To feel like I never have a ‘nice time’ with my children

They leave home eventually

This is great advice! I do manage to have nice days out with my kids - and some shit ones.

The general rule of the successful days are… stay away from tempting things that are going to cause arguments. such as toy shops when I am not buying them anything (cue meltdown)

not be in a hurry, not have any high expectations or hard deadlines

snacks are key. Constant supply of snacks and be prepared to stop off for an ice cream / hot chocolate / delete according to weather

trying not to force an activity that doesn’t suit them. Never been more stressed than taking a 2 year old to a gallery where they can’t touch the art (and it was really colourful and appealing). Taking them to the woods or a farm is perfect.

taking change of clothes for little ones and pt stressing if they get dirty etc.

you’re not a shit mum. Just writing this post show how much you care.

I'm 100% in this camp.

We dream small. Really small.

I occasionally book stuff but only cheap (£10/15 total cost) and I try and optimise timings too: 9 to midday is THE window for kids activities.
If it involves being still (ie a meal) I ensure a run around before and bring sticker books and snacks.
Again, Everything is cheap.

I stupidly went off piste in December and got ££ Santa tickets in the afternoon...and while it was kinda fine there were high expectations, tantrums and i felt like it fell flat and was really down in the dumps I'd failed afterwards.
A timely reminder to stick to the system!!!

I can't tell you how much I needed to read this thread!

I do find enjoyable moments but most of them are whilst we are at home. At bedtime I read a chapter from a book (from today's 30 min library trip) to my 4 year old for the first time and it was lovely. Up to now we've just read picture books, she was engrossed. Little things like that I cling onto. But I feel a constant pressure to do fun activities and days out and feel so guilty for not giving my kids all these experiences. In reality everything is so expensive, it's tiring, stressful, overstimulating all round. We tend to stay home a lot!

Hopefully when my kids are older we can do more big days out

Here's a recent thread full of special days out with the kids that have turned into disasters...reading it made me laugh and feel a lot better about my disastrous day trips

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4951174-nice-activities-or-outings-youve-done-with-the-kids-that-have-turned-into-an-absolute-shitshow?page=1

You’re not a shit mum, kids are turds.

On New Year’s Day after a morning of dossing about (6-9 or thereabouts) we made a nice breakfast - 2nd breakfast for the kids - and said right, let’s go to a local beauty spot (Coulter Fell in South Lanarkshire, for those interested), and there’s a long tarmac road for the kids to ride their bikes and mum and I can have a nice walk, we might get a few km in.

They were shit. They whinged the whole way, to the point that we maybe got 300m from the car before turning back. They moaned their way out of privileges for the rest of the day on the journey home and spoiled the day.

You are not alone.

We took our 3 year old and 10 month old to a farm today. We had a tantrum before we even left, with threats of not going, about putting shoes on. The 3 year old rugby tackled the 10 month old in the soft play (he’s fine) and I had to carry the 3 year old back to the car wailing when we went to leave as he didn’t want to go home 🙄….this pretty much sums up most of our days out 🤷‍♀️ Bit I still plan things in the hope that next time it will be better and there are the odd 20minutes throughout the day when we’ll have an amazing time.

uff I’m dealing with the same age and attitude. Ready to chew my arm off after 3 weeks of winter break and home most of the time since Halloween due to various sicknesses.

What I find helps is preparing them in the days before for what to expect, so for example if we’re going to a theme park we’ll look at rides on YouTube and ask them to pick which ones they definitely want to go on, talk about what we’ll have for lunch and snack and talk about where we’ll sit for lunch and choose what t-shirt they want to wear etc.

If you look at it from their point of view they’re in a big new place, they don’t know how long the day will be and aren’t able to regulate how much energy they use so if they have an idea of what is going to happen it helps them have a little bit of control.

Aw OP I do really love these kind of posts because it makes me feel normal! I feel exactly the same. My kids are both under 5. You're not a shit mum, it's just hard and kids are hard. It's hard!! Sending hugs. They will appreciate it all one day. You'll look back and you won't regret doing all the nice things, because just by trying to do them you're an amazing mum. You want them to have a nice time, and somewhere between all the shit times I'm sure there will be at least some nice ones, and you're winning because that's better than not doing anything at all! Staying at home is always 100x worse.
I heard recently "parenting is only hard if you're a good parent". It's so true.

My advice is try to factor in something nice for yourself at least for part of each trip or plan. For example if I have to stand in the park for a couple of hours, I'll make sure to choose a location where I can also buy myself a nice coffee. Or I'll just take them to nice nature places so I can enjoy the scenery too and they can still run about. If we go somewhere like a play gym which is no joy for me at all, I'll make sure we eat there too so basically my own treat is getting to avoid the making / cleaning up of lunch!

