Any other shift workers wives?

[FourAngelKisses]

I'm just wondering if anyone else is married to a shift worker, if so, does it bother you or anything?

My husband does 12hr rotating shifts. This week he does Mon, Tues and Wed nights, then he is off until next week when he does Mon, Tues days and Thurs, Fri nights. Then he works Wed, Thurs, Fri days before going back to the start.

I've never known him to work any other hours so I don't know what it's like to be married to someone who works 9-5 five days a week or anything. I like the fact that he has 3-4 days off each week. He needs to leave here at 6:30 and he doesn't get home till 7:20, so it makes for a long day/night. The nights are the hardest though. He will often sleep until 3-3:30 and needs to be out the door in 3hrs so it is a mad rush of trying to do homework, baths, dinner etc.

School holidays are also hard, trying to keep the kids quiet so he can sleep. Generally they are good, but some days it seems like they push all the buttons they can. DH sleeps with earplugs in so I don't need to worry too much.

How do other mums cope??

[DB&O]

My DH is in the RAAF & has to do shift work, he works one of three shifts a week, either day shift (7am- 4pm) late shift (1.30pm- 10.30pm) or night shift (10pm- 7am). I'm ok with both the day & night shift, although I hate being on my own at night :o but I hate the late shift with a passion. I almost have a melt down between the hours of 5pm & 7.30pm. This is when I'm trying to make dinner & feed & bath Liv, as well as clean up & then put her to bed. It can be really hard to do anything with a 1yr old attached to your leg & this is the time of day that she usually gets to spend some one on one time with her daddy, so I really miss him during this time, it can feel like your just going non stop for 3-4 hours & then just fall into bed exhausted. Then DH comes home & wants to chat & I feel like I have to sit there & hold a conversation even though I can't concentrate on a thing he has said, so in answer to your Q, I don't really cope I bumble through.......just:p

[FourAngelKisses]

I find my kids misbehave more when DH is on night shift. They can be angels, but the minute he walks out the door, they turn into these terrors. They refuse to do as I ask and getting them to go to bed can be a nightmare. matthew is easy as he doesn't have a choice in the matter, he gets put to bed at 6:30 whether he likes it or not. But the other 2.......:banghead: It is better now than it was though. When they were 3 and 4, I could be up till midnight some nights trying to get them to go to bed. They kept running up and down hallways, jumping out windows etc. It is hard trying to do stuff in the evenings with them hanging off your legs or misbehaving. Yet if daddy is home, all he has to do is look at them and they be good, lmao.

DH is great though, he will help out with the kids when he can. He cooks, does housework and still works those long, horrendous hours.

[Mother Duck]

Hi guys - it certainly gets tricky when these fellas work such long hours!

I am fairly familar with the shift work thing as both DH and I met in the mines where we both used to work shifts - BUT that was pre-babies!

When DH gave up mining it was to be at home more which is crazy, he now works even longer hours. He isn't on shifts at the moment but goes at 5:30am and often isn't home before 6:30 or 7pm - feels like he is away forever.

Alot of it is a streak of 'workaholic' which I am slowly trying to get him away from and more into family time.

Anyway I sympathise with you both for shift work and if ever you want to chat just feel free :hugs:

[WeThree]

My husband works shifts as well, atm he has just done the first of 13 night shifts in a row, fun :rolleyes:
I do find it gives me time to hang out in bubhub of an evening though :laughing:
My kids go to bed well for me, thank goodness, I find the days when he has worked night shift the hardest, normal kids noises set me on edge and im constantly stressed trying to keep them quiet.

[Mamaduke]

My DH does afternoon shift. We both did afternoon shift before we had the boys (DH at Toyota & me for the Police), so it suited us both. We'd get home at around the same time and then we'd sleep in until midday...we lived like rockstars!!!
He leaves every day at 1pm and doesn't get home until 4am (does alot of o/t) so we don't really get to see him much. It's very difficult for someone to come home after a full shift and go straight to bed, so he unwinds by himself, and then doesn't get up until around 11-12pm the next day. So we basically have an hour of his time, not enough I say...but then again, I do think that some days he's happy to be walking out the door!;)
I've actually got used to having the evenings to myself. I put the boys to bed and even though I sometimes do get a little lonely, I do enjoy 'me time'...when DH is on holidays I find myself getting a tad irritated with the 'invasion of my routine'! - not to mention having to share the remote!:eek:

[Rockett]

My DH does shiftwork too.He does 2 day shifts,and then 2 nightshifts,and then has 4 days off before it all starts again.They are 12 hour days/nights and the day shift starts at 6.30am and comes home around 7pm,night shift starts at 6.30pm and he comes home at 7 in the morning,and then sleeps all day.
I don't find it a problem really,except in the morning he has a tendacy to be noisy and sometimes wakes DD up quite early.
Like coopsntilly said,it gives me more bubhub time of a night too!:D

