Jan 7, 2023 5 min read Exhaustion

I'm completely overwhelmed

This isn't sustainable.

This is very hard. Very very hard.

We're both perpetually exhausted and I'm not sure if this is sustainable.

Don't get me wrong, we're deliriously happy and profoundly grateful each and every day for the life we've been blessed with. We have a supportive and exciting marriage, a warm home to live in with our three healthy children, and we both have a job that we find stimulating and mostly enjoyable. Our country isn't at war, we have food and water available at all times (albeit increasingly expensive), and we can walk down the street without fearing for our own wellbeing.

In the grand scheme of things, life is a doddle, and I certainly wouldn't trade with anyone else in the world.

The sleep is killing us

We're happy but knackered. Absolutely, crushingly, bone-quakingly tired.

We had never anticipated that our kids would sleep quite this badly. To give you an idea:

The four year old mostly sleeps through the night now, but maybe once or twice a week will wake up once to use the loo
The two year old has never slept through. She wakes us up at least six times a night, requiring settling back to sleep and frequently ends up demanding to come and sleep in our bed
The eight month old has also never slept through. He wakes up on average every 20-30 minutes overnight

Then once they're up in the morning, they're on full gas until 7pm. Only the eight month old has a nap in the day and he usually demands to sleep on one of us, otherwise he wakes up too soon and is a crabby little dictator for the rest of the day. Marie and I try to tag-team naps on the days when we're off work together, but to put it into perspective:

Marie hasn't had more than 4 hours of continuous sleep in four years.

It's horrific.

We reckon we've tried every combination of settling/rocking/cry-it-out/co-sleeping/weighted blanket/white noise/music/storytime/hypnosis that we can think of and nothing seems to have made any difference other than just waiting for the months to pass and them to just grow out of it.

The four year old sleeping through is the only giving us hope.

Don't get me wrong, we adore them to bits, and during the day they are delighful (mostly), but it's one thing to keep up with high intensity kids, and another to try and do it on less than half the recommended sleep allowance.

To make matters worse, I've bitten off more than I can chew

I've bitten off way more than I can chew, and I'm more than happy to admit this fact. I have lofty ambitions for what I can achieve for myself and my family and I have always had a tendency to take on a whole host of exciting projects, naively thinking I'd be able to handle them all without a problem.

And that was before kids.

I'd already figured out, when number 1 came along, that I was going to be limited in what I can achieve for myself when there's demanding little ones running around the house, but even with that in mind, I'm still surprised by how unable I feel at the end of the day to get anything done whatsoever.

And that's with Marie doing the lion's share of settling the kids in the evening as they wake up every half an hour.

Here is a list of the thing's I'm currently trying to achieve:

Provide the kids (and dog) with a house full of love, interesting trips and acitivites and books and resources to learn about the world
Work a nearly-full time (technically 80% but still over 40 hours a week) job as an intensive care doctor
Revise for a ridiculously difficult post-graduate exam that costs me £600 just to sit it, and has a 40% pass rate. (It's in a month so I don't know what the hell I'm doing writing this)
Build a medical teaching website, for my own enjoyment, the benefit of other students and doctors, and to earn some money on the side (my hourly rate as a doctor is a little over £22 and I'm already pulling extra shifts just to pay the mortgage and heating bills)
Write this blog, again for my own enjoyment and sanity, the benefit of other parents, and if I can monetise it in an ethical way than that would be fantastic (see bracket above)
Doing up the house, because it's borderline derelict and we have slugs visiting every night despite me filling every hole I can find with far too much expanding foam
Not die, by eating, sleeping and exercising where possible

So yes. I'm struggling.

To be honest I'd still be struggling if I were getting enough sleep, because the NHS is utter chaos at the moment and I really don't think I'm adequately prepared for this upcoming exam, however with the added impact of being perpetually sleep-deprived it's nigh on impossible.

I found my car keys in the freezer yesterday.

Important caveat - I'm not attending work if I don't feel safe to do my job - I have called in sick twice this year because I felt too exhausted to safely treat patients.

I can only do one thing at a time

This is the crux of the matter, and the harsh reality. I just have to take each hour, each minute even, at a time and figure out two things:

What is most urgently important
What I actually have the energy to achieve

While I adore writing this blog, and building my medical teaching website, the harsh reality is that they don't matter in the big picture.

Of course my dream is to earn a sustainable income online when the kids are asleep, so that I can homeschool the kids and work part-time as a doctor when it works for our family, rather than depending on it to sustain us, and having to fit the kids' education in around my rota.

To achieve this kind of income from just two fairly niche websites requires a huge amount of early-on investment of effort and time to get things off the ground. But when push comes to shove? I just need to close the laptop and prioritise.

The first thing to focus on is getting enough sleep, so that I can do my job to the best of my ability. Patient safety comes above all else when it comes to doctor life, and if I do anything to jeopardise that, then I couldn't live with myself if something were to go wrong. So no more writing into the wee hours of the morning, no matter how tempting it may be.
The second thing is to focus on preparing for the exam, because if I fail and have to resit (it's mandatory to pass this exam if I wish to progress in my medical career) then that's a family holiday or six week's food down the drain.
Finally I need to slow down and remember to actually live. I need to realise when I'm wrapped up in my thoughts and not being present with my kids. I'm absolutely terrible at just being here and now - I'm always whirring away in my head, thinking and worrying about anything and everything - I need to return to the moment, and ensure I invest and enjoy every minute that I can with them.