Mums of toddlers with little support - can we be HONEST about this please?

[TiredTabbyCat]

I've name changed since I feel the stigma of this. I am craving an honest conversation with somebody about how fucking hard it is to bring up a toddler, especially with no support network. I've tried (under different user names) to reach out on here before but have met with comments such as "what a shame you don't enjoy spending time with your child" / "it was your choice to have a child" / "wait till you have 2 / 3 / 4 children".

In real life my friends' DC are all older and I feel like Mums either forget or choose to forget the toddler years once they're gone. I overheard a woman in a waiting room this morning, saying that now she looks back at the toddler years and thinks there's no way she could go through all that again. I wanted to run over to her and hug her for being honest!!

At soft play other mums ask surface questions about nursery hours, potty training, but no-one says "it's shit isn't it". Is it because they're all coping beautifully? Or do we keep this under wraps? Are we all privately hating this?

Some Mums probably do cope better than me. Maybe they have a supportive Mum who's their best friend, or a wider family and grandparents who help out and take care of their child for the odd afternoon, or babysit sometimes. Maybe they've got a good friendship group of other mums with toddlers, or their partners work 9-5 and can help out at bedtime. Maybe their child will sit nicely and do colouring and doesn't run away whenever they walk outside or run around and grab everything in sight. I have none of this. I do have a loving partner but he works away half the week and gets home at 9pm normally. My mum is controlling bully so I don't see her, and there's no other family. My toddler is a bolter and a thrill seeker.

But I have no-one to share this with and no-one who gets it. I can't be the only one.

So can we PLEASE have an honest chat on here, without judgement or patronising comments?

• We know the caveats. We LOVE our children so much. We love the bones of them. And we know how lucky we are to have a healthy child.
• We want a family and we visualise and dream about those happy days in the future when we will go on a family holiday, Christmasses, gorgeous moments.

But can I say..

It is so shit
I bloody hate the drudgery
I hate the constant on edge of distracting away from the next tantrum
My body is TIRED
Having snacks ready, a new thing to play with, thinking ahead to what's going to set him off and how I can avoid it
I hate the constant changes. He learnt to sleep through the night and did it for ages so WHY won't he fucking sleep?!?!
I hate having zero time any more for me. I miss reading books, going to the gym, spending time on my self care, sitting quietly.
I miss my clean and tidy home.
My back is completely messed up from all the carrying and lifting a heavy 2 year old and licking him up off the floor.
I yearn for the day when he will be able to get himself ready.
I yearn for bedtimes most days.
I have aged a decade in 2 years.
I yearn for my partner to fucking hurry up and get home from work just once before bath time so it isn't just me.
Everyday is just rinse and repeat
Weekends aren't a treat anymore. I look forward to going to work.
Desperately trying to find soft play and places to book so we never have the sheer hell of a full afternoon in the house.
Trying to explain to child-free friends why I can't go to that wedding, and why it wouldn't be a good idea to just bring my 2 year old along.
Above all knowing how much I love him and yet how exhausted I feel and how I don't know where I am anymore.

Can anyone relate?

An hour of help here or there from a loving grandparent sounds like a bloody dream to me. We have never had that and never will.

Sometimes it's not about the practical help with things like nappies, but having another person to come and give DC some positive energy and love and attention when I'm totally burnt out.

I'll swap you my DCs dead grandparents for your older but loving ones and maybe you'll change your mind about it being a 'mixed blessing'.

I don't understand why people come on threads like this where OP is having a hard time and looking for some empathy and say - it's not that bad really!

Of course
And can I tell you something? I remember the exact same feeling with my eldest
Now I have a 4 1/2 and a almost 2yo. I can tell you that it depends a lot on the child.
My eldest still drive me mental buy my second is such an interactive and calm child that loves to tidy up her toys that I can honestly say I have an easier life with 2 than when I had 1.
My back can definitely sympathise with yours.
Please keep away from tik tok and other fake stories I found that we all feel the same if you scrape under the surface
However sometimes even admitting it is, it's tiring. I found a couple of precious friends who are completely on board with us and share the exactly same feelings. Keep looking in the real world

OP has a toddler, antenatal classes and baby classes are of no use to her in making mum friends.

