Both career parents - two children? How?

[siobhanandsprout]

I am a mother of two beautiful children; a 2 and a half year old and 7 month old and I am returning to work in a months time. I have immensely enjoyed maternity leave but the return to work has me completely stressed. I will be working 4 days a week as a secondary teacher, but am taking on further responsibility to help with the childcare costs for both children. There are a number of issues?I don?t know where to begin.

Firstly, I am still breastfeeding my 7 month old, although he is on solids 3 times a day now too. I have done all the night feeds and have not had more than 5 hrs sleep in any one go (usually 3 hrs). So exhaustion isn?t helping. I am trying to wean off breastfeeding and help baby to learn to sleep by himself. My husband was willing to help try strategies for sleep, but only at the weekends so I gave up on the idea as there would be no consistency. So baby is entirely dependent on me to sleep now, and is mostly fed to sleep. No one else can put him to sleep. If I ask my husband to help out he says ?I can?t get him to sleep?. I am worried about his sleep at the childminders when I return to work.

Next, I am starting to prepare some work before I go back, but don?t seem to have any time to do it. Dinner/bath/ bed routine with 2 children takes ages if I do it alone, because I have to get one settled before I can start on the other. Bed is 8 at the earliest and then baby?s first sleep is usually only half an hour, so I need to lie with him for another 20 minutes. My husband usually gets in from work about 7.30 ? 8.00pm and will help out with bed/baths and we may fit dinner in at the same time or not until 9pm. Husband will help me with quick tidy up/washing up/ironing for half hour and usually there is a spare half and hour before we go to bed. When I return to work I will be doing all the pick-ups from childcare (husbands work is not flexible, boss? wife stay at home mum, other people in his dept young/single/childless so willing to work long hours) and will get home at 5.30pm have to fit in the rest of my work every evening. How?

I feel as if I am doing everything. I know my husband gets in late every evening and helps out for a bit, but I am doing about 90% of the housework from Mon-Fri and I feel as if potty training/weaning/ sleeping issues are entirely left to me. Also, although my husband?s job earns slightly more than mine, mine has to fit entirely around his. Neither of us have family nearby and we don?t get five minutes to spend with each other. I am reluctant to try suggestions of earlier bedtimes. If I get the children to bed by 7.30, he will never see them. Anyone in a similar position, advice please. I am close to breaking point.

Gosh, no wonder you're stressed

I'm about to pop out but will come back to this later, I just didn't want you to think that no-one had seen your post

Being at a childminders may be the making of your baby. I've got a ds(4) and a ds (11 months) and have just started back to work after a year's maternity leave. My baby wouldn't sleep without being cuddled to sleep, so I didn't know how he'd manage at nursery, but I knew from experience of 1st ds that once they are in childcare, they start doing all sorts of things they didn't do before. Once your baby has settled in with childminder he will probably go to sleep for his naps himself and be much more amenable to your dh putting him to bed. My baby until recently screamed blue murder if I left him to go to bed with my dh, but since he's been at nursery he is fine with him.

He may also be less dependent on the breast if at childminders all day.

Can you afford a cleaning lady so that your weekends are truly just for you and the family?

To be honest I think it's likely to be incredibly difficult, unless either your DH can cut down his hours, or you can afford to spend more on help.

I suspect this is why so many couples end up falling into the pattern of one SAHP (or very part time P) and one WOHP.

I know that isn't helpful and I really hope there are people with more positive tales to tell. Not least because I am wrestling with a similar dilemma myself.

I would get a cleaner. I am also a teacher and have tried to do as much work as possible before leaving school for the day. Is this possible?

My two are older so their bedtimes are a little later but I find it hard to settle to work with them rattling around.

As for your DH not seeing them, can they be in pjs when he walks through the door and he can put them down? I understand that he may want to see them before bedtime but tbh, I know lots of dads who rarely see their children during the week because of long working days.

