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?

Take a step back and think about what life would be like if the person you had children with parented 50/50.
This is the issue and yet women turn on themselves and their children instead of kicking men up the arsenal.

What you are experiencing is burnout.
Toddlers will always be toddlers but why the fucking hell do we carry on parenting virtually alone and expect to be sane at the end of it?

I had a breakdown and as I recovered I saw things through different eyes.
It came to a head one day when having dropped DC at playgroup I bought a paper, intending an hour of peace and a coffee.An acquaintance saw me and immediately said I hope you don't think you are reading that, you are a mother, you don't have time .
I wanted to shove her through the glass shop window!
I began to realise just how unbalanced life was and how men got off free in the parenting stakes, so I started to observe him.

Meals -he would quietly sit and eat his meal, never missed a mouthful, ignored DC.
I was up and down like a yo-yo
If he did look after them, they always had a full nappy when I came back, crap everywhere etc
If I did manage to get the house tidy he would trash it shortly after.
So I saw a solicitor, outlined a plan for divorce and presented him with a letter.

He was dumb founded, completely unaware how exhausted and unhappy I was and said " I thought you liked doing it all, you never said"
I read him the riot act and he did make massive changes, so did I.
I read that fucking newspaper, I would get up early and go to the pool.
I realised that I had allowed myself to be the bottom of the heap.
Well no more!
Child wise , say no.
No you are going to bed, no whining,no climbing on me and no hitting.
Tantrums are normal, step over them and put the kettle on!
It is fucking hard but society and a patriarchal society make it much harder.

Arsenal= arse😆

Yes I can relate. My dds are 15 and 18 now but the baby and toddler years were easily the hardest part of having kids for me. It was a real struggle and daily grind. I was just talking about how hard it was with a friend with a 15 and 19 year old actually.

I'm the same. I found the toddler years a massive struggle but finding the teenage years fine. Older dd is at uni now but 15 year old one still home.

I can also relate.

I can’t stand it at times as much as I love my DC.

I recently found out I am pregnant again and I was pretty devastated about it, embarrassingly. I’ll suck it up and get on with it but I was so close to getting a bit of normality back and how it’s nowhere in sight 🙁

Agree! I honestly find the toddler stage harder than a newborn - as a lockdown/ pandemic , ptsd mum I never thought I would say anything was harder than newborn, but it is!
thank you for being honest, I tell everyone I work with that being a mum is amazing but also THE HARDEST thing I have ever ever done and I work in the fashion industry (think devils wear Prada).
I have to give full disclosure that I have my mum who helps as much as she can,
but as she is 71 she can’t do as much! I work full time to afford the cost of childcare! Me and my husband argue more than we ever have over how much cough how little we each do!
I have told him I hate the stress of - my toddler wants something but then tantrums, but if you take that thing away it’s a bigger tantrum. DS has also decided to no longer sleep and sometimes fights bathtime - it’s exhausting and I begin to dread the whole routine each day!
I have found that following some amazing account on Instagram who have honest views of motherhood helps - motherkind podcast, a mothers place, Zoe blaskey, pregnant then screwed - have helped me feel less alone and not afraid to do the reality posts in social media!
my husband and I call it the trenches - and we are just survival mode until it gets better! So hang in there mumma and may your coffee be strong!

I absolutely hated being pregnant and I almost made myself bankrupt with the amount of IVF cycles I had to have. My two are now 7 and 5 yrs old and I feel as though I'm only just coming out of the otherside.

I am sorry people haven't been supportive in the past. I had postnatal psychosis and then bad anxiety till my child was 3. It was traumatic and it was hard. Thankfully my daughter started talking early, wasn't a runner, deathwish toddler or a destructive child and once she was walking and talking things got better. If people can enjoy their babies and toddlers that's great but I wouldn't say the early days were enjoyable. More survival. She's 10 now and much easier. You'll get through it and guess what you don't have to do it again.

I don't share your experience OP although I do feel for you
I think you really need to think about your own mental health though and maybe see a therapist
You say you don't have a good relationship with your own mother , this could be a big part of it
I also don't and I suspect through years therapy that this is because she couldn't be bothered/ was unable to support me emotionally as a child ie especially the difficult years , toddlerhood, teen.
So I really would urge you to consider therapy as you may find when your child is older there may be relationship issues.
Wishing you all the best

So hard! Akin to looking after miniature drunks.

It is horrendous. I also had no family help and was the first of all my friends to have children so I was totally on my own with it.

