Babysitter Woes
For context, my husband travels a lot for work and I work 50-60 hours a week in healthcare (remote, but cannot have children in the home while working). We have an excellent daycare Monday to Friday for our 5 year and 5 month old.
The 5year old is with her father half the time (split, coparenting) so we try to use a sitter when it’s just the baby so it’s less of a pull only having to watch one child. The five month old is teething and in the phase where they are getting fussy in the evenings right before bed. So, the last handful of times we’ve left for an hour or two to try and have a date night or an evening for the two of us- we either come back to exasperated thanks for coming home because he was fussy, or a call to come home early because the baby is crying. For context, they are left with a close family member or two.
I’m now at the point where I feel guilty asking anyone at all to watch him, and feel scared to even ask because I am just waiting for a phone call or a brick wall of guilt the second I walk through the door- so now I do not rest at all. There is zero time to relax, no down time for my brain, my body, nothing.
It feels like every several weeks I’m asking to up my Lexapro, and just constantly am overstimulated or crying. Outside of therapy, which I am already in, what else can I do?
The “village” we had when he was born has all but disappeared now that he’s not brand new, and the second he cries he gets pushed right back to me anywhere we go…
Am I expecting too much for people to figure it out when they are holding or watching him so I get a genuine break, or is this just how it is and I need to find a way to deal with it mentally?