[IAdoreYou]

My hubbie does shiftwork as well. 3 week rotating roster 8-12 hr shifts ... no weekend work though .. he will take it "if" there is overtime .. thats all. I'm quite used to it now. He also gets 3/4 days off at a time and seems like he is HOME alot and some weeks seems like he is asleep ALOT. It was very hard with a newborn as I was adjusting to the whole new "baby" thing .. and also DH needed his sleep in order to feed us .. was hard! though, we think its great now ... he sees so much of Brooke. I would not know what to do with a 9-5 husband .. I would get lonely as well. Dinner time and bath time is hard for me when he is away OH and feeding the poor cat :(

[vanillabean]

My hubby has been a shift worker as long as I have known him. He works in a mine and has the best roster as far as I am concerned -he works weekends only, one weekend it is nights, the next is days and 12 hours shifts. That is all about to change as the mine is closing and the job is no longer (a bit stressful, okay really stressful at the moment). I was also a shift worker before kids as a RN/Midwife, so we understand each other!! I am about to go back and do some casual work. Aargh!!! I don't know how it will go.

[FourAngelKisses]

Pete went to work just over 2hrs ago, the kids went to bed an hour ago, so now begins another lonely night in front of the TV. :crying:

[hayleylea]

Hey Angel Kisses Do you have messenger?

DF also works shift work. They do rotating rosters....day one week then arvo the next then night. And for three months a year he works a 4 on 5 off roster which consists of 12 hour shifts.....

If you have messenger add me hsmith23@hotmail.com

[FourAngelKisses]

Yeah, I have messenger (will add you, thanks), I just always forget to turn it on. :laughing:


DH and I are joined at the hip, always have been. if we could have our way, he would retire at the age of 30, but of course, that's never going to happen is it?? We miss each other so bad when he's working. :crying: :crying:

[hayleylea]

yeah same here. It sucks big time. I like the 4 on 5 off roster though cause we still get heaps of time together. DF is a bugger with nightshifts..he is a power napper and doesnt sleep much!! Cause he doesnt like missing out on the next day! lol

[FourAngelKisses]

Thanks for the chat, it was nice. :) Still can't believe what a small world it is though, LOL. Just checked too....it was already below 0 degrees at 9pm. :eek:

[jkate]

Not Happy :mad: , I just wrote a nice long post about my Dh and shifts and the site went crazy :banghead: . Oh well these things happen, I am too tired to write everything again so in brief:

DH works for the Railways, and his shifts are all over the place. But each fortnight the shifts are usually the same that just change most fornights, I dont know if that makes sense - it did in the post that went missing :banghead: . Anyway because of were we live it means he is away for 12 hours at a time, so day shifts suck because we only see him for 5 mins in the mornings and a couple of hours at night. Early Morning shifts are the best, a least then he can come home have a couple hours sleep and spend some time with the boys and he is home for dinner and bed routine!!

Ok so it was a bit longer then I was going to write. I just dont know how to stop :ecomcity: . Fingerscross this posts!!!

[Terrible2+1cutie]

My DP works shift work to, he works 12 hour shifts, 2 days 2 nights then has 4 days off, so really he has 8 day weeks. He has been doing this for almost 10 years, 5 of those we have been together. So we have 8 day weeks and our weekends sometimes land in the middle of the week. I haven't known any other way so i am used to it. The only times i get sad is if we get invited to a birthday party or something and i have to go alone or with the kids. I love him working night shifts because after the kids go to bed i get time to myself before going to bed myself. The kids get to spend so much time with DP that when he works those 4 days they misbehave a bit.

Catherine

Mum to Blaze and Bailey

[FourAngelKisses]

The only times i get sad is if we get invited to a birthday party or something and i have to go alone or with the kids.

That happens to me 99% of the time. My family will call me and invite us over for lunch or something and I will either decline because I don't feel like going, or I will go and regret going because I am sitting there by myself with no one talking to me. And the thought of dragging 3 kids across the countryside by myself............ugh.

[Mamaduke]

I would sometimes like a little help with the whole dinner, bathtime, bedtime, cleanup routine! I think DH could count on one hand the amount of times he's been around at bath time.
Another thing is that we can't go out for dinner or have friends over for dinner alot.
hmmm...now I'm getting depressed!!!:(

[FourAngelKisses]

Being married to a shift worker is like being a single parent at times isn't it??

