in finding the "busy mum" thing ANNOYING

[Nehru]

and " the rare moment I get a minute to myself" and
" i have no time to brush my hair" ( or whatever).

Specially when it is said on here after a good hour or so of titting about!

But busy mums..ARGH

He has escaped from little life reins, leather reins with a buckle, Tommee Tippee reins, wrist straps, and a fourth type of reins.

He climbs out of car seat harnesses without undoing them - and no, the straps do not physically go any smaller. He's like a bloody contortionist, and thanks in no small part to his Hypermobility syndrome, he can dislocate joints at will to escape. And put them back in place again.

You tell me how to keep him in one place and how not to be busy...

BabyDan playpens aren't any higher than any stairgate is.

He got out of my friend's BabyDan hexagon playpen within 4 minutes. I was trying it out before buying one...

petey their DC were worse than yours, OK? Just leave it. They have had the worlds most difficult toddlers

I don't know couthy you have obi spawned Houdini Most DC are not like your escapologist

I have five children, two with special needs and lots of pets. I have a clean house and cook nice meals.

I am not half as busy as most people claim to be. I get a lot of time by myself just to relax.

I actually wonder if I am doing something wrong

PA is my middle name
But walk a mile in my shoes...(and my shoes and you would be a mile away)
Actually, I'll lend him to you if you like.

Then I might get a bath without having to wear my swimsuit.

Both my sons have walked at 9 months. Only DS2 had incredible pre-walking monkey powers though

Surprised me. That's for sure.

thanks Ruby but no, I never want to have to look after a toddler again I loathe toddlerhood. All that will and no means to communicate it. DS2 is soooo much better at just gone 3! He listens and understands, thank the lord.

and if we are into competitive toddlerhood, DS variously ate his grannies ibuprofen and came down stairs with a foaming pink mouth, got into the greenhouse at the end of the garden while I was getting ready for work, tried to brush his teeth with my razor, kicked the hamster ball mistaking it for a football leading to a dead hamster and ate all the chocolate icing off the top of his brothers birthday cake. Amongst others. I am so glad he is 3 now!

It's an advertising cliche that resonates with a lot of people. Was talking to a friend who is currently pregnant with No4, i'm on maternity leave with No3 and was saying how I'm stressing bout how organised I'll have to be to keep on top of the washing and housework and she said it gets easier when you get back to work.

I think when you have a new baby everything is much harder. Today DD1 had a playdate after school and DD2 was at nursery until 5:30. A year ago I would have got lots done with all those hours without the girls, today DS was refusing to nap and just wanted to BF and be held so I spent the whole day BFing, holdinng him and changing his nappy. It's a weird busy where you are bored and sitting around a lot but fighting the whole time to get the simplest things done. if I was to list what I did that would seem like a lot to my pre-child self but now doesn't seem enough. Maybe that's why you get the blog posts listing everything, it's a confirmation that you have done something. I saw a list by a childless friend of everything she had done on a Saturday and I did look at it and think 'Wow, she did a lot' but even on Monday when I was shattered after a night with no sleep thanks to DS being poorly I still did lots, it's just that the basics (getting loads of washing done, doing the dishes and feeding a family of five) doesn't feel like enough when I have 20(!) boxes of clothes that need sorting and recycling clogging up the study.

Have you read What Mothers do by Naomi Stadlen? That really changed my attitude to business, as with babies and young children, the work isn't so much about constantly doing stuff as about being constantly aware and interruptable, to allow for the long breastfeeding session, the unexpected leaky nappy, the grazed knee, and to give time for the appropriate response while still managing to care for your other kids, get dinner cooked, homework supervised and laundry done.

I didn't get hot drinks or uninterrupted peeing while mine were babies or toddlers. I got cooking/laundry etc done by doing all the dinner prep in the morning with the kids in the kitchen and talking to them lots as I did it. It took bloody forever, but they stayed safe and reasonably entertained while I did it. I found that I was able to get a lot more done in a much shorter space of time once I was regularly getting at least 5 hours sleep a night.

I am staggeringly disorganised with terrible time management anyway, so having kids just made me worse rather than suddenly changing my life from order to chaos.

And yeah - a lot of the commments here are coming across as very dismissive of a lot of women.

I was the mum who didn't have time to eat, get a shower, cook or do any housework. God, I felt so shit.

