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I am completely burnt out...stress is getting to me and I just need somewhere to vent! I have been running a daycare now for over 5 years. This year I decided to do an expansion and take on an employee (who happened to be a friend of mine). This did not work out so well as the she quit on the spot due to the fact that she couldn't handle it and left me high and dry. I had family come in and fill for her until I could find someone more permanent...but nothing seems to be working out. I don't want to drop my original clients as I have formed a deep bond with the children and they have become part of my family and I don't want to drop any of the newer clients as I would feel unreliable and that I let them down and failed. I know I am hard on myself! My family has re-assured that they will be there for me and help me until something more permanent comes up but it just has me so stressed! On top of that we bought a new house in December and just recently found out we have 2 cracks in our foundation and water is getting in, in the basement. This means we have had to rip out walls, build new ones, get a company in to fill the cracks, and so on... Other than getting the company in to fill the cracks we have been doing everything else ourselves. I get up at 6:30am every morning...shower...make myself pretty...answer the door at 7:30am and work with the kids until 5:15pm...then I turn around and run errands...do renos...yardwork...keep up with the garden...etc... only to fall into bed and do it all the next day! Good God I just can not keep up with everything! On top of it my husband and I decided 3 months ago that we were going to try for another baby so I quit taking my birth control 3 months ago and hormones are all over the place! I could really just use some encouragement right now...I feel so overwhelmed...

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and take a few days off, with notice, unpaid. Ask families when would work, give them a couple of options

Take your vitamins and stay hydrated.

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So sorry you are having a rough time! We all get there sometimes. Just take it day to day and it will get better!

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I can relate to the stress and basement issue. In the house I previously built the front basement wall caved in one night during a flood of rain. 12 inch wide concrete blocks cracking sounded like firecrackers going off. Couldn't tell what was happening at first until the wall started coming into the basement along with a lot of the front yard and all the rain pouring of the roof on that side of the house. I was in the basement trying to brace the floor above to keep the whole thing from colasping into the basement. It never occured to me I could have been killed if that happened. I had to fix all of this myself. (I mean I had to learn to lay blocks myself, and hand shoveled 23 tons of gravel myself, I had to go to the house 3 times a day to keep a fire in the wood stove in the basement to prevent all the water pipes from freezing ALL winter. I can tell you some stuff and I have pictures to proof what a mess the whole thing was. I had the 40 foot wide house sitting on 4x4 post with foam insulation covering it all winter to keep the water pipes from freezing. This was a wonderful time of my life where I just had gone through a divorce after 17+ years of marriage, and bankruptcy and a lot more.

You are dealing with many things and I don't so much think burnt out as overwhelmed with everything you have on your plate. The house alone is enough to stress one out, let along the other things too. I survived this time of my life barely by taking one day at a time. I can tell you for me the time these things happened spanned about 2 years and were the darkest of my life. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Don't give up, and realize it is ok to feel overwhelmed. There aren't any people that I know that haven't endured some stuff. I promise you when it is all behind you, you will look back on these things and realize they have made you stronger.

You will see.

People kept trying to tell me pretty much what I am trying to tell you here now during my ordeals and at that time there was little comfort from it. I always thought they were trying to cheer me up with "it will be ok" type talk that was just so many words. Trust me, I am living proof things can turn around. Don't lose hope, and don't give up or quit. That's not just words

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I can completely understand how you feel. Here is what I would do if I were you...

Since you don't want to let any of your old (or new) families go, I would run an ad in the newspaer for assistants. I would hire TWO assistants and let them do the majority of the work. You can still oversee everything, but I would let them do ALL of the physical work. This will be like a mini vacation and give you the time you need to rest and recoup. Once the basement situation is resolved, you can taper down their hours and eventually go down to one assisant or let them each work part time.

This may not be financially feasible, but at the rate you're going, you will either have a breakdown or end up letting familie(s) go.

