Reply to I feel like I'm drowning. How do two full time working parents do it?

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Reply to "I feel like I'm drowning. How do two full time working parents do it?"

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I hate to break it to you, but as far as that feeling of being drained after a day at work and then the second shift at home with the kids, well, that may never get better.  I have a 3 and 5 year old, and I can’t remember a time when I came home in the evening after work and felt full of energy.  It may never happen, so adjust your expectations and plan accordingly.  That said, here are some things that occur to me:

You don’t mention whether your son STTN or whether you are still nursing him.  Both of those can be huge drains on energy.  The sleep is obvious, but I also found nursing to be a very tiring endeavor, especially when I was back at work and pumping.  Once I weaned, I got some energy back.

It makes no sense for you to take a day off work and forego the pay/benefits just to clean the house yourself and run errands.  Hire a cleaner.  Run errands with your baby and DH on the weekends.  I feel like we put too much pressure on ourselves to have weekends be “quality time” at the expense of getting those household errands done, when for many the household errands give a peace of mind that extends into the week.  You could pop your son into a carrier and have some nice snuggle time while you get your shopping done.  On the other hand, if you want to take a day off work to spend some time with your son, that makes sense.  You would still be able to get some stuff done around the house (especially if you work on the nap situation), and you would feel less pressure on the weekends.

I try to alternate evenings of productivity and laziness – and I have found that the key to having a productive evening is to not sit down.  So if I know I am going to cook or clean after the kids go down, I don’t go take a break on the couch.  I power through until I’ve finished what I wanted to get done and then I go to bed early.  The next evening, I veg out with the TV or online.

It may sound crazy given how you feel now (and may not yet be doable given the age of your son), but try to get some exercise if you’re not currently.  When I started exercising, my energy really improved, even though I sacrifice sleep to fit in the exercise.

Finally, it sounds like during the week, you are on your own with your son because your DH gets home too late.  That means, IMO, that you should be getting some extra time on the weekends from DH to make up for that.  Not that it has to be tit-for-tat, but you also don't want to get into a mode where you are the promary caregiver and DH is unable to be as effective on his own with the baby.  [/quote]

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