Is decision fatigue the hardest part of parenting?
Just when I thought lack of sleep was the worst thing ever
Hi friends,
My little Mushroom turned one yesterday. For her first birthday, she got an ear infection, her first dose of antibiotics and suspected hand, foot and mouth disease. We’ve been lucky with her health so far, and thankfully she doesn’t seem to need more than meds at home. Totally manageable. The part of it all that I found so hard was ALL. THE. DECISIONS.
I thought lack of sleep would be the biggest parenting challenge. Maybe it was. But then the mess started. Thank goodness we have dogs for the mealtime mess but the constant stain removal is an ongoing struggle. If I have another kid, they will only wear black. But then! Decisions came along to make a play for the worst part of being someone’s mom.
Every big decision is made up of lots of tiny decisions. Starting at 4 am yesterday when Charlotte woke up warm to the touch.
DECISION 1. Do I get up and take her temp or do I turn on the aircon and see if that helps first? Check the fever. She has a fever. Shit. Do we make a doctor’s appointment right away or wait to see what happens over the next few days? We’d better see a doc because of her party on Sunday. Plus, she needs a 1 year check-up anyway, so if this fever is nothing to worry about, at least we can get that out of the way.
DECISION 2. Must it be her paediatrician or can it be a paediatric GP (cheaper but doesn't know her as well) or a GP (even cheaper but not an expert on babies)? Her paed has a gap, that’s the same as a gap between my work meetings. Let’s go there. Get the diagnosis. She’s sick.
DECISION 3. Do we get the half the meds from the pharmacy nearby and give them to her sooner, but doing two trips, or do we sit in traffic to go to the other pharmacy that has all the meds in stock, knowing a sick baby in a car in afternoon traffic will be a special kind of hell? Braved the traffic, got meds, got home.
DECISION 4. Does one of us take leave from work tomorrow or is it safe for our nanny to come in? She also has a child whose health we want to consider.
Okay, the nanny said she wants to come in.
DECISION 5. Do we move her birthday party, knowing there will be an unknowable number of people who can no longer make it, including family who were travelling here for it. We will have to pay for food twice, but luckily nothing else was planned. If its HFM, it’ll get worse before it gets better AND it’s contagious. If it’s not HFM it might get better by Sunday but it might not. Even if she is better by Sunday, we will be exhausted from holding her constantly, keeping up her meds schedule, monitoring her hydration, not sleeping at night and trying to keep up with both of our jobs. Do we keep the party and risk making people sick or her being miserable or us being completely shattered? No. We move the party.
DECISION 6. When do we move it to? This time of year is a shit show.
AND ON IT GOES. With everything that needs to happen from her health to buying nappies to prepping food to making plans. It never ends.
How do you cope with decision fatigue? Reply to this and let me know your wisdom!
Yet another thing none of us realize about parenting until we're in it: a massive increase in the need for near-constant strategic thinking!