Am I a shit mum?

[Bluetree]

I'm not suffering from depression. I love my children.

My 4 year old spends hours on the iPad each day, as does the 2 year old on my phone. If they're not doing this then they're watching films for a large part of the day. - They will and do play with things, but if given the choice they would chose tech over play.

I HATE playing pretend with them. I shudder whenever one of them comes up to me with a toy/doll/figure and asks if I can play.

They eat far too much crap. Mcdonalds, crisps, chocolate.. Despite being fed balanced meals in between, which they don't really eat. I feel I've set them up for a junk food addiction...

They have no real set routine. Last night we all went to bed at 10pm.

I hate mum groups. Never really been to any and avoid things like that as much as possible.

We don't go out much, if we do it's shopping, soft play or to family. We don't go for long walks, exploring, parks, etc.

They live in their pyjamas/joggers if we're not going out or seeing anyone, but so do I.. So I think they see this as normal...

My 4 year old still has a dummy, she has a full on dummy addiction. Also they both still use a bottle for milk at night.

My 4 year old still can't hold a pen properly, despite my best efforts. She can't write any letters of numbers. Not sure what the 'norm' is...

If my 4 year old doesn't want to go to nursery for whatever reason, I don't bother sending her..

Reading this back, I feel like an absolute SHIT mum.

Anyone else have similarities to this or am I really just a lazy parent?!

I don't want to kick you when you're down (though by your own admission you're not down, just lazy) but this is awful. I had a childhood very much like what you describe, though with TV/games consoles in place of iPad. I still resent my parents massively for it. We never did anything together, I was chubby and had a mouthful of fillings by 16, I was always far behind my peers as my parents never read with me etc and I have no positive memories from my childhood.

It's not too late to put in some effort and hopefully prevent your DC from feeling about you as I feel about my parents. As a starting point, why don't you try to organise play dates for them so other kids will do the playing and you don't have to?

Sorry if my PP was harsh. I just reread it and it was meaner than I meant it to be. I know you are doing your best, and we all struggle. Your OP just struck a chord with me for obvious reasons and I wanted to urge you to turn things around. But you already know you need to, and are working on it, which is the most important thing. Lots of good advice above, better than mine.

visual timetable templates

Don't worry op, you've got loads of help and support here. Baby steps!

Magic Painting! Pack of paintbrushes, magic painting pad and a bowl of water! Plastic table, two little chairs and zero mess (besides a soggy pad afterwards and water dripping off the table....!)

Aquadoodle. Just add water.....

Play Doh (in non-carpeted areas).

There's really no excuse to not do some activities

Not a shit mum at all, we all do things like that at times, you just need to change a couple of them at a time if you feel you want to up your parenting game!
Diet wise, I wouldn’t worry too much. You are cooking balanced meals and McDonald’s once a week is fine!! My DS has issues with food and is under a dietician. He exclusively eats chicken nuggets and chips. GP told me not to worry, as long as he is getting his vitamins and some fruit and veg (I have to blend this into a smoothie and make it like juice) then they will not be nutrient deficient.
Kids don’t NEED nursery - it is not essential so don’t give yourself a hard time about the odd day off. I do think socialisation is important though, could you possibly grin and bear a playgroup once a week? I love them, you get to sit down and have a brew/chat and five minutes to yourself, the kids love running around with all the other kids (and then when you come home you don’t feel guilty for letting them watch a bit of TV!)
You’re beating yourself up; I bet your kids think you’re the best mum in the world. It’s all about finding the balance

OP, I was browsing Facebook and came across this freebie, a weekend box of activities suitable from 3 to 8 years, everything included for the activities and the first box is free? www.weekendboxclub.com/TE1 could be a lovely way to get hands on with the kids once a week!

Yes, you need to make some changes. Write a list and tackle one thing at a time. Personally I'd start with:

Bedtimes - have a routine; bath, book, milk, teeth, sleep and stick to it. A decent bedtime is a foundation for good behaviour (everyone is well rested) which means you all have the energy for the next thing...

Activities - get out the house! Take them to soft play, the park, for a walk to the shops to buy milk, the library to choose some books. You don't have to interact with other mums but you SHOULD interact with your children

Screentime - an hour a day. That's it.

Get them off YouTube. All sorts of nasty stuff getting through the filters, even on the kids’ version. Don’t add “letting them watch porn” to the list of shitty parenting!

They have no real set routine. Last night we all went to bed at 10pm.

To me this is unacceptable. Sleep is so important for growing children. You need to work on this

You’re clearly not the parent of a night owl.

Late bedtime + late wake up might be absolutely fine.

I limit my kids to an hour a day tv and tablet as a treat once a month if they've been good.

