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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH was recently promoted and will soon begin working pretty much every weekend. We have an 11yo and a 13yo. It just dawned on me that we won’t have normal weekend family time soon, and I don’t know how to feel about this! I was so focused on the ‘sleep all day, work all night’ aspect that I hadn’t even considered the fact that we will miss him every weekend.

Tell me what it’s like and how you nurture togetherness when a parent is gone/asleep most weekends. Thanks in advance. [/quote]

My best friend is a nurse. Earlier in her career, she worked night shift, which for her was three 12-hour shifts per week, frequently at least one of them on the weekend. They have 3 kids, and she worked that schedule from when the oldest was about 6 months old to when the youngest was about 6 months old, at which point she shifted to an outpatient job that has daytime, weekday hours. They "made it work" as follows:

- Her hospital shift was 7-7, and she took the kids to daycare when she got home from work and then slept from 9-3 or so. She picked them up from daycare and fed them dinner, then went to work.
- Her husband worked 8-5 but committed to covering holidays, school closures, sickness, etc. and her sleep during the day if she was working the following night was prioritized. If he was sick, she covered, but she was not the primary parent for childcare during those years.

Your kids are old enough that they will be able to spend time with their dad outside the usual hours. You will develop new weekend routines. I had a job that required me to work Saturdays for a year and a half. My husband and child had their own Saturday life that didn't include me. I think it would be a lot harder if they were younger, but they are heading into a period in life when they are going to be doing most of their socializing with peers and not parents. You, on the other hand, should probably develop some hobbies ;)[/quote]

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