To say firmly and definitively I won’t miss it

Your feelings are valid, OP.
I think you sound burned out and you need a break.
A lot of people struggle with the noise and shrieking so I can't say I blame you.
I have only one child (would have liked more but it wasn't to be). I genuinely found the baby and toddler years very rewarding and have some lovely memories, and as my child grows up and prepares to start primary I do find myself having moments of sadness that those days are behind me and I won't have a snuggly baby again.
HOWEVER...
The sleep deprivation and sheer mess of the baby and toddler years were apocalyptic. And I say this as someone who can manage well on little sleep and thrives in a bit of chaos. DS was a dreadful sleeper and had been hard work all round. There was a lot of physical wear and tear from those years. I won't miss that and I won't forget it either. Also the constant vigilance, watching your kid like a hawk so they don't put something in their mouth or wander off, always having to think two or three steps ahead about things like naps and what I needed to pack when going out for the day. The constant worry about milestones (weaning, potty training, the more recently introduced middle class milestone of being able to ride one of those effing balance bikes.... no, bugger off Camilla and Natasha, my son doesn't get on with a balance bike, we are using a bike with stabilisers and I don't give a shit if it's not the "correct" way to learn etc).
There were so many micro decisions during the day felt so consequential and open to critique in the baby/toddler/preschool years...
I love older children and teens though so I'm embracing the next stage....and everything that might come with it!

What do you do for yourself OP?

What are your hobbies?

You sound a bit burnt out. You need to do something for you.

You have very loud children and very sensitive hearing by the sound of it.

Could you try a different type of earplugs? Or over ear headphones playing calming music quietly?

Can you afford a babysitter once a week to do bedtime for you?

It’s the same as people saying you’ll miss your school days when you’re an adult and have to work and pay bills etc. I do not miss school at all, it was hell and I was miserable. I don’t miss having a newborn baby or toddler either.

I think it is a bit of this.

PFB was actually a diffcult baby and we moved in pg to new area so all hard but within a few months I had made a solid group of mates and felt very settled. So look back and feelling good is partly being in that bigger group of people and fitting in.

We then had to move and next area was hard to meet people in and DH had much longer communte and less flexiblity with work hours. I have good memories with me and the kids doing local activities but never settled into community as well -so easier next child never felt as good an experince overall.

My Mum said I'd meet people at school gate - I didn't hated standing there TBH - but that's bit she enjoyed.

I hated school and bits of Uni experience TBH other bits were great - felt awful everyone said I should enjoy it all. I also had weird pressure from wider family when DC were young to have a tidy house and be avaliable when they wanted but making most of any dry weather not catching up on sleep or tidying house or being out at groups.

I have 3 children, all adults now .
I didn’t really enjoy the newborn stage , absolutely exhausting and I had no support .
Older baby stage was lovely .
2 year olds , nightmare !!
3 year olds depending on their personality are great fun .
4 they’re really needing so much entertainment and education which is absolutely lovely IF you have either someone to give you a break or help in the house to allow you the free time and headspace to enjoy this stage .
( where I am they don’t start school till age 5 and nursery school wasn’t a full school day back then you’d be lucky to get a couple of morning sessions )

In general I'm not a fan of telling people how they feel or what they will miss. You don't always guess right.

I find motherhood stressful. I probably enjoyed the bit where you are at but I have found teenagers really stressful. I don’t seem to have any faith ‘they’ll be ok”.

Parenting defo different at different stages. However it’s always asking you to step up in someways which is bloody hardwork.

I think kids screaming and fighting is absolutely soul destroying. I dealt with it terribly but I noticed that people who were less affected never took sides, didn't engage and kind of let them fight it out between them. It depends on the personality and size of the kids as to whether that's possible as you can't let one be bullied

Having had one child, now a teenager, I'm baffled as to why people put themselves through this two or more times.

At least the first time there's the magic and wonder, as well as the hard work and exhaustion.

Going on holiday with friends and family with the prescribed 2 kids I can see how miserable it can be..just zero enjoyment chasing round after a 4 year old and a toddler..constant stress and demands and being too tired to enjoy any child free time.