I vividly remember hating the period between 18 months and about three years old. I would have happily fast forwarded through all of that bit. It was shit. I so know what you mean about the snacks. I still get a tense panicky feeling when I see a rice cake.

I don't think I sat down or properly switched off for about two years. I've got two DCs and I would never have any more because of how tough those toddler years were.

When the kids were about a year old, one of my NCT mates told me about an evening out that she'd really enjoyed while her mum babysat and after I'd heard that I went home and cried and cried. Lol.

Mine are 6 and 9 now and I am thankful every day that that time is over and I don't have to do it again.

It will be like that for you too one day. Hang in there.

op i hear you it can be really tough but what i dont get is those that say how tough it is and then go and have a few more

ive seem a few mums do this and they never stop going on about it and they clearly cant cope but add to the numbers

Absolutely hated it with my first. I split with his dad when he was about 18 months worked full time and paid for full time nursery and rent on my own. His dad had him overnight Sunday every other week. It was tiring, monotonous and oh so hard. I longed for bedtime most days. I completely feel the struggle you are going through. Here to say, there is light at the end of the tunnel xx

@whatsthestory123 for me, it’s a pragmatic view of the long term. I find toddlers tough going. But it’s two years. In the context of a life that’s nothing, but oh boy it feels it when you’re in it.

If I was younger I’d have paced it more but I’m not. I’ll be 43 when no2 arrives!

Not all toddlers are the same. Some are much harder work than others.

All ages have their challenges. Toddlers are hard but so are bullied 8 year olds, drug taking 15 year olds etc. It's all just a process of gaining skills as a parent and it never ends!

Without support and working too must be hellish.

It was hard enough with a DH, supportive DM and not working. Especially when there were two trying to kill eachother.

In terms of making Mum friends, there have been a couple of comments saying this has been hard for older Mums... I'm mid thirties and most of the people I've met (early lockdown baby too) have been closer to 40.. I would recommend NCT / Bump and Baby antenatal classes (if not first time round then for baby no.2), any kind of pregnancy yoga type thing etc. There are lota of older Mums out there, in fact I think it's harder for the younger Mum's in their twenties on the making friends front nowadays

Also be a bit wary of assuming that people who have parents nearby are automatically getting loads of help, mine are nearby but they have never changed a nappy and my Mum is disabled so can't help physically at all, I don't usually disclose that kind of info in casual chats, so people probably assume they are super helpful. Don't get me wrong it's lovely to have them around for moral support and to see the bond with grandchildren though, and they take him for an hour or so here and there.

Lots of people probably in the same position with older or not physically fit parents. And then they will have double responsibilities eventually (caring for children AND parents) so it can be a mixed blessing!!

oh christ haha. It's just a worse version of what 9 sounds like!!!! In duo!

I do wish we had family support. I would literally kill to just be able to do something just for me, or with my husband without the kids.

All of my friends have 2 sets of grandparents on hand - they've all been on holidays without their kids and have regular date nights.

It's honestly been about 5 years since DH and I went out on our own.

Hmmm. You don’t just get tellings off on AIBU, it seems. You get bullet point tellings off, on how your feelings are entirely wrong and your toddlers will pick up on this wrongfeel and end up damaged for life, or something. Nanny and cleaner - why didn’t I think of that? Know any free ones? Cos, you know, Amazon/Tesco/the NHS (insert large employer here) don’t quite stretch to that level of childcare.

So that’s us in our place then. Oh, by the way, it’s World Kindness Day. 😆😆😆

Hudsonriver

🍷 You're my hero!

Ha, I wouldnt mind but it's not even AIBU, it's chat where people come to avoid being ripped to shreds and just, you know, chat. Yes if only I'd thought to just manage my time better and hire a couple of helpers all those years would have been so much easier.

Small children are really fucking hard work. There are moments of bliss, but it’s 95% exhausting drudge work. My ds aged about 2 pooed himself on the walk to take dd to school every day for weeks. Dd never stayed still for a moment once she learned to roll and neither of them slept. I absolutely loved going to work!

Now they’re teens, and we have moments, but it’s so much easier, so much more fun having them around, so much less work.

Yes it absolutely is shot and I nearly handed her to my mum as a ‘gift’ many times. I can’t sympathise with the yearning for the partner to come home etc because I did it on my own whilst severely disabled (not looking for sympathy or one-upmanship there btw, just explaining my logic). However I expect if my DH had still been alone then I probably would have yearned for him to arrive home and I absolutely would have practically thrown her at him as he walked through the door!!!