We really only do the basics on a week day. Anything like cleaning the bathroom waits until the weekend.

Having thought about it more with this thread, I think a big drain on our time is cooking. We often cook from scratch. This would be fine is everyone would eat that meal. But we struggle to find a meal that we can batch cook and both kids will reliably eat. I'm going to have think about how we can address that.

The problem is that the 3 year old constantly changes her mind about what she likes. That means more cooking and more washing up

Arrrggh. I am SAHM and working all day too, someone else isn't looking after my kid, I'm doing it - it's work. I get less sleep too as kids younger.

Op's job does sound v stressful so that's worse. But mothering is working.