To be resentful of my difficult child?

[SnackSnackEatAndCrave]

I should probably start by saying that deep down I know IABU... and as with all DC rants, tell everyone how much I love DD despite these feelings. But here goes.

DD is 16 months old. She has been described as "tricky" by healthcare professionals since before she was even born. Other adjectives include "strong willed" "difficult" and "a challenge".
She's not exactly naughty, in that she isn't spiteful or particularly disobedient, but she is antisocial and very dramatic when things aren't going her way. We are also having a few issues with her development not being quite where it "should" be for her age.
HV, GP and nursery all say there's no great cause for concern and believe she is NT, just a little slower in some areas and a bit of a diva. But all agree that she is hard work.

The reason I feel resentful of this is because I work unbelievably hard to be a good parent, and I just feel like I get nothing back. This isn't downing anyone else's parenting but I often put so much effort in that I'm exhausted.
I cook healthy meals from scratch, take her to baby groups and activities, practically work for free so she can go to a lovely daycare, limit TV, no sweets, make sure she gets fresh air and exercise, singing and reading, free and structured play, and I've read countless parenting books, ate like a bloody Saint the whole pregnancy and 13 long months of breastfeeding... Sorry that's a ridiculous list of all the advice I've followed desperately, and it has honestly made no difference whatsoever.

All my friends have happy children (obviously not perfect but smiley and on track developmentally), and think I'm mad for all the hard work I put into parenting when DD is still so tricky and I don't see any benefits. And I feel so sad and resentful that we don't have a happy family like other people when I try so hard.

Gosh, I would say.... do more for you. I think this has a lot more to do with trying to be a perfect parent and not just doing what makes you/dd happy.

An analogy I would use is trying to host the perfect party/wedding - loads of planning, preparation, hard owrk, exhaustion, running around ... and everyone but the host/bride has a great time. Compared to the chilled out family bbqs where everyone mucks in, the food isn't posh but is pretty good, somebody burns the chicken, someone else spills coke all down themselves, but everyone has a laugh - including the host.
As someone else said, just be good enough. Work out what you guys do like doing - feeding ducks, or drawing, or getting mucky in a mud pool, or changing the duvet cover (I was a weird child, I thought being inside the duvet cover might get me to Narnia or something!) and just do that. If food is an issue, cook what you like to eat without spices and then she can just pick at what she wants. Children don't tend to starve.

Avoid second guessing yourself, make yourself happy with your choice of food/outing/activity (happy mum, happy child) and find a couple things you know dd likes - playing in a cardboard box? Rolling along the floor? Yelling, running around and rattling a maraca? Do that too.

My DD loves nursery and I think it is doing good things for her, including her general development, social skills and she tries different foods there too. I don't know why that would be bad User!!

Following dd s lead is good advice
On the floor with her

Remember OP: "everybody fed, nobody dead!" And "comparison is the thief of joy"

I do get overwhelmed sometimes with 'I am such a bad mother, I'm not trying hard enough' because she watches a lot of telly, eats shit and has unbrushed hair. But this is our family, we do things our way and we are all happy. It would not be realistic to grow up here without a love of telly! 😄

What I'm trying to say is that the pressure of the 'right way' is a lot, I acknowledge that. But you can take the bits you like most to make "our way" and that is most important. And you are a person too, you are important. Xx

OP, stop it! Put down your textbook ideas of what a child should be like. Stop expecting her (a baby of sixteen months, ffs) to meet your parenting needs. It's her needs that matter, that can be addressed. Being the mother, you get to address both sets of needs. Being the baby, she gets to shout if she doesn't like the way you go about it.

Make a radical change in your mindset. This baby, the one you have, is the one you need to know and love. She is absolutely free of the requirements you are placing upon her to be this or that, meet this or that target. Her whole purpose in this universe is to be herself. In herself, she unique. She is worthy of love (which as you say, I am sure she gets. But she'll already be feeling the 'you're not good enough' vibes coming from you because of your unreasonable expectations). 'Comparison is the thief of joy', so don't compare her with anyone. Her destiny is to be herself, not to be them.

Practical advice - Cancel all your appointments. Have a bath together. Enjoy her mealtimes, whatever she eats (mine was mainly breastfed at that age). Hug her. Do what she wants to do, to play. Let your every action demonstrate your love and respect for her. When you've done one day of that, do another. And so on.

All the love in the world, the special precious bond between mother and child, is there for you to access for yourself and offer to her. Without you, she can't have that. You are it, for her. Ask not that she be worthy of you, but that you be worthy of her.