I do activities such as painting, drawing, role play, dress up

Theraplay - Wrapping them up in like paper, bubble wrap obviously not their faces

Play kitchens if you have one, shops, anything to entertain them.

Don't feel bad as obviously this is just easy for you. If you do want things to change, do it gradually. Change things slowly week by week or month by month.

Hope you manage to sort things out for yourself xx

I have been in this rut. Baby steps will get you out of it.

• Leave the house every day on a non errand. Even 20 minutes in the park. Try geocaching, you can find easily accessible ones, you don't have to tramp through undergrowth

• look into annual/season passes for a fun pace you can easily get to and ask for them fir birthday/Xmas gifts. Make a promise to go at least once a month. Farm/zoo/whatever.

• Get them involved in choosing meals/helping with meal prep. Meal plan have shopping delivered, don't buy too much crap. Star charts for fruit and veg if you struggle to get them out of it. Try new veg - we've discovered my 7 year old loves edamame beans...

• get all your laundry/drying done on a Sunday and put outfits on hangers for the week for all three of you, including g pants/socks. They can choose their outfit each day from those on offer but you all get washed and dressed as soon as you're up for the day.

• Not liking groups is fine but maybe seek out a group you can go to once in a while. Messy play/messy church on a Sunday once a month for example, they can do all the mucky stuff that you don't enjoy engaging in at home (tbf neither do I!)

• local science museum type place that does toddler days? They can do messy stuff with no stress.

• Nursery every day they're meant to go, no excuses. Will be a good set up for formal school when they will have to attend whether they fancy it or not.

• 'Treat day' - mine were eating too much shit and nagging for crisps/choc after wraparound care every day. So we started 'treat day' - Thursday - and they know it's not even worth asking in other days as it's not treat day.

I don't think you're doing that badly if you have them 5am to 6pm 6 days a week. It's easy to get demotivated.

As a teacher, I think a routine is key here.

If you want to get everyone up and dressed, you need a reason. If there's a shop in walking distance, develop a habit of doing there every morning to get a paper or a pint of milk. Then you all have to get dressed (you only need to do that on the non-nursery days).

Pretend you need to drop DD off dead on time as you have to get to work afterwards. Treat the start time as a time you have to make (ideally, book something that follows on a couple of days to mean it is a deadline).

If you don't want them to eat Macdonalds, don't take them into town over lunchtime.

If you don't want them eating so many crisps, don't buy them - double win as you won't be tempted, plus then they work as a special treat when you're out.

If the screen time bothers you, you could try getting out more (I don't have a smart phone deliberately as I tend to overuse the iPad at home so that means when I'm out I can't use the internet -- I do have a Kindle in case of needing to pass the time at softplay or whatever).

Cut yourself some slack - it's easy to get into bad habits and if you change one thing at a time you'll quickly have new habits that you prefer (N.B. depending what your DH's job is, he could help by sending texts? it's a lot easier to do things if you've told someone else you're going to - then you're committed).

I just want to wish you good luck. It's not much help, but you have loads of constructive help on here from others.

Being a parent is hard for so many of us, but the fact you notice and care about any shortcomings means you are a good mum with the potential to be as great as you want to be.
If it helps you, what has worked for me has been not getting hung up on perfection (and so comparing yourself with an ideal on 1000 different things.) as it makes you feel like you can't do it all.
Instead, small changes and appreciating the happy moments and feeling an acheivement when you act like the mum you think you want to be. It's a positive cycle.

Are you painting a negative picture? I could.

My 2yo struggles to settle at night and often goes to bed past 9pm
She doesn't brush her teeth properly twice a day. Too stubborn
My 4yo is still in pull-ups at night.
My 4yo can't wipe his own bum
He eats almost no veg
They sometimes eat breakfast in front of the tv, or in the car.
I get them out of their pjs last thing before we leave the house, and brush their teeth as we go.

But

2yo has been toilet trained since 20 months
We go out every day without fail.
We have never been to McDonald's.
They are loved and cared for and everything I do is for them.

You could easily make some small changes to make you feel better.

I hate the term ‘bad mum’ and judging others and I can sympathise with some of your post like the pretend play thing (urrgh me too OP) but I think it’s fair to say you would be doing your children a huge favour for their future if you changed in some big ways.

Take them to toddler groups. I hate them too but I don’t go for me. They get loads of ‘pretend play’ there which I hate doing myself. I also take them to ‘messy play’ which lots of churches across the country do I’ve noticed, (probably to doctrine the little buggers into some sort of faith early) but I ignore that and take them so they get to paint and glitter to their hearts content without messing up the house.

With regard to the eating, staying unwashed or in p.js all day I would say, how do you want them to be on their future working lives and relationships? Do you want them to be used to getting up and out, fresh and clean, on time for stuff? helpful around the home and healthy, happy adults? Of course you do. What you do now sets them up for life so set the scene now.

