When M was about one-and-a-half, Mac Daddy started a shiftwork job with 12-hour rotating shifts, usually about four in a row, but he was technically casually employed so his schedule varied drastically. Some months he’d sporadically work night shifts and spend a lot of time at home; others, he was essentially at work non-stop. At the same time, I had been back at work for about half a year, M was going through a sleeplessness phase, and we were dealing with home daycare drama. It was certainly a challenge to go from our old routine of having one stay at home parent/two parents working regular-ish hours, to solo parenting anytime M was at home and Mac Daddy was at work.

We’ve always tackled parenting as a team, when we can, so I really had no idea how tough it’d be to not have Mac Daddy around at all. Even when I was on my year-long maternity leave, her dad was home by around 5 p.m. nearly every night, and I could rely on him to jump in with hands-on parenting as soon as he walked through the door. But after a 12-hour shift, especially a night shift, he wasn’t particularly capable of doing a whole lot of parenting.

The Hard Parts

Suddenly it was all my domain, from having dinner ready for M without making her wait through post-daycare exhaustion, to bath time, bed time, wake ups, breakfast — all of that, solo. We ate dinner without Mac Daddy more often than not, and I suddenly had to stock way more food in the house because apparently 12-hour manual labour shifts make one quite hungry! The work schedule often coincided with bedtime and wake-up time so there were days where Mac Daddy barely saw M, if at all. If he came home from a night shift on a weekend, he had to find a way to rest in a house with a rambunctious toddler — so we had to stay very quiet or leave. We logged a lot of hours at the playground near our house, and she missed her dad a lot.

M

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She seemed to always know when Mac Daddy was on nights, and would refuse to sleep when he was gone, so I did a lot of co-sleeping to survive. I was also anxious about being home alone, after a break-in we experienced a few years prior, so I slept with my car keys placed on the shelf beside the bed so I could hit the alarm if I had to.

My job sometimes requires evening and weekend work, and I dragged M out to a lot of events that year. Thankfully my boss was good about trying to keep me scheduled to kid-friendly things when he knew I was flying solo, but it was hard to juggle her and act professional at the same time.

But Yes, There Were Advantages!

I came to really relish the time between M falling asleep, when it didn’t require me sleeping next to her, and my own bedtime. I’d pour a glass of wine and watch trashy TV or colour. I indulged in all that “secret single behaviour” and learned to enjoy the me time. I think I ended up gaining weight because I frankly treated myself to a lot of ice cream after long days, and I stayed up way too late, but it was kind of nice having free reign of the house.

On Mac Daddy’s off days, once M was in full-time licensed daycare, he was able to get stuff done around the house and take on errands and other tasks. I was infinitely jealous of his days off without having to deal with parenting, but he did need the relaxation after pulling long hours — and for the most part he managed to get things crossed off the household to-do list, which I sorely missed when he went back to working standard daytime hours.

My Coping Mechanisms

To actually navigate the shiftwork conundrum, I mostly let go of a lot of standards I’d put in place for us, and for myself. We watched a lot of Sesame Street, M and me on the couch together, because some days I was just exhausted. I eventually quit packing Mac Daddy’s lunch unless I found I had extra time to do so, and I realized he was quite able to make some peanut butter sandwiches and not starve without my assistance. The house stayed messy, which was ultimately good practice for being pregnant while parenting an almost three-year-old because I don’t think I’ve ever got it back to my previous cleaning routine since.

I’ll admit that I sometimes I lost it on Mac Daddy because I was just beat down with everything. We had to cut one another a lot of slack and try to understand what it was like to be the other person. After long, long stretches of shifts, especially when they ate up weekends, when he was home he did his best to give me a break even if it was just an hour in the bathtub by myself.

And, I got very used to toting M around everywhere I went, as did the people in town who saw her at a lot of events and meetings. She even came into my office, backpack loaded with toys and colouring supplies, sitting on my lap during meetings so I could get stuff done. She’s very well-known now!

After that year, Mac Daddy got a new job — the kind of job where you put on pressed pants and a collared shirt and work from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Now we split things like preschool drop-off evenly, with one person going in the morning and the other after school. Our weekends are available for family time, when we aren’t otherwise scheduled (me doing work things, and Mac Daddy doing home renovations). Dinner is a family event, and the load feels like it’s been lightened because it’s shared across both of our shoulders.

I never realized how hard shiftwork is for parents, despite the fact that I had at least one shift-working parent through most of my own childhood. It really does create an entirely different lifestyle, and I’m in awe of people for whom that’s regular life. While I had managed to get used to it after a year, it was such a relief to go back to life as we used to know it once the new job came on the radar, and I hope we never have to deal with shifts again!

How does your, or your partner’s, work schedules impact your family? Is it something you’re happy with, or would you change things if you could?