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?

Mid and late teens here. I would not go back to the toddler days if you paid me a million quid!

2.5 year age gab and I was exhausted, stressed and overwhelmed. the stereo crying, the tamtrums, the been torn in two for attention, the constant feeling of guilt that the 2nd child isn't getting the same amount of attention and time that the first child got, and 1st child not getting the amount of attention they had prior to the 2nd arriving.

it.was.hard.
in contrast these Teen years are a breeze.

I loved them to bits and there was joy in it too, but no just no I would never do it again

Interesting responses! Thabks for the replied so far. And yes @TheMandaloriani think you're on to something with the gin

I also think it's fair to say that some children are just better behaved, more compliant, better eaters etc as that is just thier personality. I also wonder how much lifestyle effects this. @atlaspine I thibj my parents were similar in that they didn't "parent", we simply grew up around thier lifestyles and jobs and were expected to follow suite.

Loving the 6mo spreading thier own Jam on toast etc. My DM says similar to this and I just roll my eyes.

I think we all forget, my oldest is now 4. I look at my 18 month old and can't imagine my 4 year old being as challenging! But then again she was just like 3 years ago!

Haha my mum is exactly like this. My mum once said to be ‘well, none of my four ever had a tantrum’ with a tone of voice like it was somehow to her credit. Said during a few weeks where my 2 year old liked to fling himself on the floor in a rage! She also once picked up my Oh crap! Potty training book and said ‘of course in my day Mincepies we just got on with it, we didn’t need a book to tell us how to potty train’. Thanks for the support there mum!

"2.5 year age gab and I was exhausted, stressed and overwhelmed. the stereo crying, the tamtrums, the been torn in two for attention, the constant feeling of guilt that the 2nd child isn't getting the same amount of attention and time that the first child got, and 1st child not getting the amount of attention they had prior to the 2nd arriving."

This is exactly me @NewYearNewTwatName except a 2yr age gap. We don't have a car either so any trip out is like an iron man adventure with at least one child hanging off me. I've lost half a stone in weight through sheer exertion of walking and carrying kid and all the stuff

To be honest parents of my parents generation didn’t do parenting like I did or you do now, we were just around entertaining ourselves whilst our mums did manual housework with no gadgets! Apparently I was out of nappies at 12 months!

My eldest is 5 and I've already forgotten half of what he did, which is why I was mental enough to have another two.

@thedishonthecoffeetable hah the poo anecdote made me laugh. My DC spend a lot of time in the bath too! I read on MN once that if you needed to entertain kids then 'just add water'. DS1 spent his first 2 years playing in the kitchen sink!

Yes, my sister and I apparently both slept through from birth. It wasn't until I stayed at my mums for Christmas, when DS was a few month's old that I worked out why. She had never seen a baby monitor befor, is a really heavy sleeper (sleep apnea), and we were in separate rooms from birth. I'm pretty sure she did cry it out without realising.

My. Eldest is nearly 28 and my mum was saying that to me ! I have 4 years between mine and it was hectic they certainly didn't sit like angels scoffing their vegetables. You are doing fine just nod and smile at your mum and get on with it.

My children were born 20 months apart and are now 28 and 27. The first few years were by far the hardest and I most certainly haven't forgotten it! If we ever become grandparents I would most certainly not look back on my children's early years through rose-tinted spectacles, any more than I've forgotten what it was like when I was a child.

My older teen DD was a dream all through the early years. So easy, amenable and sweet. She remains lovely but the early teen years were full of angst and friendship dramas which I don't miss!

Oh, my mum now absolutely swears that all 6 of us (now adults) never cried, were potty trained before 2, etc ad infinitum. It's all complete bollocks - there are literally numerous family stories about how my older sister CRIED ALL THE TIME. They looked after DS1 overnight once when he was 6 weeks old and were positively shellshocked that he cried... an entirely normal amount for a 6wk old baby.

So yes, many grandparents totally have forgotten the nitty of what the early years were like.