You know that being a parent can be totally shit at times. But the reward comes from watching them develop and become fantastic young people and have positive futures. That won’t happen by itself OP. You already identified you could do better so now you just have to put it into practice.

Thank you for the replies

Yesterday was a good day. After this post we all got up and dressed. They had weetabix and fruit for breakfast. We went to the park in the village for nearly an hour in the end.

We then did a mini spring clean (as advised by someone above), we sorted all of the toys out in the toy box in our front room. Both girls helped and loved finding toys they had forgotten about. Then they both spend ages playing with playdoh on the table while we all chatted and I finished the toys.

For lunch they usually have a picnic plate. Yesterday they had a tuna wrap each. Cucumber sticks, half an apple and half an orange each. A yogurt and some hummus for their cucumber. NO CRISPS They both enjoyed it!

iPads and phones went away in the morning, as did the dummies.

They had a tumble in to each other and the 4 year old ended up with a big fat lip and was very upset. So instead of a nap we all snuggled down and watched a film.

Dinner was home made chili and rice which they both demolished!

Bed by half 7!

You made ALL the changes in one day, and everyone was still happy!
You rule :)

They live in their pyjamas/joggers if we're not going out or seeing anyone, but so do I.. So I think they see this as normal...

How is that not normal?

Wow, well done! I wish mine would eat chilli. Or tuna wraps.

For the iPad, I find very firm boundaries help. Mine is allowed it on waking in the morning for half an hour or so - Teletubbies, train videos, nursery rhymes like Little Baby Bum - and then it gets put away and we go downstairs. As he only ever gets it first thing, or very occasionally on waking from a nap, it doesn't occur to him to ask for it at other times.

Go you OP sounds like an awesome day yesterday.

Ageee with pp don’t be so hard on yourself - reframe what you do well. It sounds like you had a tough start in life and despite this care about your DC very much.

I lived in a tiny hamlet with no park within walking distance until my eldest was 5. She was probably watching at least one Disney video a day by the age of 4 or so but we did play, bake and draw and things too, however I do remember feeling I should do more. I too found make-believe play crushingly tedious, despite imagining beforehand that I’d be great at it and love it, I was better at reading to her. We didn’t have the lure of tablets and CBeebies and I don’t doubt it’s a lot easier now to fall into letting them get lost in screen time.

Something I did that helped was take her on a walk every day around our hamlet and into the fields. It was easy to chat about all sorts, and find things to looks at and enjoy - mushrooms, flowers, the horse, who do you think lives in that house. She remembers it now. It could get quite imaginative and it probably helped her language and vocabulary.

Some routine will make you feel better, let alone them, and an earlier bedtime with a pre-bedtime routine: bath, story, song, special bedtime words, will give you the time in the evening that will give you more energy in the day with them to actively engage more, it will also get them into good sleeping habits before school do they can concentrate and learn, teacher friends identify lack of sleep as a real problem amongst their learners.

Personally I think a McDonalds a week is fine if they are eating fresh, we-balanced food the rest of the week. Just don’t have crisps and sweets in the house. Mine had them occasionally and loved them, but there was no sweetie cupboard.

Ok I am a bit like this - I have agoraphobia though and my home is my safe place so I find it difficult to leave the house but I force myself to do it for the sake of my kids.

Screen time isn't a massive issue in spite of what the perfect parent brigade will tell you, just try and steer them towards educational programs and games.
Try to take them for a walk once a day (it doesn't have to be that long) so they get some exercise. Maybe get a small dog so you have to do it.

The eating junk - well it's not ideal but kids are very fussy. The older they get, try to add more variety and healthy snacks and foods... when they're less inclined to tantrum 🙈

Mum groups - no issue at all!
Pjs in the day - no problem but change them into clean ones.

The routine / dummy / bottles would be what I'd focus on.
Its hard to wean them off these things but it needs to be done I'm afraid.

And Nursery is fantastic for getting them learning - the writing etc plus it gives you an easier day so try to keep that routine up.

Change little bits at a time. Be kind to yourself.
Your kids are housed, fed and most importantly loved and cared for so take one day at a time with changing the rest.

Aww such an excellent improvement just in one day xx

SIL raised her children like this. TV on all day and unlimited access to junk food. SIL is lovely but seems to see raising them this way - making them happy - as showing how much she loves them. It also made for a more peaceful life.

Her children turned ouy surprisingly well adjusted and have very good social skills. The downside is that they are all very overweight and have a lot of dental problems.

Well done OP! Sounds like you all had a fab day yesterday. Concentrate on the small ‘wins’ and everything will become much more bearable