Not coping with 13 month age gap

[greencurry]

I have a 15 month old and a 9 week old and I'm not coping. The utter relentlessness of it all is wearing me down. I'm a SAHM but even if I wanted to get a job I couldn't as we can't afford 2 children in nursery. My DH is a HGV driver so works away a lot.

We have no family around to help and can not afford things like nannies or au pairs. The days I'm on my own with them is really really hard.

Any advice?! When will it get easier??

My gap is bigger at 21 months but I’m going through similar at the moment with a 3 month old and 2 year old.

Just as a beacon of hope about a month ago the baby very naturally fell into having the same 2 hour afternoon nap as the toddler, my theory is that they don’t get proper rest when a noisy toddler is around so when the toddler is in bed suddenly the baby can finally sleep undisturbed. So now in the afternoon I get two hours of sleepy baby snuggles on the sofa with crap tv when the toddler sleeps upstairs and it’s absolute heaven! So hopefully your 9 week old will have a bit of a routine emerge soon and fingers firmly crossed for some tandem napping.

It’s bloody hard though, relentless and exhausting.

It will get much easier OP. The small age gap is good, because they will play together and like the same age appropriate outings. Imagine if you had to try and amuse a toddler and a ten year old simultaneously!
I had 16 months between mine, and my DH died when the baby was just 11 months old. My nearest relative was 250 miles away and I had to go back to work to support us. It was gruelling for the first few years, but we got through it. You will too.

Wow @Babdoc I'm so sorry to hear about your DH, that must have been an awful time for you with 2 small children. Your story has given me a bit of strength!

Home start won’t watch them while you shower etc
We were told we weren’t allowed to leave the room so it was no help at all

That's a shame that you think Home start wasn't a help to you @BethMaddison

I know the rules vary between schemes, but would have hoped that even just having a friendly face who can listen/reassure over a cup of tea, or play with the toddler while mum feeds baby etc, might just make life a little easier for a stressed out mum.

The rules were so strict and I actually would have really liked to have been able to go just to the kitchen for a cup of tea in peace or to tidy the kitchen or just to be st home st have a chat but the rules were explained the first meeting and I felt like they just wanted to drag me to groups I didn’t want to go to

Maybe it’s just my area 🤷‍♀️
I was so looking forward to company/an extra pair of hands and I just felt pressured