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Other posters have already said, this but you are currently in the most demanding and tough phase of being a parent. Remember you are dealing with 1)Sleep Dep
by apohn 5y ago
Other posters have already said, this but you are currently in the most demanding and tough phase of being a parent. Remember you are dealing with
1)Sleep Deprivation
2)Lower Emotional, Physical and Mental Resilience due to sleep deprivation
3)Learning a new set of skills (taking care of a child) while being physically, mentally, and emotionally overloaded.
4) Supporting your spouse, who probably has all of above (probably to a much greater degree), plus a hormonal system that is completely out whack.
5)Being on the treadmill of nap/bedtimes times, pooping, diapers, feeding, and translating a lot of crying too what the baby needs.
6)New fights and disagreements at home due to all of the above.
Now is not the the time perform a rational evaluation about your career. To use an Analogy, imagine you find yourself in a burning building. Is that the right time to wonder about your career? No - you need to get out of the building first!!
Somebody already said this, but the first 2 years of a child's life are tough. The first 12 months are the worst. Even when your child reaches the point where they sleep 8 hours without feeding, that still means if they go to bed at 8 they wake up at 4 to eat. So the sleep deprivation lasts well beyond the naive definition of "sleep through the night." When your child sleeps from 8PM-6AM and you can get 6+ hours of uninterrupted sleep, that's when your mental fog starts to lift.
At least for me, I had a child soon after some major or changes in my well-paying job led to me having a horrible manager and even worse skip-level manager. It was awful because I wanted to be a good dad+husband, but dealing with my job situation almost caused an internal panic about my future. I definitely felt trapped.
What I did was basically said "Until the child is 1, forget all this job stuff. If you take your job seriously, your family will suffer. And if you are sleep deprived and cranky, you are not going to succeed at your job. Do you want to fail at your job and as a parent, or just fail at your job for a while" When my child was one, I decided to make that "Until your child is 2, forget your job crap."
I ended up taking the full FMLA unpaid, which probably harmed my career at that job. But given that I didn't like my manager or skip-level, my career was not going anywhere anyway.
When your child is 2.5, you will be sitting at a restaurant and you will be surprised to realize your child wants to eat by themselves and talk to you. At that age, some type of daycare (even just part time) is necessary for them to get the interaction they need and many people in the modern world (a nuclear household) can no longer provide. You'll start having some time and mental space.
At 33, you've got at least 30+ years left where you can choose to be an entrepreneur. Your child will be 1 year old in 1/30th of that.
Finally, one last point. Many moms don't get enough support during this time. But if a mom gets 20% of the support they need, Dads get 0. Only a few people asked my spouse how she was doing and provided emotional support. My wife was the only person who asked me how I was doing. Nobody else did.
- princevegeta89 5y ago>Finally, one last point. Many moms don't get enough support during this time. But if a mom gets 20% of the support they need, Dads get 0 Lol I guess this hits the nail right on the head. Weird enough I even kept telling my wife that I was feeling depressed and she dismissed it in an instant asking how it is possible. >What I did was basically said "Until the child is 1, forget all this job stuff. If you take your job seriously, your family will suffer. And if you are sleep deprived and cranky, you are not going to succeed at your job. Do you want to fail at your job and as a parent, or just fail at your job for a while" When my child was one, I decided to make that "Until your child is 2, forget your job crap." Not sure if I was getting this right, but do you mean that it was getting tight to focus on your job for the first 2 years? Is that mostly because of baby duties?
- apohn 5y ago>Lol I guess this hits the nail right on the head. Weird enough I even kept telling my wife that I was feeling depressed and she dismissed it in an instant asking how it is possible. I am lucky enough that my wife recognized I was struggling too and acknowledged it. Honestly, I reached out to some caring dads I knew when I first became a dad and all of them said they really struggled as well, and most days they just put one foot in front of the other and just kept walking. If you care about being a good parent/spouse, it's really tough. >Not sure if I was getting this right, but do you mean that it was getting tight to focus on your job for the first 2 years? Is that mostly because of baby duties? I don't know what you mean by the word "tight" but what I meant to say that I realized that I simply didn't have a mental state or energy to excel at any job. But by simply taking care of the baby, cooking basic meals when needed, throwing out the trash, paying the bills (I mean this literally, such as writing a check and mailing it), letting my wife sleep an extra hour when the baby woke up at 5:30AM, etc, I was able to be a good parent. So what was the value in doing a half-ass job with my career AND as a parent, as opposed to doing the bare minimum in my job and doing a good job as a parent and spouse. Even with this realization, there were lots of times where I sat on the couch the first year and just felt like I was drowning and life was over. That happened in the second year as well, but less after the child was 18 months. And by ~2.5, it's a lot better! Also, in my reply I forgot to say - Get help in the house. Have a maid come every 2 weeks. If somebody can cook for you, do that. If you want to get one of those Hello Fresh style meal services, do that for a while. Do what it takes to reduce the load. There's more to "get help" than seeing a therapist. It's expensive to get help, but it's more expensive to recover from a mental breakdown