Redundancy on maternity - anxiety and sleeplessness

[SpunkyLemur]

I was made redundant four months into my maternity leave with my second baby. I was due to go back to work in January and have been actively applying for jobs for the last three months. I've got to the final round for three jobs and then lost out. (Each has been extremely drawn out and sent me mad while waiting for the answer, one ghosted me for a month!!)

I'm now beginning to panic and my anxiety is through the roof. My baby is 7mo and waking frequently throughout the night and after the second or third wake up my head begins to spin and I can't get back to sleep. I've been awake since 1.30am 🥴

I'm not sure exactly why I'm posting this but any solidarity or advice regarding the anxiety, sleeplessness or navigating redundancy - any courses or coaches or social media accounts that could give me some guidance or a boost? My confidence is rock bottom after all these knocks. My only option is starting to look like going freelance, which I've done before so I know takes a lot of resilience and I don't have much of that to fall back on right now. And from everything I've seen online and LinkedIn (and front the state of the job market) it looks like a horrendous time for freelancers at the moment. We have also used up most of our savings surviving on statutory maternity pay so I need some solid money coming in in the new year. Freelancing is the only way to keep our childcare funding/hours from what I've read too. Sorry for the ramble but any words of wisdom are much appreciated 🙏🏼

I’m so sorry this is such a stress for you whilst you’re meant to be enjoying your baby and not worrying about work 😢 what I would do is apply for anything and everything (from b&m to your career line of work) to get something secured you can keep applying for your career line whilst in any work. I would then try to part time freelance alongside this? Then your foot is back in the door but you are guaranteeing income?

I don’t know your personal circumstances or experience though so it’s hard to say. But good luck x

What job roles are you looking at? The job market isn’t great at the moment but some areas are doing ok. Have you looked in to any courses you could do whilst on mat leave?

I work in marketing/advertising on the creative side of things. I did have a job in my city but my kind of roles don't come up in this region very often so I've also been applying for remote roles, but these are even more competitive and become rarer.

I'm going to look into courses or refreshers but even finding time to do job apps and interview prep has felt really hard around my baby's cat naps and other days I have my preschooler with me too.

Thank you, I'm going to look round my local town today to see what's going in shops etc x