YANBU

This thread is great! It’s very true when you’ve put too much money/anticipation into a day or event, it often goes wrong with kids.

There’s also such a fine line I find of us of doing too little in a day (they start fighting/climbing the walls/bored/house is a tip and it’s still hours until bedtime) or too much (too many transitions/overwhelmed/too much pressure).
The nicest time we had today was an hour or so where the kids played independently with their friends and I got a tea in peace with their mums catching up. Everyone happy. Leaving was a shitshow though, as they were hangry. And it took us an hour to leave for the park this morning due to meltdowns. Which we then left after 20 mins as they got wet from puddles and were too cold. Parenting is a mug’s game!

Oh thank god it's not just me! It's so stressful isn't it? Why did we have children? 😆

We had this conversation at work recently, plan nice things you think the kids will like, kids are little shits, end up wondering why you bothered in the 1st place! Days out I find are pretty exhausting and if you are going on your own with no adult back up it's even worse. I think keep expectation low really and don't spend too much so you aren't sad if it all goes TU. Mine are nearly 9 and 3 and the eldest would be fine on her own, although sometimes moans about going out at all, but because we have to give more focus to the 3 year old things can start to spiral. It is hard and I find myself pretty exhausted most of the time tbh trying to stay patient and keep the peace.

Get them involved in the planning. They take it in turns to choose where to go.

Pack loads of good protein-based snacks and water and give them at intervals so they don't get hangry. Avoid sugary treats that cause mood swings when blood sugar spikes or dips.

If that still doesn't work, just take them out on special one-to-one day trips, while someone else has the other DC. Kids often behave much better if your sole attention is on them and they chose their day trip

Nice moments or bursts.

It's sunshine and thunderstorms.

Two hour maximum for outings. One outing per day. Other adult company mandatory or understanding that you are a human sacrifice and only there to entertain.

I produced a golden ratio in my head that if I received ten minutes freetime for every hour I spent focussing upon them.

Some days are a slog and others produce moments of such joy that you will never forget them - you just need to be not to burnt out and crushed to enjoy them.

@Pleasehelpimexhausted

you don’t sound remotely shit Op

Kids are funsuckers!

OP you are absolutely not a shit mum!
I think if we were all totally honest we have all experienced this!
That feeling of why do I bother!

As a PP said.....it absolutely does get better! I stopped the big costly days out for a long time and took too easy days where the kids could run free/riot and I stopped the organised fun. So think days out at the park/beach/meeting up with friends and letting the kids loose in the garden. It was a game changer.

Things are easier now they are getting older ( 8 - 10 y/o ) and they appreciate and exciting day to the zoo/museum/trampoline Park etc.

I think most kids....below the age of 5/6/7 just aren't quite old enough to make it through the day somewhere too big without being overwhelmed/overtired. I found with ours that they just thrived on being allowed to play freely!

It's gets easier ......although they still enjoy the odd bicker and whinge here and there but nothing that kills the day out.

Yes I agree with this. My kids often find things like this too overwhelming and we have to do a lot of "prep" work beforehand so they don't freak out! They are NT but still need a lot of explaining about the day and what the rough plan is etc. We don't really do many activities therefore, and ime they're much happier having a day playing Lego with us at home or having a family movie evening.

This one made me laugh slightly as the mother of the child who gave himself an asthma attack from the fumes of his own shit, and thus was unfit to do his evening activity, and made me late for mine which was somewhat awkward to explain...

My children are absolute geniuses for ever inventive ways to complicate the day or just inventive ways to complain!

The sweet spot is the junior school years. Alas we've hit the teenage years... Kevin the Teenager was based on truth. Little things like playgrounds no longer cut it, and it's hard to find places of interest without begining to blow significant amounts of money. Awkwardly being autistic, he doesn't have a social life to plug some non-screen time and it's hard to fill that void.

Divide and conquer is a good strategy where possible.

Omg this this this.

Gone are the days of morning softplay/ swimming / activities…I now only do things that finish around 5 so all that’s left when I get home is dinner, bath and bed.

Snacks seems to be a real issue

why so many snacks? Constant snacks? Do you have to bring a massive handbag to keep them all in?

DD was the baby/toddler/preschooler that cried a lot(reflux), didn't sleep,didn't eat, didn't talk.

We did have lots of nice times (and still do) together but that's because it was only her to deal with and luckily,despite being a pain in the ass with the above, she had and still has a pretty easy going personality.

I still remember the time she cried and had a horrific meltdown because I looked at her sock wrong though.