I think you forget some of it really fast. I have a 2.5 year old and I've already forgotten loads of why having a newborn is rubbish - I remember that I was mad and miserable but I don't remember why, and all the photos just show me having lovely cuddles with an adorable little baby! We're due no. 2 soon (probably as a result of this amnesia!) and DH and I keep saying things in horror like 'oh god, remember how they poo after every feed so you change 8 nappies a night!' that we had already just totally forgotten.

I think as well a lot of people give advice based on what they wish they'd done, not what they did - the obvious example being the 'treasure every second, they grow up so fast!'. I totally get why you might feel like that's what you should have done when you have a nightmare grumpy teen but it forgets why that isn't actually possible when you're in the thick of it and so it's such annoying, unhelpful advice

I think both stages are hard but a different type of hard iykwim. Toddlers are relentless but sometimes the worry of teens can be relentless as well and you can’t kiss it better!

I am a great grandmother now, and with my own children I remember their early childhoods and would love to go back to being that time.
I cannot say anymore without ''outing'' myself.

I have forgotten some of it but remember well the relentless of it and how I was pleased it was 13.45 as I had survived half a day and now the countdown to bedtime!

I have 3 (grown up) dc, and I wouldn't go back to the baby and toddler years for all the tea in China.
Hardest years of my life.

Yes, I do think we all - as a human race - look back at things with rose tinted glasses on, and blank out the bad things (we must, or no-one would give birth a second time ). However, even looking through the rose tinted glasses, I wouldn't go back to having a toddler and a baby and going to work and not having enough money to make ends meet.

MaizeBlouse

It won't help right now, but hang in there, it does get better.

I was lucky in the fact that all the older generation mums I knew, didn't live in denial or with rose tinted glasses on, and would sympathise. I think it would have done me in to have had people round me telling me how perfect toddlers should be.

Like a PP said, I think you forget really quickly how hard it can be. Ours are 13, 8, and 4 and we took the younger two to a steam train/santa visit a couple of weeks ago. When we got back I mentioned to DH how glad I am that we're past the 18mo phase of sprinting off - throwing themselves on the floor when caught - planking and arching their back SCREECHING when they were picked up to prevent them from throwing themselves onto the rails. Taking really small children anywhere is both exhausting and thankless.

Yes you make a good point @OatcakeCravings about not being able to kiss it away when they're older. I can totally see that being really difficult too. My DSs are soooo relentless and physically exhausting but it is basically feed, wash, engage, sleep, repeat. I'm sure the intricacies of parenting a teen or older child are mentally tough too but i wish i could have an uninterrupted poo every once in a while

And it was only when I saw it happen a couple of times that I even remembered it was a thing. I'd completely forgotten about it.

Oh, OP.

2 years between mine. They are now hurtling towards 19 and 17.

If I could have one wish, it would be to be back with my children when they were toddlers. It was relentless (especially as DC1 has what was then called "high-functioning autism") - but I would swap in a heartbeat. There is nothing in my life that matched up to it either before or after.

DC1 has in fact been a very delightful teenager - but DC2 (an easy small child) has been very difficult. Plus they don't go to bed at 6 o'clock, and you can't tell them "this is what we are doing, and that's that".

I think there's probably a phase of childhood that appeals to any one individual. I thought babies were a bit boring, and I actually think teenagers are a bit boring but for different reasons (and I know MN doesn't agree with me, because the MN view is that teenagers are so very fascinating). But toddlers are brilliant.

Our parents also seem to have forgotten how hard the early years were - though I do think in some respects parenting WAS easier. I was put on my front to sleep (as per advice in the 80s) and given solids from 4 months. I’m sure I probably did sleep better than any of my babies have - my theory is that all the safe sleeping advice is about making it as hard for your babies to sleep as possible, because they can’t die in their sleep if they don’t actually sleep!

Incidentally a friend of mine who had a fourth baby when she already had three teens said that all her older daughters' friends' parents had definitely forgotten how tough little ones were - that they would say things like 'ah, but you have as many sleepless nights with teens, don't you?' and she'd think that of course you worry more with teens but it really isn't the same unless you're breastfeeding your teen multiple times a night...