As a mum of little kids, I’m too tired to be a good friend right now

"There are only so many hours in the day, and you can trust me on that, because I am awake for almost all of them."

Last weekend, my best friend moved house.

She’s a single parent, a working mum, and practically superhuman in the amount she’s able to get done on her own. There are very few things she actually needs help with, but carting large items of furniture from suburb to suburb is one of them.

My friend has been there for every one of my big life moments, from my wedding day to the birth of my kids. She shows up when my husband is travelling for work and I need a hand getting the kids in bed. She answers my calls when I’m crying and overwhelmed.

She is, in short, a very good friend. 

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"I always wanted to show up for her, too"

I like to think that, over our many years of friendship, I’ve been a good friend to her too. In the distant past, before I had my kids (in fact only two and a half years ago - oh, how time crawls when you’re tired), I would have been appalled to think I would fail to show up for her when she needed me. 

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that come Saturday morning, I should have been at her front door with a pair of rubber gloves and a bottle of wine. (Those are things you need while moving, right? I said I should have helped, not that I would actually have been helpful.) 

I should have been there.

But my baby isn’t sleeping, and I still have to work and parent a toddler, and I was simply too tired.

Image: Zoe Rochford

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"The desire to help is real, the exhaustion is soul-crushing"

I’m sorry to say it isn’t the first time I’ve left a friend or family member down. In the past handful of weeks alone, I’ve had to bow out early from a friend’s 30th, cancel movie plans with my dad, and abandoned plans to drop meals to a member of my mothers’ group whose husband was travelling for work.

The desire to help is real, but the soul-crushing exhaustion is - in the moment - realer. 

I so badly want to be the type of person who shows up for people. I desperately want to be there for my friends when they need me, but right now it's just not an option.

In my experience, people expect parents with newborns to be tired.

That patience lasts about three months - coincidentally, until just around the time most babies start waking up more frequently overnight - and then we’re basically expected to return to business as usual. I would love to return to business as usual, except that some mornings I’m so exhausted I feel like I need to force my own eyes open with my hands.

Sometimes I can feel tiredness throbbing through my body in waves. Sometimes I am too tired to even answer a text, even though it only requires me to twitch a couple of fingers. 

Image: supplied

"I'm running on fumes"

For parents in the depths of sleep deprivation, everything else takes a back seat, because there is no other choice.

I’m running on fumes, and those fumes need to be allocated where they are needed most. My kids take top priority, my work is non-negotiable (because so is my mortgage), and I use the sliver of energy left to try to salvage some form of rest. It feels like there’s no room to move because, simply, there isn’t.

There are only so many hours in the day, and you can trust me on that, because I am awake for almost all of them. 

For what it’s worth, my sleepless state will hopefully be short-lived. We’re in a period of upheaval with my ten-month-old, who has recently ditched his dummy (against his express wishes) and would actually, personally, like to suck on a boob every 30 to 45 minutes to compensate. I’ve got fantastic help around me, and a plan moving forward.

I am hopeful that we only have a week or so of really bad sleep left ahead of us. (Pray for me). But, my God, I am still so very, very tired. 

A few days after she had successfully moved into her new home without me, my friend brought her daughter over for dinner. She’s eight, and sleeps fine - at the moment - which gives me some hope for the future. She also brought a half-empty bottle of champagne. 

With the unnerving brutality of an eight-year-old, her daughter told me off. “If you’d come on the weekend when you said you would, the bottle would have been full.”

 My friend and I burst out laughing. “That’s fair enough,” I said. And I promised to be there next time, whatever “next time” might be. 

Well, I promised to try. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but I’m quite tired. 

Originally published as As a mum of little kids, I’m too tired to be a good friend right now