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I'm knackered and feeling miserable

3 replies

sendhelphere · 23/05/2023 18:23

So dp works self employed 6 days a week, and I have my own business. Ds (almost 3) is at nursery 2.5 days a week when I work (my job is very physical also).

Dp works long hours, leaves home at 4am and returns between 7-9 most nights. Due to this he doesn't partake much in housework (he's not here until late in the evening and needs to have dinner and a shower etc and on a Sunday sometimes I work so he's alone with ds and if I'm not working I'm certainly going to be spending some rare time as a whole family, not cleaning the house so I don't expect him to help)

But I can't cope, running a business, being the sole person responsible for getting ds everywhere he needs to go, nursery, clubs, park, to see our friends, doing all his care at home, buying everything he needs, having everything he needs for nursery, doing all the housework, doing the vast majority of meals. I'm absolutely exhausted and I'm so hard on myself and beat myself up for not being better at everything. But I don't know how to cope like this! Dp can't cut down hours due to how expensive the world is atm and we do need the income my business makes but even more so i'd just be devastated to give it up as I've worked so hard for it.

Not sure what I expect from this, anyone in a similar boat to have a moan with?! 😫

OP posts:
Fummymummy · 29/10/2023 22:21

You can't go on like this! I'm in a similar, but not anywhere near as full on situation by any stretch. My partner works long hours and is often away, so drop offs and pick ups are on me, I work 4 days and barely see the children during the week due to wrap around, weeknight evenings are spent eating tea, doing jobs, packing bags then bed. Then I try to squeeze in any appointments, errands, quality time with DC2, housework, washing, meal planning, etc into the time between school runs on my "day off". It sounds like you are also the family social sec, taxi, PA to DH and the kids in terms of sorting out anything and everything they need. I also like to have family time on a weekend but we always end up just doing a day of chores one weekend day at least. And we have a cleaner!!
My DH chips in too, it sounds like yours is a lot more absent (even if it's due to work).

I'm also wondering if this is just life now - I've got my dream job so went up to 4 days for it and I don't want to give it up, but at the same time I feel like I'm just getting by week to week, I'm exhausted, and I can't keep up with it.

If it helps, I started by delegating anything and everything I could - to both husband and kids. Simple things like paying nursery, paying the milkman, paying the cleaner, ordering DDs repeat prescription - I just changed my contact details to DHs so one less mental load.
I started setting healthy boundaries at work and saying no to things if I needed to (not sure if this applies to you being self employed) but is there anything at all that doesn't necessarily need to be you?
I do all my shopping online. I try to order kids clothes online where I can too. I get the kids to set the table, tidy their toys, and they've even started wiping down the kitchen (eldest is reception age) every little helps 😂.

I am considering paying my cleaner extra to do some washing for me as well as cleaning. I've also thought about other paid extra help.

The only other thing I've thought is to reduce my hours at work. DH would struggle to reduce because of the nature of his job so it would be me. We can't do it all, something needs to give.

The other thing I've cut down on is stuff for the DC. We don't currently do any clubs, I don't do playdates in the week at the moment, and I'm selective about what parties I say yes to taking them to and I don't feel bad about saying no if it means I can cope better and be a better mum.

Is your DH work flexible in terms of could he drop a day for you to do an extra day so you're getting more of a balance?

Superscientist · 30/10/2023 09:32

Once your child is 3 and qualifies for the 30 free hours could you afford to increase his time to 3 days a week to give you half a day to blitz through some chores without a small person slowing you down and immediately undoing your good work?

Dump some of the mental load on the other half. Doesn't have to be massive but find something on the list of things that permanently niggle at the back of the mind.

Do you have much freezer space? Could you set aside one weekend day a month to getting some premade meals in the freezer. Have a look at some of Jack Monroe's recipes. We have a couple of their recipe books and in the interest of saving money of cooking they are nearly all super quick.

Supermarket shopping we now pretty much exclusively online shop. The biggest advantage of this to me is being able to do the shop over 3 or 4 days. So it doesn't take too much time out of an individual day

Pumpkinpie1 · 13/01/2024 10:34

Wow OP I think you and your H are amazing. That’s a lot.
I hope you are ok I see the post was a while ago x

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