If your kids are 'grown up' do you remember how hard the toddler years are?

[MaizeBlouse]

This isn't meant as a goady post at all. I am yet to have teens and don't expect it to be a walk in the park by any stretch. I'm expecting it to be very challenging and stressful, but in a very different way to how stressful and challenging having toddlers is.

The wider context is basically this: I have a DS3yo and DS1yo. Both lovely, excitable, happy, creative, healthy kids. Sometimes they scream and cry if they don't get thier way (the 3yo more than the baby) and my 3yo is also a very picky eater, despite us trying all the techniques. My life, as expected, is pretty much non stop. No more than anyone else I'm sure but I feel like I'm either bfeeding, carrying a baby, cooking, cleaning, dressing someone, sorting out a lunch bag and so on. Oh and also trying to run my business too (I am self employed). Someone always seems to be crying or moaning despite me and DPs best efforts to meet all the needs.

I know this makes it sound like we're out of our depth perhaps, but I feel like it's a true reflection of having 2 kids 2 yrs apart and I'm sure in probably just 6 months time things will be easier.

The reason I ask the question in my title is that my DM seems to think that me and my siblings (I am one of 5) always sat and ate whatever we were served, we never moaned or cried, we always said please and thank you and she never had to discipline or bribe us as we always did as we were told. She doesn't understand why my boys sometimes defy my requests to share nicely etc, or tantrum. In my eyes they are behaving just like toddlers do and I discipline them accordingly (not the baby obvs). Me and DM have a good relationship but she is quite a matyr and is very bitter if anyone else has any success. I think maybe she's just forgotten how hard it is to look after very young children. How physically demanding it is and how little time you have to do.. well anything!

So, if your children are older or grown ups now, do you remember what these very early years are like with more than one child? Did you find it full on? Or do you feel like your children were better behaved than the young children of today?

Funnily enough my mother and MIL both say the same as your mum. That as children (I'm 36 now) we did as we were asked, at what was in front of us etc.

We’ve got friends struggling with a baby and a toddler and dh seems mystified that mum isn’t coping. He actually said to me the other night something along the lines of well we had a much smaller age gap and I worked seven days a week and you were fine! I just looked at him and said DH I was quite mad for several years, how can you not remember those times!

I have grown up children, 23 and 31 and for me the first few years were the easiest

Mine are 7 and 5 and there's lots I've already forgotten tbh. How to entertain a toddler all day, the way babies operate on a 2 hour nap cycle, the way babies sometimes just whine all day no matter what you do - these have all taken me by surprise with other people's young children! So by the time my two are adults presumably I'll think they were fully formed adults from day 1 like boss baby

Haha!! I do remember and often remind my eldest son how much hard work he was as a toddler. He now has 3 under 3.
I love my 9 grandchildren dearly and love spending time with them and do childcare for some of them. But boy am I glad I’m not doing Bath and bedtime etc!
I remember the witching hour- 4 pm
Ignore your mum she’s looking through rose tinted spectacles
The only thing I think was easier ( but now with science advances etc) is that my three slept better through the night much earlier than any of my grandchildren . Prob because they were stuffed full of solids from 3 months! And slept in their own rooms from a couple of weeks
Obviously I’m not suggesting that was better, it’s just the advice we were following at the time ( early 80’s)

My fabulous adult children were bloody hard work, and yes I do remember it. Weary and frustrated lots of the time. They were just lovely kids, but close in age and it was tough. I could never get on top of the house - if something was tidy it didn’t last long. Endless meals and squabbles. Still up at night as often as not as pre-schoolers. At least one who had a temperature, cold or a tummy upset at some point of each month. Sometimes more than one! And the laundry- it never ended.

I remember the best bits out loud though!

Oh yes, I remember the illnesses too, with three one of them was always under the weather.

Actually I felt tired typing that. I don’t know how working parents cope - I was a full time mum.

Mine are 10/12. I remember it as being hard but I think I blocked a lot of it out However, I looked after my lovely three year old niece for two nights and it brought it all back! I then realised how much easier my life has become now my dc are older!

