To hate sentimentality about the early years going fast?

I hear you @higlandcoo but unfortunately, cliches are cliches for a reason, and when your kids are older, you will miss those years. I am/was very much like you - found the toddler years with my first child particularly an absolute grind and I hated it when people said that to me. I was delighted when he got to 5-ish and things got easier. I am not a 'baby person', I'm a career/books/films/adult company person.

Nonetheless, now that my kids are teenagers, I do still massively miss it, and also I realise that part of the reason I found it so hard was because at each difficult stage, I never knew how long that stage would go on, and I never fully believed it would end.

I would still never say it to a parent of young kids, because it's incredibly patronising and annoying and no-one can ever view things through the lens of their future self. But it's still true, and the more you can feel it when they're young, the happier you'll be. I had a bigger age gap than you so with my second child I was much better at appreciating the small moments and not letting the exhaustion and grind get me down.

The early years were hard for me. I love having teenagers, they're hilarious. Still challenging, but easier challenging. No more crappy nappies. I guess mine haven't discovered opposite sex and booze yet so maybe early teens are a golden age and I'll regret saying this in a few years. But so far teenagers are the best, in my experience.

I have a 14 year old and a six year old now. I wouldn't want go back to the baby years. I wasn't in a good place. I'm not nostalgic for my life then. But I wouldn't mind having 5 minutes in a time machine and giving my eldest a baby cuddle, knowing that we made it through in the end

I found the early years absolutely exhausting, I’m not romanticising it at all and when my kids were 5 and under I would also have laughed at people who said it flies by. I’m just saying that you can’t judge how you will feel when they’re grown up when you’re in the thick of it.

No, it absolutely doesn’t feel short at the time. For me it felt long, relentless, exhausting. I’d have reacted the same way as you if anyone had tried to tell me the years are short when I had 3 under 5!
What people are saying is that for a lot of people, when they’re out of the trenches and their kids are growing up/flying the nest, they look back and those years do feel short. That’s definitely how I feel now. Of course you may never feel that way, and I’d have put myself in that category too, but I was wrong!

I love my teens too and I wouldn't change back to the baby years at all. I suppose it's more of a feeling that time has passed more quickly than I expected.

Not necessarily- my oldest is 17 and I found the baby years pretty grim and they went on forever. People telling me to enjoy every second as it only gets worse as they get older nearly sent me over the edge. I now have 2 teens who are a bloody delight.

I love each year seeing how they have grown and progressed and we spend a lot of time having fun as a family. Also looking forward to seeing them grow into adults. Obviously I coo at their baby photos when they pop up but I wouldn’t turn the clock back for a second.

The point I'm making is that it wasn't short, until my kids grew up and then I had a different view on it. If your eldest is five you're still very much within it.

It doesn't matter what I think though ultimately. You may feel it was short, you may not.

100% agree with this; it’s used as a stick to beat women with (never men!) and it’s meaningless. Of course life is a series of moments which can’t be lived again - no shit!!

I think as parents we probably all have preferences about the age and stage of our children … to me, the early weeks weren’t madly exciting as babies just sleep, eat, shit! Once my children were learning to talk, developing their own little characters more, it was all more fun.

then again as they went to school, then onto university … all really fun, interesting stages, and I welcomed their growing independence.

@higlandcooi think I get what you mean though - sometimes those very early years are over sentimentalized. Or worse, like I say, they’re used to guilt trip mums from having any life apart from their babies. Personally I always worked and maintained a life of my own. My children were and always will be the most important thing in my life but not the only thing.

Your kids are still very young and you’re in the trenches. I remember that feeling. And then my son turned 18 and left for university and I felt like I had blinked and he’d grown up.

come back in 14 years and tell us how you’re feeling about it all then.

Exactly. When you're in the trenches with little ones it feels endless, it's only as they get older that you realise how short it really is and then it doesn't seem so bad. That doesn't change how hard it is when you're actually in it though.

My children are now young adults.

I do not miss the pre school years. At all.

they were bloody hard work.

I know what you mean OP, circumstances dictated that my DH worked away for much of the early years of my second child’s life. I had a two year age gap and functioned almost entirely alone. I was lucky to be well supported financially as I can imagine struggling with that makes it worse again, wish I’d used more paid childcare and not been so proud. I loved my days off but it was a slog.

Now when I see women with small children (mine are 4 and 6 now) I’m reminded of how deep in the trenches that was for me. I had PND and PNA. It was a dark time. I find parenting gets easier and more joyful with each milestone towards independence and enjoy having them home now. The baby and toddler stage feels like a distant memory.

When I see photos (and there’s plenty) I think how cute they were but it’s always closely followed by remembering how hard it was. I don’t miss it at all.

I totally get it. My DD was a nightmare - cried constantly, never slept, touchy as all hell. I was anti-depressants for a time to cope. It is annoying to be told you will miss it, it also sounds vaguely judgemental as though you should enjoy it more while you're in it. I certainly don't intend it that way. You feel how you feel.

But nostalgia is a funny thing. One of the quotes about it is 'its a seductive liar' - it makes you believe a time gone past was better when in fact it was shit. That why older people reminisce about past times that were objectively awful as though they were heaven on earth. There's no rationality to it at all.

I completely agree OP. I still have to pinch myself with excitement now that I can have lie ins and no crazy early wake up times. We went on holidays last year year with no buggy for the first time in 12 years and it was amazing. My lovely aunt at stage had three boys under four and they were hyper. She remembers one very stressful day in the park when a well intentioned older lady told her that one day she will look back and miss these days well my lovely aunt says absolutely no she does not look back fondly at those days they were hell at times. Her sons are grown adults now and no she says she does not yearn for the constant chaos and mayhem.

YANBU. There are quite a few things I look back on with fondness about the DCs childhood days (they are 17 and 20 now) but then I see parents wrangling grumpy toddlers in the supermarket and thank everything I have that that stage is all done with now.
My near enough grown up DCs are fantastic though so it is all worth it in the end.

Amen! They were cute, but my Lord it was hard! I'm enjoying all stages don't get me wrong, but preschool wasn't better than anything else - at least not for me.

And when my eldest was 5 I’d absolutely have said the same as you. Now she’s 14 it’s a whole other ball game.

You have no idea as you are not out of it at all.

What I find is missing the past is crystallised as you age when you are of an age when you know full well you have more years behind you than in front of you.