How much sympathy would you have for a colleague in this situation?

[Bloopbloopbleep]

Colleague returned from maternity leave around a year ago.
Sleep deprivation still an issue and regularly at work having not slept. No SEN, just a kid who doesn't like to sleep.
Doing a fair job but not as good as pre-mat leave. More forgetful and less energetic but no major balls have been dropped yet.
If you were a colleague of this person, how much sympathy would you have and how much would they just annoy you?

I wouldn't be annoyed. Some people aren't great at their job without sleep deprivation. At least this colleague has a reason for the decline so will likely get back to being a good employee again.

My eldest didn't sleep a full night till she was 7! My youngest has been a great sleeper from birth
So i fully sympathise with this lady having been through it for years myself whilst also holding down a job
Its bloody hard work! I worry about this for my own daughter whos currently on maternity leave with her 4 month old and running on no sleep

Hi OP, I can understand why it's annoying and seems unfair, it was her life choice. I will say, though, that "No SEN, just a kid who doesn't like to sleep" in regards to a baby of, what, 12-18 months? Less? It's highly unlikely that she (nevermind you) would know this at this age. You can have suspicions they do have/be fairly sure they don't have SEN but it's not something you know at that age without extensive (private) evaluations. It's easier to diagnose these things after 2 years old as they can become much more apparent, but with current waiting times for these services (assuming you are in the UK) it's not likely she'd find out soon even if she suspects as a mother. It comes across as ignorant to even suggest that opinion as though it's fact.
Definitely not minimising your overall concern as it isn't the burden of colleagues or output if she's struggling. I say this as someone that had to give up the job I loved after my second to become her carer. Your colleague can't expect to hold people or departments back while she adjusts or deals with it (regardless of whether the child has SEN or not).
Unless it's a physical role I don't think her energy is an issue, if it become longterm someone will address it with her, short term I'd try and have compassion.
Personally I'd try to give her grace where possible, but if she's regularly dumping work on you you're entitled to tell your boss rather than suffer! I hope it gets sorted, I feel for your situation it sucks, but hers may suck too.

Oops, OP, I missed you said you have no partner or other support. In real life, I'd likely be as PPs have mentioned, too wrapped up in my own thing to notice, or if I worked with you closely enough to notice, I'd be sympathetic, because as a parent, I know how awful lack of sleep is. It will get better. Toddlers can be difficult.

You sound hacked off by your colleague. I can't see that anything anyone here says will affect how you feel. You have 3 options:

a) Say nothing and hope it changes - after all the child is getting older and when walking will probably be more tired.
b) Ask her if there is anything you or others can do to help
c) Complain to management that she's not pulling her weight as far as you are concerned and let them deal with it.

Up to you entirely. You have to work with the consequences of the decision you make.

I get this being annoying if it impacts your work but i would also have sympathy, lack of sleep is a nightmare & it’s really not her fault. If it’s impacting you work you could tell your manager as a heads up, if its not then just get on with your day

Most colleagues annoy me for similar behaviour without that excuse. So they'd probably annoy me as much as the rest of them who can't manage to do the job properly and efficiently causing me to spend most mornings fixing the shit show from when I left the day before. So given how jaded I am in general I'd have zero sympathy I'd just complain about them the same way I complain about everyone else's incompetence. I view them all the same, we all have shit going on at home including myself. I don't sleep much more than 3 hours a night I'm constantly sleep deprived and feel awful but I still front up and do my job.
I clearly need a new job.

This!

My PND was caused by severe sleep deprivation so I’d have a lot of sympathy.

I didn’t start feeling depressed until my baby was nine months old, after a few months of terrible sleep. I was fine when they were a newborn. I think some think only newborns are particularly awful sleepers.

You can feel sympathetic but I would be peeved to take on more of a workload. Then there is the real issue of what they do when I was nursing being really ill or sleep deprived means a mistake that could kill someone.

I would be fine with it as long as the colleague was meeting the requirements of the job which sounds like you are.

Id have less patience with excessive whinging about it, but doesn’t sound like you’re doing that either.

Prior to having children myself I watched colleagues be supportive to a new mum who was very sleep deprived. She got through it and a few years later became an excellent manager - they had faith in her and it paid off.
My own sleep deprivation was soul-destroying for me and tortuous at times, I felt very raw. I really appreciated similar kindness and similarly have gone on to progress. If we do away with sympathy in this situation we count a lot of women out of their careers (and we all lose out for it)

I would have understanding and empathy. How could you not?

@Bloopbloopbleep To your original question as long as your manager is happy I wouldn’t worry what other people are thinking - most people are totally bound up in their own worries and insecurities to think to deeply about you.

And it is going to get better so this is a short term (relatively) issue.

Also ignore all the sleep trainer posters. Some kids are just not good sleepers for a while, and no technique or system will fix it. If you haven’t had a kid like this then you can’t understand it. But it will get better.

On the plus side you will probably find that your child is easier on other parts of child rearing.

So my DD didn’t sleep through the night regularly until she was five years - yes years - old.

However she was very easy going in regards to eating, trying new things, she was an easy international traveler from nine months old, happy to start in new environments etc without worries, loved school, could entertain herself by reading books from about six years old for ages.

An observation I'd like to make about this (as someone who returned from MAT leave when my daughter was 4 months old and sleeping terribly, and whose job did, at the time, sometimes involve life-and-death patient decisions)... In my experience anyway, even when you're exhausted, situations that involve this sort of intensity were actually mostly ok to deal with. Adrenaline would kick in and massively boost performance. Plus when you know you've got something important coming up, you load up on caffeine beforehand. But it was the times in between the crises - the admin time, the research time, the 'sitting and thinking and working out stuff without immediate pressure' time, when the quality of my work became markedly worse. So no, I'm not convinced that people with high-pressure, high-responsibility jobs are able to somehow just get on with sleep deprivation without struggling. They might be fuelled by adrenaline spikes and fear, and feel the nature of their job means they can't talk about when they're finding things difficult.

As someone with insomnia who runs on 2-4 hours a night I’d have every sympathy. All I think about is sleep.

They would have a lot of my sympathy , I’ve been a single mum who2 kids before I know too well how it is to be running months on end on nothing but coffee and a need for a wage .

Total sympathy for your colleague

Well like you say shes not dropped the ball and is doing fine, why is this even a question?

I'm returning from mat leave to my job as a police officer in counter terrorism and dreading it, hoping she sleeps better by then and would hate it if colleagues thought I couldn't cope.

On a personal level, lots of sympathy. It's hard! That said, I do secretly dread a mat leave return because it's inevitably difficult to manage. It's hard on the rest of the team because all they see is constant additional leave and adjustments and it often builds resentment. I've heard it all, accusations of unfairness around reduced hours to "it wasn't like that in my day..." There's often more sympathy for someone on long term sick than there is around mat leave purely because it's seen as a life choice with foreseeable consequences that they have had a year to prepare for. I don't necessarily agree with that but that's my experience of how sympathetically it is perceived.

I hope you are not driving if you are going 50 hrs with 2 hours sleep.

I would display empathy and understanding because life isn’t all about work and it’s not all about you either. It’s really hard and I have been there.

Until I experienced it myself, I thought I was reasonably sympathetic. I've worked mixed shifts for years and had tiring times in my personal life. However once I experienced this myself, and still am, it is horrific. So tired you can barely drive to work, never mind from work. You're brain can't properly function and the irritability factor is massive.

Relationships are tested, friendships dissolve. Its a total mess and I figure it happened to me bc I wasn't truly sympathetic in my previous life.

If you haven't experienced this relentlessly for years on end, you cannot imagine how f.awful it is.