I notice it more if Pete does a lot of overtime, he can sometimes work 10 ****s straight (a 120hr week, yikes). I hate having to do everything myself when he is working. I always end up trying to do showers, homework, feed the baby, make dinner and scratch my butt all at once and I just can't be in 6 places at once. But he can't help because he's either sleeping or getting ready to go out the door.

[jkate]

Being married to a shift worker is like being a single parent at times isn't it??

I notice it more if Pete does a lot of overtime, he can sometimes work 10 ****s straight (a 120hr week, yikes). I hate having to do everything myself when he is working. I always end up trying to do showers, homework, feed the baby, make dinner and scratch my butt all at once and I just can't be in 6 places at once. But he can't help because he's either sleeping or getting ready to go out the door.


Can someone clone me:D or make me a octupus, at times I think I was crazy to have another one when Aden was still young, and knowning that DH wasnt going to be home alot. But when they give you your first smile or laugh I actully think how long can I wait to I have another one :D.

I am another one who hates going to family or friends events without him, there have been times where I have just not bother. I hate the looks, "Oh is your husband at work again" :mad: . The last month or so he has had saturdays off, but I bet when something comes up he will be working!!! And its so hard to swap shifts.

[OscarTheGrouch]

Being married to a shift worker is like being a single parent at times isn't it??

Sure is. My DH is a Registered Nurse so he naturally works shift work. It can get very lonely at times, especially when he's on an afternoon/late shift. He's got 2 weeks of nights coming up so I wont see him in the day or the night.:thumbsdown: And then there's overtime.......he generally does 8 hours or more of overtime in the fortnight as we're living off one wage at the moment.

[mum2anthony]

Hey there.. My DF works away (2-4 weeks on 1-2 weeks off) and will be coming back on Tuesday for a while... I find that it's kinda nice to have some ME time while he is away and the washing load is halved.. LOL I don't have to cook dinner for anyone so I just eat small amounts...

But I do miss him terribly and would prefer him to be here. Sometimes u have to make light of the situation :)

[BlessedWithBlue]

I would sometimes like a little help with the whole dinner, bathtime, bedtime, cleanup routine! I think DH could count on one hand the amount of times he's been around at bath time.
Another thing is that we can't go out for dinner or have friends over for dinner alot.
hmmm...now I'm getting depressed!!!:(

You took the words right outta my mouth lol My df works afternoon shift but we are looking into him changing to day shift once the twins are born so he is around more for the things he misses out on.
He has worked afternoons for the past 2 and a half years and i wanna be like normal families now lol puls i don't know how i am gonna manage when two new babies are born and having a 2 year old and a 3.5 year old. It's chaotic enough sometimes with just the two of them.
Df usually sleeps til 10 maybe 11am gets himself up and showered and has lunch and he is out the door by 2pm which gives him a grand total of an hour a day that he sees the kids before they go down for their naps. So both of us are looking forward to him being able to spend some extra time with the kids in the evenings etc.

[2boysfornow]

Isn't it..my dh used to work days but on average about 16 hours. Get home have dinner and in bed by about 11pm, then up by 4am and out the door. Now he is on nights he gets home anywhere between midnight and 4am yet now sleeps til about 11 - 12noon gets up has dinner and out the door by just gone 1pm ?? but I do agree with previous posts that sometimes u feel like a single mum, but I'm one of the lucky one where I still get him weekends..hang in there ladies at least we get to chat on bubhub will there at work..lol

[Terrible2+1cutie]

My DP has been working shift for 10 years next year 2 days 2 night 4 days off (12 hour shifts). We have only been together 5 so i dont know any different. I like the nightshifts because i am sleeping in bed anyway and the house is secure. The kids tend to misbehave a bit when he has been home for the 4 days and then goes back to work cause they love there dad.

Catherine

Mum to Blaze and Bailey

[FourAngelKisses]

My DP has been working shift for 10 years next year 2 days 2 night 4 days off (12 hour shifts). We have only been together 5 so i dont know any different. [/SIZE]

I don't know any different either. DH and I have been together 11yrs and married for almost 10. He has been doing shift work since about 2-3mths after we got together. I would honestly hate it if he had a 9-5 job as it would appear that he is away more. When I'm sleeping, it doesn't seem like he isn't home because I am oblivious to everything, lol.

It will be hard though when I am "single mum" to 4 kids.....but I'll get there!!

[jade21887]

My hubby is a nurse, thank goodness he cant work nights because of medical reasons, but he works 4 afternoon a weeks, from 3pm-11pm and 1 morning from 6am-3.30pm. I find them hard, because Im currently 8 months pregnant, and my daughter is starting to have 1 sleep, so Im getting so exhausted. I wish that we could have dinner together every night, but guess thats a sacrifice we make.