There’s a particular kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix. You know the one. You get a decent night’s rest, maybe even sleep in on a Saturday, and you still wake up feeling like you’re dragging yourself through wet cement. Coffee helps for about an hour. Then the fog rolls back in.
I spent months convincing myself this was just what parenting felt like. Two kids, demanding jobs, a house that seems to generate laundry from thin air. Of course I was exhausted. Everyone’s exhausted. But somewhere along the way, exhaustion became something heavier.
Something that made me short-tempered with Elise when she asked for the same bedtime story three nights in a row. Something that made me dread weekends instead of looking forward to them. That’s when I realized I wasn’t just tired. I was burned out.
And if you’re reading this, wondering if you’ve crossed that same line, these seven signs might give you some clarity.
1) You’re exhausted even after rest
This is the hallmark sign, and it’s the one most of us dismiss first. We tell ourselves we just need to catch up on sleep. One good weekend. One night without a toddler crawling into bed at 3 a.m. Then we’ll feel better.
But burnout exhaustion doesn’t work that way. It’s not a sleep debt you can pay off. It’s a deeper depletion that affects your body, your mind, and your emotional reserves all at once. You might sleep eight hours and still feel like you haven’t slept in days. Your body feels heavy. Your brain feels slow. Getting through the morning routine takes everything you’ve got.
As noted by researchers at the American Psychological Association, chronic stress fundamentally changes how our bodies process and recover from fatigue. When you’ve been running in survival mode for too long, rest alone isn’t enough to restore you. Your nervous system needs more than a nap.
It needs a sustained break from the constant demands.
2) Small tasks feel impossibly heavy
Last month, I stood in front of the diaper caddy for a full minute, unable to make myself restock it. It’s a two-minute task. Grab diapers from the closet, grab wipes, done. But in that moment, it felt like someone was asking me to climb a mountain.
When you’re burned out, your capacity shrinks dramatically. Things that used to be automatic now require conscious effort. Packing lunches. Responding to emails. Scheduling a pediatrician appointment. Each small task carries a weight that seems disproportionate to its actual difficulty.
This happens because burnout depletes your executive function. The part of your brain responsible for planning, organizing, and initiating action gets worn down. So you’re not being lazy or dramatic when emptying the dishwasher feels like too much.
Your mental resources are genuinely tapped out. If you find yourself staring at simple tasks, unable to start them, that’s a signal worth paying attention to.
3) You’ve lost interest in things you used to enjoy
Think about something you genuinely loved doing before kids, or even something you loved doing with your kids. Maybe it was cooking elaborate meals. Reading novels. Playing guitar. Taking your daughter to the playground on Saturday mornings.
Now ask yourself: when’s the last time you actually enjoyed it?
Burnout has a way of flattening everything. Activities that once brought you energy start feeling like just another obligation. You go through the motions because you’re supposed to, not because you want to. The playground trip happens, but you’re counting down until you can leave. Date night feels like another item on the to-do list.
This loss of enjoyment, sometimes called anhedonia, is one of the clearest indicators that you’ve moved beyond normal tiredness. When even the good stuff stops feeling good, your system is telling you something important. It’s not that you’ve changed as a person. It’s that you’re running so empty there’s nothing left to fuel the things that matter.
4) You’re more irritable than usual
I’m generally a patient person. I can handle Julien’s contact napping, Elise’s endless questions, the chaos of weekday mornings.
But during my worst burnout stretch, I found myself snapping at everyone. Camille would ask a simple question about weekend plans and I’d respond with an edge in my voice. Elise would spill her water at dinner and I’d react like it was a personal offense.
Irritability is one of the most common and most overlooked signs of burnout. We chalk it up to stress, to being tired, to having a bad day. But when every day feels like a bad day, when your fuse is perpetually short, that’s burnout talking.
Your nervous system is stuck in a state of high alert. There’s no buffer left between stimulus and reaction. So small annoyances trigger big responses. You’re not becoming a worse parent or partner. You’re just operating with no margin. And when there’s no margin, everything feels like too much.
5) You feel disconnected from your kids
This one is hard to admit. We’re supposed to be endlessly present, endlessly engaged, endlessly delighted by our children. But burnout creates a strange emotional distance. You’re physically there, but you feel like you’re watching from behind glass.
I remember a morning where Elise was showing me a drawing she’d made. She was so proud, explaining every detail. And I was nodding, saying the right things, but I felt nothing. No warmth. No connection. Just a hollow performance of being a dad.
According to Dr. Sheryl Ziegler, author of Mommy Burnout, this emotional detachment is a protective mechanism. When you’re completely depleted, your brain starts conserving energy by dampening emotional responses. It’s not that you love your kids less.
It’s that your system has shut down non-essential functions to survive. The guilt this creates can be overwhelming, but understanding why it happens can help you respond with self-compassion instead of shame.
6) Your body is sending warning signals
Burnout doesn’t just live in your mind. It shows up in your body in ways that are easy to dismiss or attribute to other causes. Headaches that won’t quit. Stomach issues. Muscle tension, especially in your shoulders and jaw. Getting sick more often than usual.
For me, it was insomnia. Which felt cruelly ironic. I was exhausted all the time, but when I finally got to bed, my mind would race. I’d lie there thinking about everything I hadn’t done, everything I needed to do tomorrow, everything that could go wrong. My body was tired but my nervous system wouldn’t let me rest.
These physical symptoms are your body’s way of waving a red flag. Chronic stress triggers inflammation, disrupts sleep cycles, and weakens your immune system. If you’re dealing with persistent physical complaints that your doctor can’t quite explain, consider whether burnout might be the underlying cause. Our bodies often know we’re struggling before our minds are willing to admit it.
7) You feel like you’re failing at everything
Here’s the thought pattern that lived in my head during my worst months: I’m not doing enough at work. I’m not present enough with my kids. I’m not being a good enough partner. I’m not taking care of myself. I’m not keeping up with the house. I’m failing at all of it, all the time.
Burnout warps your perception. It makes you focus exclusively on what’s not working while dismissing everything you’re actually managing to hold together. You could be doing an objectively impressive job of keeping your family fed, clothed, and reasonably happy, and still feel like a complete failure.
This pervasive sense of inadequacy is both a symptom and a perpetuator of burnout. The worse you feel about yourself, the harder it becomes to take the breaks you need, because you feel like you haven’t earned them. It’s a vicious cycle. Recognizing that this harsh self-assessment is a symptom, not an accurate reflection of reality, is the first step toward breaking free.
Closing thoughts
If you recognized yourself in several of these signs, I want you to know something important: this isn’t a character flaw. You’re not weak. You’re not failing. You’re a human being who has been giving more than you have for too long.
Burnout doesn’t happen to people who aren’t trying hard enough. It happens to people who care deeply, who show up consistently, who keep pushing through when they probably should have stopped.
As clinical psychologist Dr. Emily Nagoski has noted, burnout is what happens when you get stuck in an emotional exhaustion cycle without completing the stress response.
The path out isn’t about trying harder. It’s about being honest with yourself about where you are, asking for help, and making space for genuine recovery. That might mean having a real conversation with your partner about redistributing the load. It might mean letting some things slide. It might mean talking to a therapist or your doctor.
Whatever it looks like for you, it starts with acknowledging that running on empty isn’t sustainable. You deserve more than just surviving. Your kids need you present, not perfect. And you can’t pour from an empty cup, no matter how hard you try.