It's not ideal but if you need to get cracking on schoolwork you have to think of yourself too. Marking and planning eat into family time massively IMbitterE.

We both work - I'm doing 4 days a week, dh works 5 days, and we have a pretty long commute each way. We have 3 kids - 13, 11 and 3 (who was unexpected), no family and I'm home first around 5.30 and he's home around 7. It was pretty daunting at first, but we just got into a routine, and now accept that we're constantly exhausted, we don't spend much time together as a couple and the house isn't as clean as we'd like!

What's key though is working together and both pitching in. Would you be able to get a cleaner? I know we can't simply because we couldn't afford the £80-£100 a month the local ones charge on top of exorbitant nursery fees, but I have the older 2 who are put to work round the house. Would your dh be able to review his hours? DH often finishes earlier than he would like, puts the youngest to bed and then works from home in the evening.

It is all doable, it's just a bit "eek" at the beginning. They don't also stay that age forever, so every few months that goes by means it gets easier. Good luck!

I went back to work 4 days a week at the same time as you are planning -DD was 2.5yrs and DS was 8 months. I was also still breastfeeding, but managed to drop the day time feed just before i went back to work (prepare for v swollen boobs and damp patches in the first week at work!!!), but still fed in in am and at bedtime.

I agree with minipie about childminders though, both of mine became much less fussy when they went to the childminders - at home DS would only eat very pureed food and yogurt and within a week at the childminders was eaten mashed food and finger food really well.

the biggest thing for me though was getting a cleaner. I had one for 4 hours a week (and still do) and it is worth every penny of the £36 I pay. She comes in 2 days (Tues and Friday) and also does the ironing. This gives me 4 hours back to spend with DCs and DH and also the reassurance that even if the house is untidy it is clean!!

Also I used to get all the childrens stuff and my clothes for day ready the night before as the morning run to childminders and then work was really stressful at first. I don't do this any more as I am not a naturally organised person, but for the first year or so back at work it really helped me to feel in control of situation.

Could your DH take full control of the children for half a day regularly every weekend? Maybe swimming on a Sat am and then a hot chocolate and cake? Would give you time to get your head together after a week at work and also increase his confidence dealing with them on his own?

Your DH will have to make himself more helpful or like suggested take the children for half the day on a saturday so you can get house organised. I find that I get up before the rest of the family on a saturday morning and have done laundry, tidying, hoovering and washing floors & surfaces before DP and dd wakes up. I work 5 days a week and am trying to study part-time. I do get help from DP with putting dd to bed although in my experience men do tend to just expect house to be run (smoothly-ish) by the women and certainly need to be told otehrwise. You did say you were going to work 4 days though. Could older child be with childminder on the 5th day too, or perhaps for half the day to let you do chores and catch up on work sleep when your smallest sleep? I would also get the children to bed at 7pm. I presume you will have to get the children up at 7 to get them to childminder in time and as they should have around 12 hours a night that would make sense to me. Can't be helped that your DH wont see them on week days (perhaps the older one can be in pj's waiting for dad). Consider doing part of the routine together with them. I.e. could they bath together, or at least one after the other and hear a story while you breastfeed? You could all be in the parents bed and then older one gets tucked in before you soothe little one? Multitasking but still nice in my opinion (but I haven't tried!). DP could also be in charge of cooking dinner. And you need to get your youngest more settled. Introduce sleep soothers (I used a great book called sleepsense to get my dd to sleep more fully when she was a baby) and establish a routine that you stick too. I also do lots of eternally organising the day before, like pack bags for nursery, make lunch/dinner for myself (and dds dinner to take into nursery). In the morning I make sure I am ready before I get dd up (have clothes ready for her, milk ready and car packed). Then its a case of clothing and giving milk and out the door. You could gain a lot by organising breakfast for dc at childminders. In my case it means I supply weetabix every so often for breakfast. You'll have it all down to military precision shortly! But do get your DH involved.

Our life is a bit like this.