I have one of these too. She's 10 now. I've realised that she mostly doesn't know how to express her emotions other than through anger. So when she's crying/shouting she isn't having a go at me, or trying to make my life difficult, she's trying to say she needs something, most often me. The crossest my DD gets is when she really needs me but she can't ever say it. She may or may not have ASD, and I'm working out how to do things using a lot of strategies parents of autistic children use.

By the way, I am a full time parent and it hasn't made any difference - I don't think 2.5 days of childcare a week is likely to influence your DD's personality that much!

Try to let all the advice and books and worry go - just listen to her as much as you can and be as flexible as you can with her. I bet she has loads of amazing personality traits too!

You have my sympathy. There are no answers. I disagree with pp's who say your style of parenting or how you feel feeds into her. I think these comments are just people trying to be helpful, but it's just total ignorance.

Ds1 is very hard and a teenager now. Ds2 is easy. I doubted my parenting constantly. I have been heavily criticised and ripped to shreds by school, hcp's etc.

But I take a step back now and can see that Ds2 and my parenting of him has quoshed the criticisms of my parenting.

Because if I was that crap, how do you explain dc2?

There are many many threads on mumsnet over the years of people who have 4 or 5 children and the children are are all completely different.

They have to be parented in different way.
not all children are absolutely lovely. some children are just inherently hard work. I'm not referring todifficult pregnancies or abuse or abusive background, just talking about some children are just harder than others.

I don't know why it's so difficult for people to except this.

There are no easy answers. But you need to cut yourself some slack and accept that what you have done is good enough.

This isn't downing anyone else's parenting but...

This does come across as putting other parents down.

I think 16 months is an incredibly tricky age, and you should take more short-cuts.

Good luck.

I hear you. DD1 was a 'difficult' baby, she's five now and still high maintenance. I was asked to leave baby massage and another baby group when she was a few months old because she would become inconsolable and distraught.

In hindsight I think I over stimulated her (she was kind of a home bird) as she was only ever really happy playing on my bedroom floor with her toys or sleeping on/next to me. I spent the first 18 months or so demented trying to keep up with her needs.

She's still a legend at nursery as 'the hardest baby they ever had'. I felt slightly better when they said that

DD2 is the complete opposite, I took her to groups, she crawled all over the house and was just a 'jolly' baby. She's now 3 and very easy going. She loves stimulus and is very rough and tumble.

I didn't do anything different with either of them. They just came that way.

Cut yourself some slack,. Love her as she is, my 'difficult' baby is now just about to finish her first year of school and she's still very strong willed yet sensitive (traits she may have inherited from me?) but she's also affectionate, caring and popular.

You sound worn out, it's time for oven chips and CBeebies. It won't hurt.

Wosits
Chicken dippers
Chips
CBeebies

Is the answer.

Wine
Chocolate
For you!!

She is so incredibly young. She's still a baby. And she has so many adult emotions and anxieties and judgements (including value judgements) projected onto her.

Some people aren't putting it well, but they are trying to reflect back to you that your consistent experience of her as 'difficult' and your comparison of her to other babies, and yourself to other mothers, are one of the complex factors in all this. Just one, but a factor.

IHateUncleJamie (great name!) speaks a lot of sense. Your daughter can't thrive if she is being made the barometer of your success or failure. I had a mother who I believe in retrospect was caught up, every bit as you are, in the web of (perceived) others' expectations, expectations of herself and the clash between the ideal and the reality. She would almost certainly have described me as 'difficult' and 'hard work'. Suffice to say we are no longer in contact - she did make a few spectacularly catastrophic decisions along the way, but a lot of them were driven by struggles that I think started in similar ways to the ones you describe, and by her sense that all her sacrifice demanded a 'reward'. We have to tread carefully when we encounter such notions and beliefs. They can become very destructive indeed.

Just wanted to pick up on her birth where you said she has reflux nicu and induced have you considered a cranial or otherwise osteopath ? She may still be struggling with reflux or other issues from the birth and may be uncomfortable somewhere this can attribute to difficult behaviours

Just a thought sorry not rtft so could have been mentioned before

Or sensory overload from doing too much peel everythint back and just let her spent time outside more in open spaces ?

Best thing you can be is a happy mum- I say this with hindsight as I was a good and conscientious mum to mine. When I wish now I'd been more of a cuddly, smiley, happy mum!
But I am a happy dgm , baby is asleep in the garden and I am lying on the couch mnetting not preparing lunch, cleaning round or putting a wash on as I would have first time round

I'm really not putting other people's parenting down. As I've said, my friends' DC are happy and well adjusted... they all know every show on cbeebies and have at least their fair share of juice and happy meals. I'm not a snob, and I know that everyone is just doing what they can to keep their DC alive and happy!
As a kid, my mum let me have jam on toast for every meal for about 3 months. I would only eat in front of the TV, and my GPs definitely put whisky in my bottle on more than one occasion. I didn't turn out all bad.

