Which part of raising your child or children have you found hardest?

[bargainsgalore18]

Starting from birth, which stage was hardest for you and why?

Anyone?

Teenagers. 100%

Age 3-5, lots of stubbornness and little sense.

Teens

Birth

The constant moaning from age 3+. The inability to speak in a normal voice but rather in a high pitched squeak or scream or a long drawn out moan. The constant sibling fighting just because they are in the same room as each other or looked out of a window someone else had looked out of first. The competitiveness between siblings - I'm fastest, no, I'm fastest, I'm best, no, I'm best, smack in face, scream,

They are now 18, 15, 10 and 5 (two steps) and this seems constant across all ages. The MOANING, please STOP THE MOANING.

If I could live my life again, I would have just one child.

Teenager. Without doubt.

Now age 13. He has severe sn so has got bigger but doesn't understand much more. I suspect it will get harder until adulthood. The easiest stage was probably 6 - 12 months.

Adult dc.
So much harder to be there for them when things are going wrong in their lives.

When you dd has been cheated on and you want to inflict real pain on the bastard.
Or when your ds's ex gf won't let him see his ds despite no real reason except spite and he ends up self harming.
Up to when they leave home is a cinch.
Ime.

0-1. Twins. Insane sleep deprivation and PND.

When something has gone wrong and you can't sort it.

Baby to starting school age. It's demonstrably the hardest part because people take time off work for it.

Those with teens and adults may have more serious worries etc, but they won't be required to do hands on caring or spend their annual leave on childcare.

Interesting question. For me personally it was ds1’s infancy, but he was desperately ill for most of it.
But Aprilshowers has a point. When they have left home and married, you are powerless to have any influence over what their partners do. When they are heartbroken as grownups seems ten times worse than when you can cuddle and kiss it all better.
And I am not a MIL from hell.

Erm, all of it?!

It does feel like it's relentless at times. There's always something to worry about with them and if it's not something with one of them it's something with the other.

Mine are only little still. I'm dreading the teens!

Adult kids, no question. You still feel responsible, (and heartbroken when they have a hard time), but you have no power to help and no control over their choices.

Seeing my daughter battle a critical and life changing illness and all the after effects when she should be enjoying her late teenage years.

Honestly my issues started with ds1 when i had ds2. Ds1 was 3yrs 8m at the time and behaviour has been terrible since. Dont know if it ties in with what pp have said about age 3-5/stubborness/fighting with siblings. Ds2 is 14months now and they love each other alot and have moments of kindness but generally moan and fight over everything the other one has. Its draining!

Adult kids, no question.

@claraschu
Totally agree. Mine are 20s and 30s and this has been the hardest. My retirement years have been the most traumatic dealing with them.

Omg. I thought the adult years woukd be the best!

Mine are only 8, 7 and 6m. I give up.

16-19.

Teenagers - the older they get the more difficult things we come up against, really difficult things - body image, possible abusive relationships, sex, mental health issues. I have two mid-late teen DDs and my heart breaks for them. They need a lot of parenting, physically sitting down and listening, trying to work out everything with them. I am more fearful for them too. As little ones I was worried a stranger in a car would come and take them away, or they would fall over and hurt themselves.

Now I worrying they will run away with a stranger in a car, and that they will hurt themselves in a great many more ways.

Potty training

It has been different for each child.

Ds1 is on the spectrum, raising him (he is 17 now) has been a stressful crapshoot.
I think I finally got him when he was 12 - heaps of advocating for him and balancing family life to compensate for his deficit.

DS2 was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 5.
He ended up on 77 pills a week for 3 years before he achieved remission. Watching him have seizures up to 10 times a day was horrendous.

DD (DC3) was born early and was readmitted at 5 weeks old - she was critically ill, we thought she might die. She spent a month in ICU and made a fully recovery.

Stages and ages have a been quite easy (good job or I'd probably have run off to the circus).

The first year. It nearly killed me. DS2 didn't sleep at all. He had SEN and reflux and half a dozen other quite scary medical probles that didn't get picked up. he screamed in pain all night long. I was insane with sleep deprivation. We thought we'd never get through. I was SO jealous of people with fat, sleepy, smiley babies, when I had this furious red skeletal thing hissing at me.

Upside is, nothing could ever be that bad again. We eventually got the medical help he needed. We started to get a tiny bit of sleep. (He didn't 'sleep through' until he was eight years old, but that's SEN) Now they're teens there has been the occasional blip but mostly life is peaceful and happy and I love family life.