Feels like I will never get being a parent right

[Dinglingding]

Not really sure why I am posting, feeling quite desperate tonight that despite really trying my best I just am getting things so wrong with my eldest DS.

I have two DS. Youngest is 2 1/2, can be challenging but a naturally happy, easy going affectionate boy. Sleeps well, eats ok. I find him very easy.

My eldest DS is 5. He has always been very sensitive, can be extremely kind and lovely. He has never slept well and still wakes pretty early. He has always been quite whiney and very intense and dramatic. Everything has to be just so. I never know which way a day is going to go. He challenges everything.

My DH was away a lot when he was little (until he was 4) for months at a time. He is now away with work/late home quite a bit and it seems to be having a really bad impact on my DS1. I also work part time but am always back for bath and bed. Whenever my DH was away when he was smaller he would become angry towards me. I completely understand why this is. He has started doing it again, all the time - hitting me, saying he won't have anything I've touched, that I'm disgusting and he doesn't want me near him etc etc. I do know he is only little and I try not to let it affect me but sometimes it does.

I have really tried to always stay calm with him ( although don't always succeed). Have been trying a new approach of having a chat about all the good things he has done at the end of the day, give him one in one time. Have read the 'explosive child' and been trying that approach ( which does help a little) It doesn't seem to make any difference. I feel like I am stuck in a cycle I can't break. That I am getting the way I am with him wrong but I don't know what I can do. Every day I wake up anxious as to which version of him I will get that day.

I have had PND when he was a baby and I wonder if that has also had an an impact which makes me feel terrible.

My nanny said today that she thinks I am too soft as a parent because I don't want her to use the naughty step with my youngest DS ( although she can discipline him other ways). I don't know, it just feels like the final straw. That I've failed my DS

[youwillbepk]

You haven't failed him, your doing your very best! You only fail if you stop trying. Your his safe place where he can vent and knows you will still love him.
I do agree with your Nannie that the naughty step will help your youngest ds and help create boundaries and help him understand some behaviour isn't acceptable. Maybe the naughty step would help with eldest to just to give him space to realise some behaviours not acceptable .

[youwillbepk]

Also no one gets it right all the time we're all just winging it and trying our best! I have 3 dc 13,12 and 7 and some days I haven't got a clue !

[Dinglingding]

Thanks youwill

My eldest does go to his room - he definitely needs the space to calm down. I think it is the contrast between how much easier I find one DS than the other I struggle with - mainly because I never want to let that show to my eldest but also because it just seems to emphasise the feeling that I am failing my eldest.