Anyone else with a very small age gap?

[givemecaffeine21]

Mine are 11 months apart, DD is 20 months and DS is 9 months. She's hitting 'toddler' with a vengeance and driving me insane and he is in the 'communication stage' which roughly translates as a lot of screaming and crying and a good dose of separation anxiety thrown in. I'm starting to feel like I'm going insane. I desperately want a break but feel it's a lot to ask of anyone to have them both for a couple of hours and to be honest in between naps, lunch etc, there isn't much time left to ferry them to someone's house anyway as I'd be driving back to pick them up before I'd hardly left. I've looked at it from every angle and can't come up with a super plan.

Is anyone else in or been in this boat and if so how did you manage? I've been crying a lot this week (in between shouting and stressing and being a terrible mum).

[MultipleMama]

I have small age gaps and it's lovely in most ways but very overwhelming. Sometimes I lock myself in the toilet just for some peace! My twins are 18mo and have been in the communication face for a few months now and the shouting is the worst or the tears that follow because you can't always understand what they're trying say.

Ds3 went through a phase of only speaking German and he used to just scream "nein" when you did something he didn't like.

I don't even know how I manage!

[givemecaffeine21]

Thank you guys!

Multiple mama mine does the foreign language thing to - we have the French 'non' a lot for no and she used to say ' si' a lot (just because) so for a while I decided she was secretly speaking Spanish!

Miaow thank you for your honest response, that's pretty much where I'm at....honestly I've got a problem with wine these days! I've had a glass every night for quite a while now as has DH...don't get me started on chocolate either, I created a 'treat tin' for myself and buy way too much of the stuff on particularly bad weeks, but even fruit n nut isn't lifting the burden this week! I ended up at my mum's a sobbing wreck this morning saying I couldn't be a mum anymore.....I'm one of several siblings with small gaps so my parents know just where I'm at with four under five at one point (I was no.7!).

I do keep telling myself like a bloody mantra that once DS is cruising / walking and is around 11 months it will pick up and it sounds like that's the case. He's desperate to be doing this so I'm hoping he gets his body to follow his brain soon and pulls himself up. He crawls like a machine and loves standing.

It's nice to hear I'm not the only one who has struggled so much with little ones, I feel like such a failure sometimes as I'm not enjoying them right now, just surviving each day.