Agree with getting a cleaner if you possibly can. Otherwise one of you needs to get the kids out of the house on say Saturday morning while the other does the housework. Have you got a dishwasher and a tumble dryer? I find these help cut down the housework quite a lot. Also try not to iron things unless you really have to - for us that is work shirts and nothing else.

At bathtime and bedtime, what I do with two littlies is bring them both into the bathroom, let the baby crawl round my feet while I start bathing the toddler, put the baby in and out of the same bath and bf while the toddler finishes his bath, then put the baby in the cot for a second while I take the toddler out of the bath. Then I take the baby into the toddler's bedroom for storytime and tucking in. So the toddler is in his bedroom and I only have the baby to deal with. Toddler does not go to sleep straightaway but plays in his room for a bit, we have lights out later when he's had a chance to say goodnight to his dad.

I take the baby downstairs, bf again and then put baby in the buggy for the first sleep as it is like a nap for her. If I put a load of laundry on she often falls asleep in front of the washing machine. When she falls asleep I start the dinner and can usally get her to resettle easily with a quick rock. If she is still unsettled when DH gets home I send him straight out for a walk round the block while I get the dinner going. When baby wakes up we take turns with her while the other can get essential things done.

Then baby comes upstairs with me / us a bit later for her proper sleep.

Childcare changes the sleep routines anyway so I don't think you can do much but grit your teeth at first. After a month or so at the CM see how the baby's doing and take the sleep issues from there.

All that said, it is really hard work and we have got an au pair now to help with the nursery runs and bathtime so it's not like we've got it cracked on our own! The above description is of a good day!

You are not seeing the wood for the trees.

You have to remember that your children change incredibly quickly at this age, so what is difficult today will not necessarily be as hard a few months from now.

I think you need to decide what your priorities are and how much of a control freak you want to be.

For example, you are struggling to get the children bathed and put to bed. Are you doing this too early, when it is a fight - or could you leave it a bit later? I know there are loads of parents who have their children asleep at 6pm, but if you are working, do you really never want to see your little ones during the week? Perhaps a moved to a 9/9.30 bedtime will let you be a parent too. Why can't you bath both at the same time? and do you need to bathe them everyday?

With your baby's sleep, what is the problem with you nursing him to sleep? If it works, it works. He will not be like this forever. If you want to do controlled crying, you need to agree with your husband and both be of a strong constitution to not give in. It really is just easier to go with the flow, ime.

As for work, you really have to be careful about how much you bring home and the expectations you will set up amongst your colleagues.

Riven, I understand your point about the dad getting home on time but I have sympathy with the OP's DH, it can be really hard in lots of jobs to leave on time-ish though and even if you can, commutes can take ages. My job is like that and if I tried to take a stand I honestly think my work would be picked over and a reason found to get rid of me - I would never have said this before the recession though.

He does need to do more round the house from the sound of it but a lot can be done with short evenings and weekends - what if he took on responsibility for the laundry, the bins and the bathroom for example?

Well if things carry on as you describe when you're back, you will break - you can't do it all.

Your post absolutely sums up the post-feminist situation of so many women - not having it all but doing it all!

I think you need to buy in as much help as you can if you are both going to work FT. Cleaner, and mother's help for a couple of hours each evening (if husband genuinely can't get back). I would say that was a minimum to keep YOU healthy and not let you get used up like an absolute drudge.

to be honest other than that I would be looking to downsize house or something to buy myself a little flexibility rather than be railroaded into working FT if it was going to mean I was basically a single parent all week in terms of the domestic side of things.

(we have downsized, worked for us)

But mainly I would say, impress on your husband that he NEEDS to come home earlier; it's one of his responsibilities as a parent. It may be very uncomfortable for him, he may have to fight his corner - yes that's hard; but don't let him just load it all on you just because he can then avoid awkwardness at work.

I would also recommend that if possible you get yourself promoted to earn the same as or more than him, that should help him understand that he has an equal part to play at home!