She said she was TTC, so the antenatal stuff are ideas for next time. And there are toddler classes too which round here at least are mostly full of older Mums, not saying making friends is easy, but I don't think it's an 'older Mum' thing as such

Of course it's lovely to have their love and moral support! And an hour or two here and there is way better than nothing. Just saying it's worth bearing in mind that they may not be getting as much help as you think, especially in the practical/physical department.

It's like when people say that they know what it's like to be a single parent as their partner doesn't help much / works a lot, so I totally get that it's annoying for people to compare limited help to 0 help as it doesn't compare.

But it might help with the jealousy slightly to know it's not always as good as you might be thinking.

I have just returned from toddler group. There was one new Mum with an almost two year old just bursting to talk to someone about how tired she was. She looked utterly utterly exasperated. I really felt for her. I am hoping she will come back because she looked in desperate need of some support.

@Ilikepinacoladass @Gruffling

Can agree with both sides here. I'm lucky enough to have had help. Both sets of GP had a day a week when I went back to work but there were issues.

A - I then felt I couldn't ask for help at weekends so I could socialise.

B - one of them did this help in my home (in law) they made my home a mess and had sil and her children over creating mess and then I would have to come home from work to tidy up whilst they had been playing and drinking endless cups of tea at my home. Which then gave me more work to do.

C - both sets but again more the inlaws felt they could comment helpfully or unhelpfully about what we did right or wrong.

D however dc got a day week with their grandparents from 9 months until school age (pandemic aside) and has a special bond with both for different reasons which is special and lovely.

@FindingMeno @Battyfumworts It always makes me feel so much better when other people don't like the newborn phase. I also thought the baby phase was hideous - so much so I cut my maternity leave short and went back to work early because I was so deathly bored and fed up.

I'm pregnant with #2 and there will be a deliberate 4 year gap because it took me that long to recover from pregnancy and newborn life. I just don't understand how people enjoy it. WHAT IS THERE TO ENJOY?!

@allfurcoatnoknickers
The newborn phase was horrible!! Definitely would not be looking forward to that again. But I started to enjoy things more from around 4 months, and then much more from around 6/9 months. Getting out and going for walks with other mums was literally the only thing that saved me (also the only thing we could do anyway, sometimes just in pairs! Due to lockdown)

It is hard. I still enjoy it most days
I'm not today. I'm ill, I want to sleep it off but baby has chickenpox and my dh has deadlines he has to meet this week. I have no family support, mil has done her time with her own kids and isn't interested in mine (totally her choice). My mum lives 4 hours away, as do my siblings. I'm not cooking today, it will be jacket potatoes for dinner. I intend to sleep when baby has her one and only nap of the day. I've already done two loads of washing since this morning, got kids ready for school and dh sorted out their breakfast and took them.

Often I find when mums say that they hate parenting it's because they've made a rod for their own back. For instance I bath mine every other day, not every hour has to be filled with me entertaining them, I set up activities, make sure they aren't killing each other and then leave them to it. I cook meals that can last two days so I'm not cooking everyday. Mine aren't taken out to activities everyday. They can play in the garden. I also have a dh that does his fair share, without that I wouldn't have had even the one kid.

People that have wider family help will never understand what it's like.

First of all, I’m just going to say this - I bloody love toddlers! Can’t get enough of them. It was my favourite stage of parenting.

HOWEVER. Pretty much every person I know HATES that stage. Everyone of them. It is rare, I find, that anyone really enjoys it (I know I’m a freak/weirdo but I also like other peoples kids whereas on here people only seem to like their own).

you are not alone OP. And even loving that stage I can empathise with how you’re feeling because it is hard work, and when you get one that you can’t take your eyes off for a second (my middle son was that child) it’s exhausting. My husband is next to useless even when around, and my parents are only at home for around 3 months of the year.

