As an Emergency Medicine physician, I work weird hours, 8-10 hours at a time. I prefer the evening and overnight shifts for lots of reasons. This complicates my “outside life,” as I call my home life and I need a small army of babysitters and the daycare to accomplish this. This summer, Blur1 is out of school for the first time (he just “graduated” pre-k) and we’ve added camp to the mix of my arsenal of childcare. With camps and school and daycare, why do I need the babysitters too? Hubby’s job starts at 5a and he has to leave by 4a. Babysitters come to my house at 4a on nights I work overnights and he has to work; I pay ridiculously for this.
Having done this for 10 years now, I have figured out what I need to do the overnight, schedule-wise. 7a wake up the morning of the first one (The Blurs’ fault), do a heavier than normal workout, a pre-shift nap (1 hour or less on the couch), overnight shift (11p-7a), get The Blurs to school/camp/daycare, get to sleep by 9a, wake up by 3p, maybe preshift nap, and repeat until the overnights are done. I abstain from alcohol this entire time and don’t worry about my diet or working out. I also try not to schedule anything important for the morning-early afternoon hours because I know I won’t make it. Sometimes, before the 3rd or 4th overnight, I’ll go into work early and get some administrative or academic things done, especially if I’ve flipped good or have a pressing deadline. After the last overnight, I have a beer or two with dinner and only one cup of coffee when I first get up to help reset me to going back to days. With this regimen, I flip back and forth from days and nights as easy as one can.
For the most part, this regimen has worked with The Blurs and Hubby. They are at school or work while I sleep and vice versa and we spend our evenings together. However, this summer has put a cramp in our schedules. School is out and camp doesn’t cover the entire summer. I have had to adjust my routine and it sucks. This week I had an isolated overnight but no childcare for Blur1 during my prime sleeping time. I tried taking a much bigger nap preshift and it worked by giving me 2 additional hours of feeling awake after my shift. Too bad I needed 5-6; Hubby can’t get home until 11a at the earliest for special things and this wasn’t one of those days. The shift happened two nights ago and I’m still hurting. I know what I need is more sleep but I also know that is not going to happen.
I am curious how others cope when their normal schedule, abnormal as it may be at baseline, is disrupted. Do you have things in place to help you adjust? I thought 10 years would have been enough to figure this out but The Blurs keep adding new wrinkles I never previously considered.
Ps. Those of you with older kids than mine (5 & 2 yo), what wrinkles should I be on the lookout for?
I'm wondering how hard it was to find babysitters for that early in the AM, and how much do you have to pay them? I am forseeing the need for something similar once my baby is born, since I have to get up for work at 530 and don't realisically see my hisband doing everything
ReplyDeleteI pay $15 an hour for 2 kids - this is compared to $8-10 most people in my area pay for the same kid number. I have at least 2 sitters in my "army" at any time and I find them through friends/neighbors and website (I have used several sites).
DeleteAnd my husband does a TON.
DeleteI don't change shifts but I used to have evening office hours, and that meant when my husband was away I had to cancel patients. Now the most significant chaos comes when I work weekends and that's fairly manageable most of the time since my husband usually doesn't have to work weekends at all. And he does everything. He's a parent, too. He should do everything.
ReplyDeleteWhat to watch out for: one of my colleagues told me that I'd be better off working full-time when Eve was young and part-time as she got older, since after-school hours are more important for older kids. I have found that to be absolutely true. I went back to full-time work when Eve was 7. She is now 15, and at least one or two days a month I leave early to pick her up at school or at the bus. I do this mostly so I can have some unscheduled time with her. That's when I hear about the real stuff, the important stuff, and that's when I have a chance to substitute my conversation and response to her experiences for YouTube and SnapChat and the adolescent echo chamber. When she was little, the day care did diapers and naps as well as I did. As she got older, I was more concerned about what she was hearing from other people, and I wanted to be present much more.
Hubby does a TON.
DeleteI have protected mornings (I do 100% school dropoffs) so I hear a lot of real stuff then plus with EM, I can do some pickups. Hubby does them all now but in the future, because of your advice, I'll start doing more.
We have similar scheduling issues and have had great success with au pairs (so far.... Knock on wood!). Other people I know hire live in nannies or have college kids live with them to cover nights. Somewhat surprisingly the people I know who have early morning babysitters who live out have been able to make it work too. I think waiting for the sitter would just stress me out too much though. And then there are the lucky ones who have family members who want to help. Suffice to say, it is totally possible, just expensive!
ReplyDeleteOne question.... How do you switch back to days without feeling like you've been hit by a bus? I feel like I've gotten the switch to nights down, but coming back to day shift is always so painful. Was wondering whether you had tips for that.
I also second jays assertion that it is actually ok to ask your husband to do "everything." I know of no man in the same position who would even hesitate to ask the same of his wife.
you gave me a post idea but i flip back fairly easily. i think it's mostly luck though.
DeleteI don't have overnights but do have occasional weekends and holidays. The Husband often handles those himself since he's almost always off for those, +/- help from our family nearby. When our daughter was little and we only had 1, I worked many more weekend days. The result is that he and she are so close.
ReplyDeleteWhat about finding a neighborhood teen or college kid home for the summer who can be a mother's helper for a few hours a day? They could help with tasks or watch kids while you sleep if needed.
Thanks everyone, trust me when I say, I've exhausted every avenue of extra sitters without actually adding more to my "army" (and that requires an interview and an explanation of what 4AM means) and this was a one-off, my screw-up in scheduling AND I did it to myself again in August. This time, Hubby can take one day off.
ReplyDelete