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This is just my take but I think you should reduce the number of kids to what you alone can handle. I understand you have bonded with the others but nothing is more important than your health and well being. I would get back on some sort of birth control till the other chaos has died down. Even a few months will help. Can you imagine doing everything else AND dealing with morning sickness or worse, a high risk pregnancy? Take one thing at a time. It is very hard to find good reliable help (I know, I am on my 4th assistant) so you need to be prepared to have periods from now until forever where you have to step in and do it yourself. Expanding right before you try and get pregnant plus all the other stuff is a really bad idea. Just take the hit and let some of the families go for now.

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I don't know what ages you have but maybe you can get some stuff done when they are around. I weed and water the gardens with the kids playing nearby. I set up the lawn for mowing with the kids nearby and have mowed during nap time. I have an electric mower so it's easy to stop and check on the kids every 10 minutes. I save any errands that I have to do for the weekend or send my husband to do them while I work. I clean the daycare during naps. I make sure I eat and drink with them so I don't get crabby from being hungry or thirsty and they learn to sit at the table until everyone is ready to go play again. When I get really stressed with outside of daycare life (we're doing renovations too). I drop all curriculum activities and just let the kids play on their own while I get some extra paperwork done or scrub the kitchen sink. Making meals ahead of time really works well for me too. I usually make two or three times the amount I need and freeze the leftovers for next time. Remember to take a little time (even 5 minutes) after work to relax and breathe. One thing that helps me is to just sit in the bathroom after work for 5 minutes, breathe, then wash my hands thinking to myself that I am washing away all work stresses so I can face my personal life. It helps my brain refocus.

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I'm with you! That is why I posted about possibly time to move on. All mine are in school and now I feel that I'm missing out on their lives because I'm always tied down to the childcare. One of my sons will always say when I tell him we can't do something or I can't be somewhere that "Its all about the childcare".

I also had a helper that would come in and help me when I needed to be somewhere but due to health reasons she had to quit. That is when I felt so burnt out because I'm really not able to do anything outside my home. I've had to juggle appointments for my kids so that other people could take them, miss programs they have been in, and I need to go in for an appointment and my husband says take the day off but it stresses me to do that for 1/2 hour appointment.

As someone else pointed out we just maybe overwhelmed. I know I have an inspection coming up and I literally can't get ready for it. I know what needs to be down but there is no time to work on it. For some reason I can barely keep up with my housework let alone add more work to it. I've been doing this for 15 years maybe its way of God nudging me to a different area. I love being home and being here when my kids get out of school but I do have two in high school, one in middle school and then an elementary child. Its hard to be here for my kids when really they aren't here anymore.

So no big words of encouragement but please know that you aren't the only one going through this.

Hugs

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I would feel overwhelmed too. Hang up your wonder woman cape. LIke someone suggested hire the lawn work to be mowed by a neighbor kid pay him for it. One less thing for you to do.
Also only run errands on the weekend. Unless you like the week night then do one night only.
Schedual yourself a NOTHING night. NO cooking, order out. NO running errands you park yourself on the couch or in a chair with a book or a tv show and nice beverage and SIT DO NOTHING. It is OK to do NOTHING.

Now regarding your home and the renovations going on. Start picturing this all done and completed. There is an end in site there really is. Once this whole mess is done and over with I think you will feel so much better. The house ordeal happened it was not something you could control and I feel this has really thrown you for a loop.

Restructure your evenings don't forget to have a do nothing night. Change your evening schedual. I say this because I feel that this is something YOU can control and will help you as you are going through this season in your life.

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((((HUGE HUGS))))
Hang in there, girl!

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I am sure you are doing a great job at all you do! Take a break, and get away alone, that helps me A LOT. I don't get away often, but when I am feeling overwhelmed it is time for me to have a day without any kids or husband to recharge!

I feel for you because I am overwhelmed half of the time! I have worked outside of the home and for me it was a bit of an escape. Now that I work at home, there is no escape and it can be very overwhelming....

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