JollyOrangeGiant is exactly me.

someone needs to design a playpen with a lockable lid for all those little houdinis out there

I think it depends on the child. Dd never slept, needed to be held constantly, never stopped moving, screamed if you put her down, when she was older and mobile she would hang on to my leg and scream if I tried to do anything or she would climb anything to try dive headfirst to the ground, she couldn't be placed in a playpen or anything without getting hysterical. She was either crawling the walls or me 24/7, hyper or screaming.

Now she sleeps mostly through the night so I get sleep (that makes an enormous difference), she can entertain herself for a while and is happy to let me do things because she likes to copy me, all is easy and I can arse around, exercise, drink tea, eat, put makeup on and do whatever needs to be done around the house. As long as she gets her run around the park first thing and enough runs and brisk walks throughout the day to burn her energy off and enough socialisation, she's fairly happy to mess about in the garden until I take her out again.

Some kids are needier than others, some need closer supervision, some will have their parents so exhausted that even making a cup of tea seems like too much effort. I'll always remember my sister in shock and shattered after three hours babysitting dd at five months (she had plenty of baby experience with half a dozen godchildren), she went home and spent the weekend in bed 'recuperating'.

purple that is very true. I've had two nap refusers and one that slept enough for all three. When I was on maternity leave with DD1 she needed me a lot of the time (thankfully she was good at playing by herself but life with her as a baby went feed, nappy change, 30mins playtime by herself (guess wheni went to the loo), then she needed singing to or reading to then feeding again. From about 10 weeks old she would only sleep in the buggy when it was on the move so naptime consisted of me tramping the streets. Thankfully she slept through the night fairly young so I had energy to cope. DD2 was a revelation, she would feed, have a nappy change then sleep for hours. I had loads of time to do fun activities with DD1 (who was 18 months when DD2 was born) and felt like such a good parent. DS naps slightly better than DD1 but is currently not STTN and I am shattered and poor DD2 gets very little attention some days, never mind the cleaning. Thankfully DH is a fab and involved Dad so I do manage to shower every morning while he gets the kids breakfasted. We do manage to get places that we need to but there are so many things that are just not done.

Roll on the return to a demanding job where people say thankyou when you get things done, actually I like the idea of being constantly aware and interuptable, it describes being a good manager at work as well. The problems might be more complex but its the same feeling at times.

"someone needs to design a playpen with a lockable lid for all those little houdinis out there"

Someone did.

It's called A Cage :o

I just tied the never-sleeping child onto me and got on with things that way, but it was knackering. (And my back will probably never be the same again).

athing

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if his chosen career was as an escapologist.

I am actually very distantly related to Houdini...

I have literally had to dismantle the last piece of my front room furniture, my 5ft high stereo unit, to prevent him from scaling it.

My front room now consists of my sofas, my table and chairs (no dining room), and a 3ft bookshelf with DS3's books in.

I've had to put away ornaments for a short time with my older 3 DC's, but I've never had to dismantle all my front room furniture to keep them safe like I've had to with DS3!

He IS more unusual in that respect.

I fully agree that not every DC is like this, I've had 3 myself that weren't, but DS3 is a bendy, climby escapologist.

I'm starting to think that I could put him in a straitjacket and he would still escape...

I just don't get how people are constantly surprised that they have/had different experiences from others.

Considering you and your DC are different people from me and my family, how weird is it that we experienced motherhood in a completely different way? Mind blowing

Let's just tell parents who found it difficult that it was their fault and they're shit at the job, shall we? That's so much nicer!

For what it's worth, I have one DD (13 months) and am pregnant with another and it's the hardest thing I've ever done, not because she's difficult but because the little toad DOESN'T FUCKING SLEEP. EVER.

She wakes up every hour (sometimes every 45ms) ever night and I'm broken. Like I said, my 60+ hour a week job was a walk in the park.

I don't understand the busy brigade who wear pyjamas on the school run, don't have time to brush their hair or put on make up etc. If you just didn't want to get dressed, brush your hair or put on make up just say so, don't make out its because you're so busy.

There's always something that needs to be done, sure but prioritise and organise and it will all get done.

Try being a nervous poo-er

I no longer have his 3ft bookshelf in there after today. As he pushed it over to where the telly is, and I caught him trying to pull himself up on the wires, in the time it took me to have a poo!