Mums of 1 year olds, how are you doing

[StrongCoffeeNeeeded789]

Inspired by a thread I'm reading (I do not dare reply) where everyone is piling on a new mum and telling her life doesn't change when you have a baby, they and their husbands alternate going out every night, they're exercising and living their best life and apparently any mum who isn't, is a martyr. WTF.

I have a 16 month old. Working full time. Work in the evenings too (not the kind of job that finishes at 5, don't think most do anymore). Toddler wakes once a night still. Worse if teething (just had his 3rd molar). Everyone up by 7, prep toddler for day while we get ready, go to work, work 9 hours, come home, spend some time with toddler, put toddler to bed, dinner, work, flop around 9pm, bed at 10pm.

I don't have time or energy for hobbies or exercise. We alternate doing some exercise at the weekend but that's 1 or 2 workouts a week. I feel I'm either working or caring for a toddler at all times. Yes, DH does his share.

I could choose to not see my toddler at all for a few days a week and go to the gym after work, but do people actually do this??

So anyone else how are you doing at this stage? Am I a fucking lazy martyr who can't cope with a 1 year old and is everyone else having loads of free time and exercise?

I’ve got a 15m old, not even working and still not exercising. You’re not alone op, I’m amazed you’re exercising at the weekend tbh! Well done!

13m old and 6 year old.

I don't understand this concept of exercising. Like fuck am I getting out of bed earlier than necessary and by the time both kids are asleep I have just enough energy to fall down the stairs and stare at the TV.

13m old is currently poorly with a cold and needs holding upright every other hour during the night so she can breathe. I hate snot.

Working full time with a DH who works part time and pulls more than his share.

Our younger DC has recently turned two. We don't do as much exercise as we would like, but we absolutely do (and have for a while) taken one evening a week each to exercise after work and come home late, which means we don't see the little one that evening and just say a quick goodnight to the older one. It's honestly fine - the 90 minutes after work when everyone's tired and grumpy and you're mainly just trying to get a quick dinner into everyone and then do toddler bathtime is not the best quality family time of the day, and we both feel better if we get a run or swim or whatever.

@stackhead yeah my son's last molar coincided with a cold, and he woke every 2 hours because of pain + he couldn't breathe. All the Olbas oil and saline solution in the world couldn't help him 😅 mum and dad holding him is the only thing that worked.

Honestly, can someone say their life hasn't changed? Some of the posts on here lately are insane.

I wonder if dumb incels or bots have infiltrated this website

Your job sounds very full-on. Some Mum's who have more time will have slightly less intense work schedules.

Re. exercise and hobbies it just depends how important they are to you really. But, yes, some people do skip bedtime/mornings to go to the gym. I'm a nanny and it's very normal to do bedtime with the kids once or twice a week while the parents are at the gym/a hobby. It's also not unheard of for them to get up at 5am and go before work. There's no right or wrong or moral superiority, just different priorities.

Personally, I don't like exercise nearly enough to do that!

@NuffSaidSam I think part of my problem is my toddler isn't quite sleeping through the night. We had a week of newborn type night of teething just now.

When he does randomly sleep 11 hours, I wake up and feel good.

But on a normal night, he wakes for a cuddle at 4/5am. And it just wakes me from a deep sleep and fucks me. No way can I go back to sleep and set an alarm for 5.30 and exercise lol.

Those threads make me want to slam my head in to the wall! But I do think your experience of motherhood is very much shaped by your circumstances outside of it too.

I have a 15 month old + young DC, and it's a juggling act most days. But my routine sounds easier than yours even with two kids, thanks to the role I have. I WFH 3 days a week, & am in the office one. I have a job where I get to log off and stay off most of the time, as long as I'm responsive when projects are on fire. I've accepted the house will look a state until the DC move out, and try get to the gym 2-3 times a week.

I do always feel like I'm taking turns failing at something though, and it grates on me so much. I would like to be one of those polished pilates executive level mums, with a weekly blow dry. Instead I look like the inside of a used bin bag, haven't had a promotion in 4 years, and use mumsnet for social life more than I'd like to admit.

Thanks @Canwealltakeadeepbreath

I do need to look into a new job. The logging back on for a few hours after bedtime and even if I'm not, always checking emails (urgent stuff come up at 9pm all the time) is too much now I think.

20 month old. Surviving.

Tbh I do get Monday nights to go to our local pub quiz (200 yards away) but usually do bath/bedtime before I leave so all DH has to do is clean up after dinner and watch TV with the baby monitor all evening. Thankfully he has been sleeping through the night pretty consistently since about 15 months.

Work 32hrs/week, DH is full time. Had to give up scout leading which I have been doing since I was 17 (30 now) as by Friday evening I just want to have a shower and rot in my PJs.

@StrongCoffeeNeeeded789 I wish the narrative wasn't "women can have it all". It feels like that's constantly shoved down our throats tbh, when in reality I think most of our careers go into hibernation until DC are in school.

The outliers succeeding usually have involved grandparents and/or insane amounts of disposable cash to throw at it. Anyone with a social life & a baby usually bottle fed too (no shade, I sometimes wish I did).

Mum with a 14 month old. And he doesn't sleep week. A good night involves at least three wakes. A bad night is every 45-60 minutes.

Life has hugely changed since I became a mum and I'm delighted. My little one is an absolute hoot to be around. I'll happily sacrifice nights out and exercise classes for this period of time. No doubt those things will come back into my daily life again.

But my little one has never slept well. So I'm happiest when I make the conscious decision to prioritise aggressively (home cooked meals, seeing family regularly, working full time - essentials; gigs, nights out, exercise classes - on pause). Its a busy season of life, just gotta try to make it work as best I can!

