To find days off with my kids almost unbearable?

Well, I can't force myself to enjoy pretend play or painting so it is what it is. I do enjoy reading but not toddler books. So far, so good with their imaginations.

OP it can feel tough with the ages yours are, but make it your mission to have some fun!

Put on your fave music and have a dance together in your kitchen. Not kids music, your music! Always lightens the mood. Bring out a few classic action dances, be silly! Twirl your older one, swoosh your younger one. Let them see the real you.

Snuggle up and relive your favourite childhood movies. Share your interests, do what you enjoyed doing best as a child with them, and tell them that. They love getting to know you too. This gets even easier and better as they get a bit older.

Take things at their pace.

Smile at them and watch them smile at you. Tickle them. Laugh and watch them laugh with you.

You are powerful and inspiring, and can create and change the whole feel and atmosphere of your day.

Should add I would be very wary of such a trip in India even if teenager was a boy. With a girl it would be an absolute nightmare of careful chaperonage. Pretty sure my relatives would say it was highly inadvisable.

That's how they begin their interests. If you have no input there then you may find they have no interests later. Playing make-believe, stimulating the imagination, starts there on the floor with the Lego and the paint and with the story books. But I like reading - not everyone does, I realise.
And your DC will pick up that you are doing this play as a duty - it won't help them grow their imagination. Books, books and more books, paint and mess and Lego and bricks, build a child's capacity to imagine and also you are teaching them second order knowledge - the stuff we do not pick up naturally, simple science, how to draw, natural history.

Well, I would likely have found that fun too - bearing in mind that I would be wary of backpacking in India.

It isn't my idea of fun at all. I do those things because I have to.

I can't wait until they are older and have better interests than playing make believe with toys on the floor.

Not fun for everyone. Might be for you. I found backpacking in Asia with teenager much more fun

Why is it dreadful? It's fun. Reading picture books - many of which are beautiful and well-written - is delightful, I would read several to DS and DD on the trot. Sitting in the garden doing not much more than watch them splash in a paddling pool. Showing them pictures in the Uffizi (DD still remembers seeing Fra Angelico's Annunciation and we are agreed that Botticelli's anatomy, as shown in La Primavera, is crap) or St Mark's in Venice (went again with DD, she remembered the horses outside and the darkness inside). Painting, doing puzzles, playing make-believe with toys on the floor, watching DS build endless walls and forts with bricks - and I can read a book while he does this.
Meeting friends at coffee morning, making bread with the DC at home...
Entirely enjoyable. Better than going out to work by several country miles.

How dreadful. I sent mine to nursery for that kind of stuff. So glad those days can never be had back

Maybe. But time with small children can never be had back. She just needs to stop angsting about housework and get out the floor paints, the story books, the toys and play with the DC.

Hello from the future, OP. Mine are (nearly) 6 and 3 and this time last year I could have written your post. We're now approaching the end of DS1's first year of school and OMG it is so different and lovely. DS2 is like the cat that got the cream on my days off when it's just the two of us, I can enjoy him like I enjoyed my eldest as a newborn - pure simplicity and fun - and I look forward to planned one-on-one days with my eldest when we can do proper big boy things without little one throwing his weight around! You suddenly get all this space to meet their needs individually - and maybe start to think about your own, too!

Someone else has already mentioned this but my strategy for getting through the final 6 months with both of them was to shove on a 90-minute Disney film while the youngest napped, and use that time to tidy up/"rest my eyes" on the sofa or just stare into my phone for a bit, whichever felt the most necessary on the day!

You are SO nearly there, just got to dig deep for the last stretch and honestly by Christmas you'll really be starting to appreciate the loveliness of this next stage. Sending so much solidarity and good luck to you 🌱☀️

edited as I’ve cross posted with OP who did go to classes.

Ginnyandgeorgia just wants to mum shame

Sorry just to add I meant the water play ideas (water table or washing up tub) that you could sit nearby to keep a watch but be hands free as they play (as obvs your youngest particularly couldn’t be left with water they might fall in). But just sitting near by while they play happy and you get a bit of head space

Hi OP, yup I hear you. Have 2 DC with similar age gap and some days are wonderful and some are just overwhelming / exhausting mad chaos 🫠 the bickering, the whining, the mummeeeee (insert gripe here), the meltdowns, the trying to get everyone ready and out the door like herding cats... 🤯

For me a few things helped, the first and biggest was caring less about the mess, Like A LOT less. I want to say this was an easy process, but the truth is the clean freak in me was not easy to ditch. She was one stubborn, determined B. It was an ugly fight that raged on and on but in the end I crane kicked her ass out the 2nd storey window and she gone 💀. No regrets! I am typing this now from the nuclear crater that used to be my lounge BUT my brain is happy! 🤩 Is it perfect? Nah. Would it be better if we lived in a sane tidy house? Yup. Am I going to care that it isn’t? NOPE! 😁 Honestly it has been the biggest game changer and finding I can enjoy time with the kids much more without that annoying bossy moo in my head pointing out all the mess, scudge and clutter (mother, is that you?? 🤔) It’s hard to let go, but embrace the mess! (For now at least)

Secondly, getting a buggy my LO liked, it was a freebie and had a different kind of bar across the front that made it a racing car apparently. Made it a different happier experience to go in it. In your case if buggy is unlikely to ever be a happy place how about a push along trike?