Don’t get hung up on having to go out and your child being well behaved whilst out - just stay in if you really don’t feel like it. Stop tantrums sometimes by offering choices (eg instead of saying get dressed, put this on, ask would you like to wear the red top or the blue top today), have races (races to get dressed were my go to in the mornings), be silly (put your pants on your head, or their pants on their head and when they laugh pretend you don’t know it’s wrong and get them to show you the right way). I appreciate they are all getting dressed scenarios, but adapt accordingly - toddlers love to laugh, so doing something silly will often make them forget what they were upset about.

it will get easier I promise - 5-8 are supposed to be the easiest years (can do stuff for themselves, not yet getting hormonal) and that’s not far away now!

Ask your partner if they can take a day off to give you a break maybe. Or to see if they can change their hours to get home earlier. I’ve not read the full thread so you may have already addressed this (haven’t got time to read it all right now, but wanted to reply as you sounded so upset).

good luck - the other side isn’t far away now!

I am here with you. I feel like going to work is a treat, not the weekends.

I’m lucky to have some good support but even then, I can’t help comparing my life to what it used to be and other families.

Some kids sleep through the night, some kids are calmer and easier to deal with. And I guess even though it’s hard for them too - they don’t find parenthood as challenging.

I was shocked the first time I spent half a day with my friends and their son - he barely cried and was a real angel! And they said their older daughter was the same at his age! I must admit, I felt jealous. I know I shouldn’t be comparing. A lot of people would probably be jealous of what I have, so I don’t want to sound ungrateful…but that’s my honest feelings.

In my case, the older my son gets, the easier it is. The progress is slow, but he is sleeping through the night sometimes (!!!), his tantrums are easier to manage and he can stay calm for longer. He will turn 3 in a couple of months.

I hope it’ll get easier for you too, stay strong.

Hey, I know this is an old post. So you might not even see this. But you are definitely not alone. I am currently experiencing the exact same thing. Accept, I don't have anyone, not even a partner who lives with me.

It sounds like you just need a break. It's so in your right. It sounds like burnout.

I have thought the exact same and wonder if there is a stigma for ADMITTING and being honest about how hard parenting can be. Some mothers I know will literally lie and say that they don't have the same problem and yet I have seen them having off days and struggling. Maybe they do forget or maybe they are denying. Mother guilt is a thing and no mother wants to admit to negative feelings associated with parenting. It's extremely frustrating because it isolates mothers like yourself and myself and makes us feel as though 'we shouldn't have brought kids into this world if we couldn't cope?'

It's frustrating because parents, especially mothers, also compare their parenting and children. Instead, we should have more of a supportive community but we don't.

There's also a hell of a lot of pressure in every sense of the word when it comes to parenting. Especially for mothers.

Hope you're managing better now your little one is a little older. Let me know how you got on if you see this!

I know exactly what you mean OP. And I had 'easy' toddlers. But it was still shit.

I think the years from 1-3.5 are hands-down the shittest period of parenting. You could not pay me enough money in the world to go through that phase again. They're mobile but cannot be reasoned with. They're emotionally aware but completely irrational. Every single bag I owned had rice cakes stuck to the lining. I couldn't leave the house without three changes of outfits and five or six different toys to keep them entertained for one sodding 20 minute bus journey.

It was so relentlessly stressful and boring at the same time. I must have swept the same bit of floor in the kitchen 7 times a day. It felt like all I did was pick things up from the floor - food, toys, random eating implements, the children themselves. My back was fucked but I had lovely toned arms.

To this day I STILL avoid parking in a particular place in town that's near a big duck pond, because my youngest used to bolt when I was getting him out of the car and into the buggy and I was terrified he'd end up in the water. He's now 8 and can swim - but this is the sort of low level trauma that stays with you!

I've seen some people post on here before that they love the toddler stage because babies are boring and that's when they start to get interesting. Usually followed by some twee bollocks about leaf kicking and puddle suits.

My guess is that the people who enjoyed the toddler years were the people who had LOADS of help. Mum 10 mins away. Sister up the road. DH home by 5pm, etc.

I didn't have any support around me. DH also worked long hours and it was absolutely brutal.

All I can say is that it does eventually get so much better. It's all a distant memory for me now but solidarity to those in the trenches!

@OneTwoTen love this!

@OneTwoTen absolutely 100% spot on.

@OneTwoTen yep well said. Mine is 3 years and 9 months and I’m still waiting for things to improve.

I relate to this so hard.