Obviously it should be equal anyway even if your respective working hours are arranged differently but as you mention that "although my husband's job earns slightly more than mine, mine has to fit entirely around his" - earning more can be a good way to change his argument around!

You really are going to have to have a serious chat with your husband but here are some sanity savers- some of which have already been mentioned.

Breakfast at Daycare- saves so much time and mess.

Now it is heading towards winter a slow cooker could be a life saver. Little bit of prep in the morning and you could have tea ready for when you come home. There are some more summery recipes you can do as well.

Batch cook so you dont have to cook every night from stratch.

Bath every other night unless very grubby (which nursery have a habit of making my DS LOL)

Do not Iron unless essential and your DH must take his turn!

You and DH also need to make sure you have regular time out for yourselves and each other otherwise you are going to burn out.

Would second a lot of advice on here.

I work 4 days, DH fulltime and away 60/70% of the time. We only have one child, but I have long commutte.

DH does earn more then me, but when he is home, he does a LOT around the house, and ever since I finished maternity leave, this has been the case (he was good before then, but I just did more as I had the time!)

Need to chat about who is going to do what; whether it is possible for him to commit to coming home earlier perhaps once a week. (Not sure about the 5 3o thing though - depends on the job and the pay. If he earns anymore than 25/30k then in a lot of places this is code for 'you stay until the job is done.' Having said that, there may be a way he can do an hour at home in the evening, or just be more efficient during the day so allow him the early finish occasionally?

He DEF needs to do more though.

Any possibility of some paid help? We have a mother help for 2 hours a day 2 mornings a week. Sorts dd out and does some cleaning - I have to leave at 615 am to get to work by 7 45 to allow me to leave at 4pm - because DH away a lot of the time and cannot do puckup-drop off.

Reading this thread with great interest. How would I find a mother's help without resorting to a London agency - if one only wants a couple of hours help every other day for example they don't really cater for this.

OP we have twins and are both teachers, we have struggled with the juggling from the beginning but as others have siad the hard times do pass and we feel relatively sane and organised now (they haev just finished Y1) ironically getting them to school is far ahrder than getting them to nursery was becaus eof opening times, also they are much more tired at the end fo the school day, which I hadn't been prepared for. We have a cleaner, we all have school lunches so I don't usually cook a big family meal mid week, I feed the DTs then DH and I have a snack later. We are hyper organised first thing in the morning and do as much work at school as we can. It is hard though!

I'm a secondary teacher and I work 3 days a week. I have two children, a bit older than yours now (6 and 3) but this is how we make it work.

I found it is essential to sit down and work out who is going to do what. ~ As I work 60% and he works 100%, we agreed that I do a bit more of the housework (about 60 - 70%) / childcare and he does about 30 - 40%. You just need to find the jobs that he can fit in during his free time .

I do no major housework during the week. Atfer work, I spend time with the children and feed them, then DH comes home and he puts them to bed, whilst I start work. I work every evening, and he does the routine cleaning up etc. I Agree with the others that you do not need to bath every night - we only bath our children on a Sat, Sun, Tues and Thurs. This makes a big difference.

At the weekend, we take shifts. I take the children out on a saturday morning to their clubs / do things whilst DH has a bit of 'me' time and does his chores. He looks after the children every sunday from after lunch whilst I have some 'me' time and do my work / chores.

It is hard and can be tiring, but I find the holidays are never far around the corner, which helps. Also, I'd look at your putting to bed routine. I think if you have to lie down with your child every night, it'll make it really difficult. You need to get your DH to do the putting to bed routine, to ease the pressure on yourself.

And it does get easier when they get older. For example, I find now that I can get a lot of marking / planning / work done at Soft play now that they are older! You do find little things that help.

Good luck. It is hard, but it can be done, and trust me, it really does get easier!

PS. The other thing that helps is that I have very low standards at home

I would certainly get a cleaner, I couldn't be without mine now.

