Feeling on the edge of burnout, to be expected?

[zena347]

Hi all, looking to see if other people feel like this. I think this is just sleep deprivation, I’ve not had a full night sleep in nearly 4 years!

I’m 28 and have four beautiful children who I love more than life. I have a degree and a masters behind me in my professional field so I feel very accomplished in that aspect. I’m currently not working at the moment due to my youngest 3 being so close in age and my partner earns a good enough wage to be able to stay at home with them.

I have two in school and two at home, my 3rd goes to preschool twice a week. None of my children have ever liked sleep, my youngest two are particularly bad and I am constantly getting broken sleep and I feel like I am on the verge of burnout. My partner works away - he can be away for 3/4 days out of the week and we don’t have any help, let alone a village as unfortunately we’ve both been blessed with awful parents.

We haven’t had a date night since the start of the year and I feel like I am just surviving. I do the meals, school drop offs and pick ups, cleaning washing and day to day admin etc. My partner could do more when he’s here but that’s a whole other issue. I am absolutely exhausted and my whole face aches (sinuses) and I have just been crying on and off all day. I feel so grateful to have my children, the business of life but I feel like a failure. I worked so hard for my career, only to do it for such a small amount of time, and now I feel all that I am good at is cleaning and looking after the children.

I have also got myself into an anxious state at interacting with people - I have always been shy but since being a stay at home mum I find it so awkward as I am just boring, I am just a mum, I don’t have a career, don’t have the time for hobbies so how can I keep a conversation flowing? I’m also stuck in the boat of wanting a little job to contribute and to have some independence (not that my partner has ever made me feel this way) and wanting to be there for every step with my children. My youngest is very clingy also, which makes it all the more overstimulating. The logistics of actually working would make it so difficult to due to my partner not being able to help with pick up and drop offs and the cost of after school and breakfast clubs etc.

All of this is just waffle, I just was curious to know if anybody feels the same. I’m hoping I will feel brighter in a few days. It’s just so hard, and the sleep dep is contributing to my already horrible anxiety which just makes everything so hard and explains why I have been so teary.

It sounds tough. With the logistics of your DP being away for long stretches I’d try and make it through till youngest starts preschool then find a part time gig to tide you over till youngest hits school age and you can look to get back into your career.

Well done getting your degree and MA with little support. You are still so young, you have heaps of time to get back into your career and you don’t have the pressure of your biological clock ticking.

Trying to put yourself out there socially with young kids can be depressing sometimes but just keep trying to go to as much as possible and hopefully you will find the odd mum that you enjoy talking to.

If everyone is preoccupied at a baby group an I start to feel like a sore thumb it helps me to remember (not sure where I heard it from) to act like you are the most interesting person in the room. Or to put it another way, you don’t have to put pressure on yourself to interact. Let others come to you because you are the cool one not the socially awkward one. (Helps with my anxiety anyway)

Re: your parents. Isn’t it great that you have now created your own family and you can create the caring and supportive dynamic you never had and they will hopefully want to visit you when they are grown up and give back to you.

You have four young kids who, for a large part of the time, you parent alone. Of course you're shattered, that is totally to be expected and not a reflection at all of your competency. It is tricky re the lacking confidence as from your timeline you presumably qualified and then didn't work for long at all before having kids, so you don't have many relatable points to share with other people who have spent the majority of their twenties working. That said, it doesn't sound like the right time to be trying to cram in a part time job with everything else you've got going on. Do you have any other interests? Could you do a zoom art class or something that you can do from home if you can't go out but can talk to people about a shared interest?

I feel exactly the same way! I have two children one is 5 (6 next month) and my youngest is almost 11 months and I’m utterly exhausted in every form. It’s like all I am good at and know to do is MUM. I’ve had ppd with both kids and both were stressful emergency births. I have no mum friends I just sit at home doing day to day house work while looking after my son. Going from 1-2 kids isn’t the hard part for me. It’s the isolated feeling and the loss of freedom.

I’m anxious all the time, always been shy but since having kids it seems to have worsened. I can’t talk to people it’s just easier to sit in silence. My parent works 5/7 days so I do school drop off and pick up everyday and he could do more to help out at home as well. It’s like they think they go to work and that’s them helping by earning the money. He’s a great father don’t get me wrong but I think most do the bare minimum without realising being a mum IS a job in itself