It’s the same as people saying you’ll miss your school days when you’re an adult and have to work and pay bills etc. I do not miss school at all, it was hell and I was miserable. I don’t miss having a newborn baby or toddler either.

It’s different for me because I had 3 DC in quick succession, then a 6 year gap, then 2 further DC in quick succession so I now have three teens and a 6 and almost 8 year old. The 6 yo has SEN so whilst very bright, his behaviour can at times be unpredictable and a bit toddler-like. Teens are a different battleground and keeping all of them happy at once can feel like an uphill battle.

Parenting isn’t easy and obviously doesn’t come with a one size fits all manual. There’s a lot of winging it and hoping for the best involved. We all fuck up at points.

I enjoyed mine being little. However, now I work in childcare I realise I had very easy, laid back children who slept enough and rarely had a tantrum. If I had had some of the children we care for I might have hated it too!

I think it’s the nostalgia for those years that people look back on fondly.

I'm exactly the same very happily one and done 😀

Same. It was awful and partly why I only have 1 child.

I cant imagine feeling this way. It must be awful. I was never maternal until I had my children and I love being a mother. I wish I'd had time to have more babies.

Fortunately I get my baby fix at work - love to have a cuddle and then get to leave them behind! 😜

it's sort of different, but there are things which apply ...
I, with no or v.v. little experience of children, trained & became a primary-school teacher.
When I started teaching in a tough inner-city school I learned one very hard lesson, which I did not like having to learn. It was this
YOU have to survive in order for THEM to survive.
Which is to say, YOU often have to put yourself FIRST.

You often have to be inflexible about the boundaries you've set.

Sometimes, you HAVE to say "Me Say Jump. You Say How High" and
"Me Big GrownUp. You LIttle Child".
It can be hard to take this on board. But you need to be the Strong One, the One Who Sets The Boundaries, the One Who Is In Charge. And, if they don't like it, well, that's very unfortunate. But it doesn't alter the case.
Good luck, OP.

I think it depends whether your kids have a tough time once they hit secondary school
age. My older ones did/have had difficulties and in a lot of ways life was simpler when they were little. At the same time I love the people they’ve turned into and I’m very proud of them. I love hanging out with my toddler too and equally proud of her but for different things.

I found the toddler years a bloody nightmare mainly because it was during covid and we couldn't go anywhere. It was like groundhog day with endless tantrums and crying. The school years are definitely a lot easier although the summer holidays were tough at times. I really hope it settles down for you and you get to a point where its more enjoyable.

@toomanytakeawaysthissummer To give you a sense of how great adult children can be, I was in a grumpy mood yesterday after talking to my Dad who is often v. negative, and called DD (21) as just talking to her always cheers me up. She was busy so we only chatted for a minute.

She rang me this morning to check that I had cheered up. I thanked her for being such a lovely person. 😍

I feel a peculiar sense of loss. My kids, my parents, my sibling all gone. It's very odd.

See this thread got me thinking. I even got out some pictures of them when they were young to help me jog my memory. I can't say that I can remember any good bits before they were about 9 and 12. I remember fighting, whinging, being in my face constantly, trying to organize child care but no real " good " bits.

I have lots of memories of good bits when they were in secondary school

Well, no, that's the point. I'm sure you're not alone, but many (most) people experience raising young children as a lot of work but still enjoyable. So the fact that to you it's all the work with little enjoyment means you might be depressed.

I've been a single parent since my son was 1, and even though it was varying degrees of hard work over the years, it's always been mostly enjoyable, and I look back at photos and videos of him as a baby/toddler and think I DO miss those years. Now he's older and we can have conversations and he needs less 'looking after', so I love this stage, too.

You might do one day.

That's what nostalgia is, you focus on the lovely bits.

Also how much disposable income you have , I may have felt like @toomanytakeawaysthissummer if I didn’t have the income to be out and about doing things .

I think a key thing is what support you have.

I wonder whether she would have felt differently if she hadn't had children young? Many people aged 41 are just starting their family having had 20+ years of freedom beforehand.