@Canwealltakeadeepbreath yeah, I'm still breastfeeding which tbh I was afraid to put in my OP as I know Mumsnet will come down on me like a ton of bricks if I admitted that. BF is not the problem, hasn't been for a while, it's actually a wonderful tool now but I don't think MN will believe that.

And the impact on my career is a shock. I did think I could handle it. Turns out life is not great if all you do is work and care for a child, there is no room for anything.

I will say OP that it gets better!! Before I had DD2 I was exercising two or three times during the week and had some social life too.

That's why I don't really care at minute, I know it'll all come back again soon and I'll yearn for the toddler days again.

@StrongCoffeeNeeeded789 BF after one is easy I think - it feels like a reward for getting through the baby stage of it.

& Easy to say change jobs though, harder to actually do. The energy it takes to change course is hard to muster when you're in the trenches.

Agree with @LabradorVibe aggressive prioritization is needed to thrive! Such a busy season but I feel like I'm blinking and missing it sometimes.

I have an easy job - 9 to 5, work from home so I can prep dinner at lunch etc. I have a cleaner.

I still don’t have time to do anything! My toddler gets my full attention from 5pm and doesn’t go to sleep until 8:30pm (we’ve tried everything to get an earlier bedtime).

I exercise on the nights DH does bedtime, but literally 30 mins YouTube. I couldn’t (and don’t want to) do anymore as I’m just SO tired. My LO still often wakes up once a night and I just find the broken sleep really wipes me out even though I’m getting a good amount overall.

I can count on one hand the amount of times DH and I have been out in an evening. Yes we could ‘get a babysitter’ but it’s such a faff, and when you know you’re going to get woken up at 6:30am it’s just not worth it.

I love her to pieces but yes, my life has completely changed! (As has DH’s).

I haven’t seen the other thread but as the working mother of a “spirited” 14 month old (and 2 teenagers) who fights us all the way on naps, wakes in the night still, is already having some pretty big tantrums and wants constant attention, I can honestly say that while I am happy, I also have fantasised about falling into a coma just so I can have a little bit of a break more than once. Not a long coma just a week. Maybe 2.

ETA I know I should exercise but I can’t be arsed. I’d rather go to bed by 8pm 9.

I know it’s hard but honestly try not to worry about what everyone else is doing. As other posters say, it massively depends on your circumstances, whether you have grandparents or other people to help, your job and its intensity and hours, your financial situation…!
Many of my NCT group had lost all their baby weight after baby number #2 after 8 months. I’m just getting round to it after 2 years!
Tbh I try to just “exercise” as part of my day. Walking the youngest the 2 mile round trip to nursery, lugging stuff up and down the stairs! It all counts.
Just prioritise the thing you really enjoy and want to do (for me it’s decorating my house) and bin off the rest.
These are the trenches. My friends who are mothers of teenagers tell me they don’t know what to do with their free time!

Yep! This is so me - work, kids, anything else (including housework) has to cram into the tiny gaps in between. I bought a subscription to online dance workouts, haven't used it once because 1 yo wakes early and I'm not getting up at 4am to workout.

My youngest is now two, @StrongCoffeeNeeeded789 , and I am with you 100%.

MN can unfortunately sometimes be very obtuse, bordering on cruel on threads where a poster has a child under three.

I have a 2yo.

Even with working from home and being a 10m walk from the nursery, with compressed hours, I still basically manage 2* 15m weight sessions, and one day with a 30m bike session. I'm trying to fit in an evening workout one day (YouTube and an exercise bike).

But that doesn't scratch the surface of things I don't have time for like hobbies etc. As for socialising, I meet my mum friends at the park 2-3 times over the weekend. On special occasions we take wine.

@neverwakeasleepingbaby thank you!! I annoyingly lost almost all the baby weight without effort in the first 6 months, only to PILE ON when I went back to work. I have ballooned to be bigger than post partum now. Not sleeping, working all the time, sugar and carbs keep me going. I do well for a couple of weeks and then my toddler starts teething or gets a cold and BOOM everything is out the window and it's just about survival again as I'm getting 2 hours of sleep and then work a 9-12 hour day and repeat.

I haven’t had a promotion since six months after I became a stepmum. Now a mum too and my previously high flying career has stagnated entirely. We can have it all… All the mental load, that is.

Mine are older toddlers now, but with 1h commute 2x a week, full time compressed hours and my husband commuting 1.5h each way most days too, I had time or energy for NOTHING.

I was going to the gym during my lunch hours twice a week and had to stop after a few months once my workload picked up as it wasn't manageable.
I used to go early mornings before children, but couldn't anymore as i had to do drop off, and then was way too tired in the evenings to go back out at 8pm for a workout!

Social life came back later on I would say, I think in the first year of your first child you're very much focused on doing things as a family on weekends.
And I was very hesitant to go out with colleagues or friends after work because it meant coming home after bedtime.

4 years of this, and all that doubt and guilt is gone 😂

Not particularly… but then, my life wasn’t exactly exciting to begin with 😅 We go out at the weekends to stately homes and gardens like we used to pre children and now the kids just come with us. We’ve never been fussed about going out in the evening and we haven’t changed the way we holiday either really (still city breaks). I did luck out and have two excellent sleepers which helps. Kids are 18 months and just turned 5.

I do an exercise class on a Thursday after work and my husband puts the kids to bed on that day. We do our hobbies (sewing and painting) every other evening bar Wednesday when we play DND online with our friends :)

My husband does miss going to the cinema, however!