I do wish I could be a bit less OTT about what is best for DD. But with her being such hard work, I'm afraid if my standards slip, then so will her behaviour / development. I've not come to put down how other people raise their kids, just to see if anyone feels like I do sometimes.

You sound knackered. I think you're stressed from trying to do everything by yourself and your dd sounds frustrated at not being abe to communicate what she wants. I can't add to any of the other sensible advice you've had, but I do have a very old (but still working) sing and sign DVD here, which I'm happy to poet to you if you think it will help - pm me if you want it

I just want to see her happy and maybe a bit more relaxed

But from your OP you sound anything but relaxed from early pregnancy onwards. Maybe a bit of "lazy" parenting? Maybe she's picking up your anxiety? Maybe stop trying to be "good"?

Just a quick note, specifically about your concerns.
It isn't normal for speech to regress, and you should flag this with HCP. howerver, she is so young, nothing much will happen for a while. And it isn't really possible to say it's a true regression at her age, so don't over think it.
Please please try to remember you are the most important thing to your girl, more so than books, classes, excellent nursery or organic food. You need to nurture yourself. Read a fiction book next, nothing with children! Go for walks with her in places you find interesting. At her age her attachment is the most important thing, more so than any child care setting, really. She needs to see you happy, and relaxed. (I know, I know).
It sounds a little like your anxious thinking is intruding into your parenting, so perhaps mindfulness type things, or CBT type exercises would help (they do for me).
I'm not down playing your worries, just trying to separate out anxiety from actual problems. The hardest point is when it's just us, and our anxieties. The sense we know as parents something might be wrong. I went through this with my son who had ASD. That doesn't mean I think your daughter has ASD, by the way!
Mainly wishing you some gentle times, and days that are full of hope and love.

I haven't read the full thread but feel the need to say relax. OK you had problems with your pregnancy, that wasn't her fault. You sound tired and stressed.

Do you think that occasionally not worrying about singing and stories and meals cooked from scratch would be the end of the world? Trust me it wouldn't be. Sometimes we all get stressed out with our kids, I always said I couldn't understand people being cruel to small children but I could understand throwing them out the window at 3 am. Slight exaggeration but you get my drift.

I honestly don't know any 16 month olds who actually want to play with other babies, sometimes they love attention from older kids but other babies aren't really much fun. Give her the chippie tea and watch CBeebies you might both love it.

She is a baby, she is probably frustrated as lots are at this age, they know what they want but can't always do it.

My "difficult" one is the easiest adult so hang on in there.

Thanks again everyone. I'm really going to work on my anxiety, because you've all put the fear of God into me that I'm protecting!
I can't stress enough that I am a positive parent IRL though. I might cry in the shower, but DD only sees my happy side. She might be a nightmare sometimes but she is so loved.

Morning Snack

I have 3 DCs. The first two were pretty straightforward. Sure they had their moments and could test the boundaries / exhaust me etc but most of the time it was fine.

Then I had the 3rd. Oh my goodness. What a difference. He was totally different. He didn't sleep, didn't feed properly, cried loads (no reflux etc) and was just exhausting.. He morphed from this into a high maintenance toddler, very different from his brothers. I did wonder at times if he wasn't quite NT or had ADHD or something that I could use to explain the way he was.

He's now 4.5 and although he's still "spirited" he's great fun. Witty, eloquent, sleeps and eats well etc. He's definitely not easy and crucially, if he'd been my first I think I'd have really struggled. Because I already had 2 I didn't have the brain capacity to agonise over him too much, plus his brothers did help to occupy him some of the time which helped. I think in general my standards by this point were a bit lower and I didn't sweat the small stuff.

I think you've set your standards enormously high which is so admirable but I think you maybe need to lower them a bit. Be gentle on yourself and cut yourself a bit of slack. Children are fab but they're bloody relentless!!

and

Your daughter can't thrive if she is being made the barometer of your success or failure. I had a mother who I believe in retrospect was caught up, every bit as you are, in the web of (perceived) others' expectations, expectations of herself and the clash between the ideal and the reality. She would almost certainly have described me as 'difficult' and 'hard work'.

Are you me, Hetero ? My mother found me hard work & difficult from birth, apparently. I am still in contact with my DM, although we live on different continents, so it's easier.

Your advice is very perceptive I think. And 16 months - OP your DD is still very much a baby.