I've been wrestling with some things lately, as I mentioned in a past post. My husband is now on weekday day shifts until the new year, and I'm looking back on the last 6 months of night shifts and am a little undecided on a few things. I was totally counting down days until he ended night shift, and I'm trying to figure out whether I'm ok with that. I know that the last 6 months have had a lot of stuff going on (read, new baby!) that won't have quite the same impact on future night shift sessions, but there was a lot of time that I felt like I was simply biding my time until he was back on dayshift and more present in the day to day of me and the girls. Waiting for the next 6 months is no way to live my life for the other 6 months of every year...
The mister loves his job, and his favorite shift is night shift, but the toll on me was more than I had counted on now that Baby E is here. Each week, from Tuesday evenings until Sunday afternoons, I really didn't get any breaks. He was only awake for a couple hours, and most of that time he spent getting ready for work, eating a bit of food, and doing his evening chores. Some days he didn't even get to the chores, and they fell to me. There wasn't usually time for him to watch the girls so that I could get a break and run down to the garden, let alone go and do something more, and with the two girls only intermittently matching up their nap schedules, and the baby typically falling asleep around 10, there just wasn't much time for me to escape and do my own thing when he wasn't around, awake, and capable (not to mention willing!) to look after the girls for a bit.
So to say I had been eagerly anticipating him being on day shift, home for supper and bedtime every night of the week, and being home (and on the same sleep schedule as us) both days on the weekend is likely a huge understatement. Since its looking like half of his years will be on night shift, and half on day shift, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to manage the night shift time, because personally, biding my time half of my year is no way to live. Clearly I've got to get the night shift game figured out, but I'm ok with not being quite there yet this past go around. Come January, he's on night shift for another 6 months, so that will be the true reckoning of how to best manage keeping my head well above water during night shift!
In the meantime, I'll enjoy the extra time with him on evenings and weekends, and try and get a bit ahead of the game on things that otherwise could wait until the first half of the coming year. I'm proud to be a cop's wife, and definitely willing to sacrifice to help him serve, I just need to figure out how to better manage our home life under these new-to-us schedules - we had never done even a month of night shift before this past 6 months, not to mention night shift with a new baby - so overall I think we've pulled through just fine :)
You've got a lot on your plate. I know you'll work it out so that you can be more in the moment, no matter his schedule. Don't know if you have family or close friends around, but maybe they could give you a break when you need it? We all need some time alone.
ReplyDeleteLiving in the moment is so hard to do and i struggle with it as well. But seriously, you just had a baby, and you were basically a single mom for the first few months of her life. That is a ton to handle on your own. But i see what you're saying about living six months at a time, certainly isn't a good way to live. Hopefully over these next six months you can come up with ideas and strategies to live the six months of night shifts to their fullest. Good for you for realizing this, and acting on it. Such a good mama <3
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