I am a 41 year old female. I work a 12 hour shift from 7a-7p. I am pretty good friends with the girl who relieves me @ night. She has a 4 month old baby who is precious. Her mother has been keeping him for her but is going to be out of town for a while (month or two). Her husband drives a truck and leaves all hours of the night. Now she is asking me to either keep the baby every night on the days we work or to swap shifts with her and work nights until her mother gets back (not sure when or even IF). I love her and the baby but I have my own 2 kids and a husband that also works day shift. If the baby won't sleep we will both be sleep deprived! I am usually exhausted when I get home and don't know if I can handle a baby. If I do swap shifts with her, my kids (who are 13 and 16) will be there while I try to sleep during the day. They can take care of themselves, but NOT stay quiet all day! What if her mother decides not to come back and I get stuck on night shift?! How can I get out of this, or is it selfish of me to refuse? I love her and don't want her mad. She is putting it like she'll have to quit if I can't do this. I don't want to be the blame if she loses her job. Please help!!
I think it speaks very highly of your compassion and desire to help that you'd even consider this. It is not selfish of you to say no. You have weighed up the options, and the fact is that you cannot balance your life as you wish to live it with either of the options she's presented you with.
If you agreed to babysit, you would be spending 12 hours working, and then 12 hours caring for a young, attention-demanding child. That's 100% of your time where you are 'on call' to other people, where your time is not your own.
I know this is your friend and it's understandable that you feel bad for her situation, but this just isn't a reasonable thing for her to ask of you, especially for an unspecified time period. She's not asking for a few hours as a favour, she's asking for your whole life, for a month, two months, maybe longer.
The idea of the night shift at least means that you aren't giving up all of your time, but working nights would have enormous implications for yourself and your family and again is a huge thing to ask you to do. As you have mentioned yourself, working nights would lead to disturbed sleep, and it would also likely reduce the quality time you get to spend with your children and husband. You have two teenage children that require your time, love and attention, and it may well be that working nights just does not fit in with all of your needs.
It is of course worth sitting down with your husband and children and looking at whether working nights would work for you all. If it does, then maybe you can reach an agreement with your friends that works for everybody - although I'd want to agree on a time-scale before you commit to anything. If however, as I suspect will be the case, you look at the practicalities and decide that it doesn't work for you and your family, then there is no shame in that. You've considered your friend and her family, but you've also considered the needs of your own family, and they have to come first.
It sounds as though you feel very guilty for making a decision that you fear is somehow letting your friend down. Whilst I think it's wonderful that you so badly want to help out your friend, it's important not to take on too much burden from this situation. It is not your fault that your friend is struggling, that her mother is going on a trip, that her husband can't help out more. You love your friend and want to help out, but that doesn't mean she has a blank cheque to cash out your kindness. You want to help out, but this does not mean that she can demand unlimited resources from you, and you do not owe her these.
If you decide that you can't swap shifts with her or babysit, then I think you need to break it to her gently that it just isn't something you can take on given your own family circumstances. Perhaps you can suggest some other options, like taking the baby for one day a week, or for a few hours here and there rather than all the time. Try to help her through the situation by exploring other options with her.
If she does decide that she has to quit her job, please don't feel responsible - it will have been that she had to make the best decision for her family, and you yours, and hopefully with time she will see and appreciate that.
Good luck and all the best.
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Wow! what an awesome answer! Thank you so much for your time. I hope you do this kind of thing professionally and get paid for it!! This is the first time I've asked for advice like this and I really appreciate your thorough and "2-sided" answer! Thanks Again!
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