Someone said upthread about having somewhere to go which is contained and will cater for both levels of play which is a sanity saver like enclosed play parks or soft play. Also you might find toddler groups in the summer open out to outside play areas too, which could be more appealing for your nearly 5 yr old? Where I am there are a couple like this that open up back doors for outside play.

Do you have a garden or somewhere you could pop a water table? Little sand pit? Anything that could keep their hands busy so you can be off duty for a wee bit. Even an old washing up tub full of water on the patio and couple of brushes for water painting is a good one, or ‘painting’ a fence or wall in the same way.

A friend had the ingenious idea of a fixing those big bubble wand tubes to the garden wall or fence (upright), then little ones can dip the sticks and blow bubbles themselves freely without you having to hold the tubes and follow them round/ help dip etc (they can hold it themselves in theory but usually just ends up with it getting tipped out, especially with younger DC)

So a couple of ideas there and sorry if it’s duplicated, I haven’t read the whole thread.

Hope you’re having a good day today OP and Hang. In. There! x

Also worth noting that kids don't stay kids forever. Some people don't like the baby stage, but still enjoy the other stages. If we just decide not to have kids because we aren't keen on a particular stage in their development then the population would be significantly reduced!

My child is stuck in a difficult stage due to LD and may well never develop out of it due to his disabilities. I may need to always change nappies for him. I can still see the great things that come with him though, but it doesn't make it less hard that im going to be a carer all my life. I can still feel a bit shit about it.

Some would say why did you have kids if the risk is always there, but again, people just wouldn't if they had that mentality. it can happen to anyone. Sometimes you just have to do your best when things are crap, but that doesn't mean you have to be happy about it. Having a grumble gets you through the hard times.

I thought I'd just leave one more comment, for the people wondering "why people have children if they're going to complain it's hard".

My children are the light of my life, simply looking at their faces brings me more joy than I could ever have imagined. I love snuggles, I love their laughter, I love pulling funny faces with them, I love dancing with them, I love watching them learn and grow, they're so funny, I end up texting my mum and my husband every single day with cute/funny/clever/surprising things they have done. When they're in bed I watch videos I've taken of them during the day. THAT is why I had children.

I don't think it should be surprising or controversial to say that picking up the same toys over and over, dealing with tantrums, mopping up spillages, correcting behaviour, listening to whining, trying to do laundry with children crowding around your feet, having to interrupt cooking dinner every 2 minutes to deal with something else, feeling like you're being torn in two because your two children need two completely different things at the same time... all of those things and more are not very enjoyable, and are very hard - especially if, like many mothers these days, you're living a long way from your support network and never get a break, and especially if your children are at different ages. People are allowed to have a bit of a moan fgs.

I was just thinking the other day I spend all week waiting for the weekend because work is shit, then wanting to be back at work because I'm running about trying to get things done and give my kids a good weekend. One has complex needs and challenging behaviour, so weekends and holidays are definitely not a break, just more agro. I'm knackered. I love my kids, but it's hard to really enjoy any part of the week.

NHS still do the classes around me

Yes there were classes but not the same. Else why would the NCT get people paying

I’m ten years ahead of you (kids now 14 and 11) and I remember these days. A lot of the memories of the drudgery do fade and you look back nostalgically at them being small and cute, but I do still remember the shit bits! It’s hard with a 4 year old because as you say, they are too old for toddler groups and there’s not much else! Four was one of the hardest ages I reckon. My DH and I still appreciate it every day that we aren’t knee deep in toys and nappies, they don’t wake us up at 6am, and we can even nip out to the pub for an hour or two these days! It gets so much easier, I promise.

@GinnyandGeorgia
I also said YABU to the poster complaining that if she didn't watch her toddler, he would reach for the bleach. Instead of you know.. putting the bleach away where he couldn't reach

I do put it where she can’t reach, do you think I’m totally thick?! 🙄🙄 So then she tries to climb to get it, which in itself is dangerous. She seems to have a sixth sense for everything she isn’t allowed to touch, and tries to grab them as soon as my back is turned. Her sister was exactly the same until she grew out of it around 2 and a half-3.

This thread is full of people who lack the imagination to realise that not every child is the same as theirs 🙄 Which would be fine if you weren’t so pompous and patronising about it.

Because people are allowed to talk about how they feel.

What you seem to want is for everyone to just say how rosy and lovely life is every day.

@GinnyandGeorgia Personally I knew what I would have to DO as a parent, but not how it would make me feel. How could I know?

I probably could have guessed that my tendency to anxiety and perfectionism would make it hard, but I had no idea how unbearable that would feel when I was in it. Or how being very introverted (in that I recharge by being alone, not that I have no friends) would include my own child and I would feel desperately claustrophic and exhausted, simply because you cannot leave small children alone. Or that being tired from being woken every 45 minutes by a teething baby is vastly different to pre-child tiredness.

almost unbearable. Almost.