My husband and I have a 2 year old and an 8 month old. Things are SO hard without a village. I have zero family where we live and he only has his dad and his sister. His mom passed away two weeks after our 8 month old was born.

His sister is three years older than us and I’m so disappointed that she seemingly wants nothing to do with our children. I do NOT expect anyone to take care of our kids for us or anything like that but we are absolutely exhausted. Burnt out. Depressed.

Our lives are crazy with two kids. I’m going back to work soon and can’t even imagine how much worse it will be. Our kids will both be in daycare but then there’s all the other stuff. The cooking, cleaning, taking care of ourselves etc. how does anyone find the time without any sort of village? (We do have a bi weekly cleaner but of course things need cleaning in between. Never mind the endless laundry)

We have a reliable babysitter but that can be expensive and typically it’s only evenings which is great once a month to get a break but I just wish we’d have family that would offer to take toddler to the park for a half hour on the weekends or ANYTHING.

My husbands sister always says “when toddler is potty trained that’ll be so great I can take her to the park”. Girl has been potty trained for six months and she’s never asked once. This woman hasn’t worked (off on leave for 8 months) and does nothing during the day but we still never see her. We sometimes invite her for dinner and it’s a 90% chance she’s “sick “ or “not feeling well”. I don’t pretend to be ignorant to other peoples mental health or well being but I try and do so much for her and it’s not reciprocated.

She said she wanted to take time off (four days) when I had my last C-section. She took toddler to daycare and picked her up that day and when my husband came to put toddler to bed he asked her if she would stay until 10pm so he could come back to see me at the hospital because I was still really out of it and in pain she refused. For no reason. She has no kids or anything she just said no. We didn’t see her again the entire four days she “took off to help us”. Her friend recently had to have a cyst removed and had family staying with them but couldn’t stay longer than a week so SIL FLEW TO SEE FRIEND (Sil always says she has zero money and is borrowing from fil) but somehow found money to fly. She said she had to help her friend because she had surgery.

I am so hurt by her actions and her lack of a wanting to help us and her selfishness. For context she is a nurse for babies so it’s not as though she is blind to ppd, the stress of parenting or comfort around children.

I just had more hope for people wanting to be in our lives and help. I was a bit ignorant.

How do you all do it? Husband and I can give each other breaks but honestly by the time that happens at the end of each night or whatever we are all so exhausted anyways to go anywhere separately or do anything.