Also, I think your husband has to step up to the mark and help with the bedtime and DS's dependency for you to sleep. DH needs to take on the night time care for DS to try and wean him off you during the night.

Time for a chat with husband!

Notsleepingthrough

We got our mothers help via the Job Centre. It is free to advertise and they give you lots of advice about employing someone. Not much bureaucracy at all TBH - I was very pleasantly surprised. We got 20 applicants. Our works a couple of hours a day. She is CRB checked, can drive and has bags of experience with small kids, plus is happy to 'muck in'. I was careful to write the person spec for exactly the sort of individual I was looking for, and we are very happy. She has been with us for just over a year now.

Mothers help wise:

gumtree
netmums local childcare board
nannyjob.co.uk
Simplychildcare if in London
childcare.co.uk

Be very specific about what you want, be prepared to accept someone young with very little childcare experience or little relevant experience willing to work under supervision (or you might lucky and get a lovely granny type!), check references and qualifications thoroughly (usually an agency will do this for you) and remember a little flexibility on hours can go a long way.

I know you only have a month left until you return to work but I would seriously consider a nanny rather than a childminder.Why not have a look with some agencies or on ViveLaFrak's links just to see the alternative.

The major advantage is you can just get up and go in the mornings without getting the children up and ready.After dinner the nanny can start the bathtimes with you.
Nannies also do the childrens' washing and food and keep their rooms and playareas tidy and clean.A nanny can also work with you on your baby's sleeping and weaning and potty training in the way you feel comfortable and only has to fit in with your children and not balance the other children in her care as a childminder has to.She can rock your baby to sleep it that is what is needed for a few months.

I really think this would help with alot of your present stress.Yes it may be more expensive but this is a shortterm solution until your children are older and can help you do your own work better which inevitably will help you long term.Childcare is a joint expense not coming from solely your wage.

You must get a cleaner also: even if just every couple of weeks.During the week your dh must do the jobs such as emptying the dishwasher and general tidying.Meals should be batchcooked and frozen so you can just get them out during the week.#

The weekend the shift pattern Oldjolyon suggested is the best thing.

You must sit down with your dh and look at what you are going to do to make it work.
Both my dh and I worked FT for a period with him away 4 days of this and I now do 4 days to his 5 and he does leave early one day a week so I can stay later to get the extra stuff done you need to do in every job.It is very stressful to rush away every day.

My dh has managed to do this in a very similar company ethos to your dhs. Just tell your dh he needs to do it to make this work.My dh has always just been quite blunt that this is what he needs to do.May cause initial difficulties for him but he has to take on some of the stress.Perhaps he can go in early a few times a week to compensate.You would if the jobs were reversed.

You are jointly in this and childcare is your joint responsibility.Once you and your dh look at it this way everything can look very different.

My DH and I work fulltime. DH works long hours as city lawyer and we accept he will never see DD in the evenings. We enforce her 7pm bedtime so that she can wake up refreshed at 6.30 or 7am. DH drops her off at daycare for 8.30. I go to work early - leaving house at 7.30am. DH does morning routine (gives her milk and brekkie and gets himself ready as well as her). I do pick up - picking her up at 6pm then bath three times a week, milk, bed by 7pm. I then have 2 hours to myself before DH comes home. I get dinner on and work. No housework until weekend when DH is free and we all do housework TOGETHER (even my DD toddler helps to dust!). Max weekend housework between DH and I is 1 hour (I hoover and dust and do laundry whilst DH does deep cleaning of kitchen and bathroom). The rest of weekend is free for us and DD.

Key things for me:
DD has early 7pm bedtime so she has enough sleep and I can work in evenings and get dinner ready.
DH helps 50% with housework even though he does 50 hour weeks.
We limit housework to an hour between two so all spare time we can spend together with DD
We both take odd days off work to spend together or to keep DD out of daycare to spend the day with her.

And we limit baths to twice a weeknight and once at weekend.