Working while pregnant or having a newborn.. whats worse?

[Firstpregnancy2014]

Im almost 33 weeks now, still working. I work 8am-5pm Monday to Friday and also bake cakes in my spare time so at the moment i am doing 2 cake orders a week. I am starting to feel it now especially as sleeping is becoming harder due to my massive bump and constant waking for a wee.
But the second i yawn.. someone says ' god if you think your tired now'

But all i can think is that yes when the baby is here i will still have sleepless nights- but at least i wont be working fulltime too?
Am i being naive? What did you find worse?

As a new mum, I would say working towards the end of my pregnancy! My DS is 4 weeks old now and yes, its hardwork when he wakes up at 2am then 6am having not gone down til 11pm, but then he also sleeps in the day, and when i am tired, I can nap in the afternoon

It must depend on your job, I found newborn harder but then mine both woke every 2-3 hours for at least six weeks.

Depends on the newborn...

DD1 no more than 40 minutes sleep before the screaming began again (silent reflux). This went on until 7/8 months.

DD2 already sleeping 5 to 7 hours overnight at 6 weeks (bf).

I had a great pregnancy and even at the end I wasn't too tired so I can't compare that directly. But my only symptom in the first trimester was tiredness. A bone aching, have to drag my ass out of bed, nearly fell asleep in meetings tiredness. And I could have cheerfully strangled all those or said, "wait until the baby arrives". My LO is 10 weeks now and the sleepless nights have left me with a general feeling of being knackered and it is most of the time. But it is nothing like as bad as when I was in early pregnancy and you're right, being at work made it that much harder! Plus you have your baby smiling back at you to make it all worth it.

slightly different as I have a 2.2yo DS at home but.... I am SURE that being 35wks pg and STILL working full time HAS TO BE HARDER than having a toddler and a newborn.

However hard that will be AT LEAST I WON'T BE PREGNANT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!! As far as I'm concerned, things can only get better.

Having said that, the first 2 weeks of DS life were SUCH a shock to the system that I remember seeing pregnant women and thinking to myself "stay as pregnant for as long as you can...you've no idea how easy you have it.."

I agree with poster above - 1st trimester tiredness a lot worse than sleep-deprivation from a newborn in my opinion. With a newborn, biology and instinct kick in and you find you're capable of a lot more than you ever though possible. Whereas the first 10 weeks of both pregnancies, I actually thought I would die from tiredness. Never thought that when I was suriving on 3/4hrs sleep per night for first 13mo of DS's life.

This absolutely infuriates me. Just because Person A had it worse after baby does not mean that Person B's extreme exhaustion before baby is not still an issue. Similarly, even if Person B IS going to find herself in a month's time thinking, "my god, this is even worse than when I was working" how is it helpful to point that out now?

As for your actual question, I think it depends entirely on a combination of the woman, the pregnancy, the job and the baby. So, for all that DS was a truly awful sleeper and a very difficult baby, I would still say I was more tired in those last few weeks of work. I was working 50 hour weeks, not sleeping, had serious back pain and itching. Once DS arrived, I struggled, yes, but DH was around to help and I didn't have people at the office expecting me to be my usual super efficient self. If I didn't make it out of my pajamas, DH would make me a cup of tea and send me to bed early when he got in from work.

It depends on the pregnancy and the newborn, plus the type of job you have.

I found pregnant with a full time job and ponies to look after before and after work, about a million times easier than a newborn and no work/ponies (ponies went to stay with my mom). This was despite pregnancy flaring up my back problems and back problems dissipating after pregnancy because I could take my meds again.

This time I'm a sahm, with a 2.5yr old and its a trillion times harder than my last pregnancy. I actually wish I was working full time (used to have a nice sit down admin job), it would be far easier, than trying to run round after a toddler and do housework, with not only my back problems but PGP too. I can't cope - dh is being amazing and has took on so much of the housework that I'm finding just causes too much pain to bear but he works full time so isn't here to help me with toddler or suddenly essential housework all day (this morning I had to get down on the floor to scrub the carpet with carpet shampoo, because whilst I was making breakfast my toddler had a poo accident and took his pants off, then accidentally trod on them, then walked it all over the lounge, hall and into the kitchen to tell me.)

This time I'm thinking a newborn and toddler has got to be a heck of a lot easier than my current pregnancy and toddler.

Its all relative.

I completely agree about it being relative. I've worked up until 39 weeks, including quite a reasonable commute which was sometimes able to share with DH. I've needed the mental stimulation and found that much easier than staying at home where I feel bored, lonely and a bit isolated. I'm hoping that when I have a newborn (any day soon) that I'll have a role again,and will be too tired to care about boredom.