Working part time over 5 days a week. Does anyone do this?

[WannabeMathematician]

I’m exhausted. That’s the main point of this thread, money is important too but keep in mind the exhaustion bit when giving advice.

I’m thinking of dropping my hours to 32h a week over five days. I have one child in school and one child nursery. This would allow me to do school pickups every day and have a lot less running around like maniac. I find full days at work exhausting, I have no time for myself and when I’m with my kids I’m just not present at all. But, I’m concerned on two fronts:

1. part of me feels I should stick it out as when the boys are older it might be very difficult to increase my hours back up and there is a small voice in my head that says that this will be the end of my career.

2. actually if I’m dropping to 32h I should do that over 4 days and save a day on nursery and spend it with my youngest. Selfishly I think this is not a good idea as I know that this will not solve me being exhausted as I will just be zoned out on my day off and running around like a blue arsed fly on the long days.

So I’m a bit stuck, but I think m that I have talked myself into doing nothing as now all options look bad. Does anyone have any advice?

My husband works a very full time job that means we can make it work and he does all the cooking/planning/online shop which helps but he also travels a lot which and I do at least one day a week completely by myself.

Yeah i work 28 hours over 5 days.

I worked 32 hrs over 5 days for years and it absolutely saved my sanity. It just meant I always had that bit of breathing space that made everything do-able. If you can make every day manageable, you avoid the risk of burning out. Worked for me anyway.

I work full time hours over 4 days so have every Friday off. Total game changer

I guess this is what I’m hoping for? I don’t know if better or worse than four days for my energy levels. Obviously it’s better for the bank balance but I’m not sure I’d use the time any better if I had a whole day off.

And like I said I get knackered after about 6 hours so would then I only have 24hs a week to get work done in?

If you are working over 5 days you will end up with a full timers quota of work eventually…

Better to work it over 4 days and have a whole day off to catch up on stuff.

I've been doing 32 hours over 5 days for over 10 years. Originally so I could pick the kids up a couple of days a week straight from school, now it just means I'm around when they get back independently. I've no desire to go back to full time.
A colleague does the same hours over 4 days and has a day off a week instead.