I remember. I think when I was young in the 90s we and many other kids lived under threat of physical punishment so probably were on average more compliant (as a very sweeping generalisation).

I’ve got no time for people who lack sympathy at how hard the early years are.

I meant in the 80s

Mine are 15 months apart at 8 & 9. I can clearly remember how much I struggled with the toddler years and how I could never want another! I enjoy my children more and more each year now. I loved tiny baby phase but, honestly, I didn't love toddler.

Oh and i have lie ins again as my dc don't wake up early anymore and when they do, they just go and watch tv and don't bother me. There's light at the end of the tunnel.

I think toddlers and teens are the worst.
Babies and primary aged dc are a doddle.

Yes - we were fiercer about dc doing as they were told. I don’t think we were as tuned into our individual children’s choices - they were expected to fit in far more than now. I’m not saying it was good or better then - but it was different.

Better than the 60s when I was a pretty-schooler though!

Mine range between 16 and 10 now and I found the toddler years easier then the teenage years. Maybe you find the years you are in just now the hardest. Maybe time fades the memories.

Ha this has reminded me of my mum telling me the other day that she can't understand our occasional runs of disturbed nights when our toddler is teething. Apparently me and my sib didn't fuss at all when ours came through!

Your mum was probably up to her eyeballs in gin the whole time and simply can't remember it.
That was a joke (maybe).
Mine are 6.5 and 4.5yo and I walked past a couple with a screaming newborn the other day. It reminded me of how ds1 would scream and scream from about 5pm til 10pm. I was so sleep deprived these memories are well buried . I donlook back on having 2 preschoolers with a bit of nostalgia though. I miss them when they are at school.

You have my mum.... revisionist parenting history. If my mother was to be believed I was potty trained at 10 months and self feeding at 6 (including fetching it out of the cupboard .... I kid you not) My little brother was walking at 6 months and sailing a boat not long after.

For me toddler time is my idea of hell. My kids are 15 and 19 so I am hoping the worst of the teens are over. I can go out on a whim, ignore the fact that all their dirty washing is on the floor, don't have to listen to them read Biff and Chip and I can eat what I like - if they don't want what is cooked they can make their own.

Yes I do. I’m always joking with my 23 yo that I hope his child is as difficult a toddler as he was. I found having young children very very hard, it was much easier when they got older. I remember when they got to 7, 9, and 11 I wanted to freeze that stage for years. Still feel that was the easiest time. So much easier than the toddler years, yet no problems with exams, sex, drinking etc.

My son was a breeze when he was little. Now he is 17 it is really hard. I would go back to the younger years. He did what he was told and didn’t have opinions.

My children are now teens but I remember pretty clearly the lack of sleep, the physical exhaustion, the constant defiance ...

My parents have actually admitted that DS was entirely different to any of their children. The things they thought he should just do (sit quietly his bouncy chair as a baby, for example) he just didn't.

I loved the teens phase. It can be lovely if you’re very, very lucky.

It’s totally full on when they are that age, so don’t worry and I’m pleased to say it does get better! Mine are now 18 and 16 and feel we have at last got our life back. There are worries still and teens are v hard work in their own right. However I remember being physically and mentally drained, and there was no escape, I lived for 7pm bedtime and for a bit of peace. But you do forget because at times I find myself wishing they were small again then remind myself of the utter relentlessness and frustration of those early years. Good luck you’ll get through it and then look back fondly!

I remember! Mine are in their 30s now but I can remember it like yesterday. Like a pp my ExH worked 7 days a week. The evenings were the worst. Mine spent a lot of time in the bath, the only place where they were contained and played nicely. Untill the younger one pooed of course that never went down well.

I don't think mine were extra naughty/hard work though, I think most toddlers are bloody hard work and people who say theirs are angels are lying.

Well mine are 11/13 so long past the toddler years. The baby combined with a toddler years were physically relentless in a way that the tween/early teen years havent been and I suffered from lack of sleep back then. They were also very rewarding.

The more recent years have been very emotionally challenging.
I think as time goes on you look back with rose tinted glassess. I can remember plenty of naughtiness growing up in the 70s.