To hate being at home in the school holidays?

[AAAHHHHH]

I'm at home with my 4 year old and she's driving me crazy. She won't stop talking, I can't even listen to an audiobook.

Everytime I tell her to play in her room, she just follows me. I can't get much cleaning done and theres no point really as she keeps making a mess.

We cant go anywhere as theres nothing to do for free (no money atm) and it's raining so the park is off our list.

I feel terrible as well, because shes so inquisitive but I just really hate having to tell her why and what and how to nearly everything.

She’s 4, not 8! 4 year olds need entertaining, not 24/7 but you do need to make a little effort. Do some baking, or colouring? Play doh? Make a den? Or hide some things and turn it into a treasure hunt? You do need to parent a little bit.

It’s only Tuesday! Try some messy baking or even a cleaning game, dressing up, anything.
Forget about cleaning the house, the house will most likely still be there when you are old, your little one won’t be a small child forever.
Just enjoy having her with you and her full attention, you’ll miss these moments in ten years’ time. And think of the positive: it’s lucky you can be at home with her.

Or show her minecraft? My 4 year old loves building worlds on minecraft and gives me a hour or so to eat chocolate in peace.

smug mothers who will come on and tell you they love the holidays

What's smug about it ? Some people do. I had a neighbour who used to always say something along the lines of ' oh, poor you, you've got them all week/X number of weeks'. To which my reply was that I was looking forward to it, they were my favourite people and we could have a chance to do things when they weren't tired from school or rushing about going to activities.

Why is it cool to not want to do things with your child or enjoy their company ?

It gets better! I'm home for half term with two teenagers and we're just chilling. It's like Christmas, a bit of light admin, some holiday reading and a full fridge so we don't have to go out in the shitty weather. Bon courage, OP, it will pass. Not everyone is cut out for craft projects, dressing up and endless hours of 'but whyyyy?'. It doesn't make you a bad parent.

IABU. “Unkind” comment below, sorry - but you have responsibilities as a parent.

As a parent you are expected to spend time with your child. Interacting with her as in: talking to her and reading to her etc makes all the difference to her development. Is this something new to you?

If you invest in this for the next few years rather than seeing it as a chore she will be able to stay in her room reading a book for example when she is 8. If you don’t she probably will see reading as a chore possibly well into her teenage years. Etc.

Cleaning shouldn’t prevent you from spending time with your child. Better to have a messy house. And I don’t know where your desire to “listen to an audiobook” came from with a 4yo at home. People with kids generally don’t do it unless kids are asleep or much older.

Weird post.

I do sympathise with you OP, but there are some days I wish I could share the care with a DP.

Ive been on my own since DC was born and I would love someone to take over for an hour, just sometimes.

My DC is very lively, we spent 2 hours at the beach today.

It rained but it was fine. Could you go to the park or similar?

I chose to work and use holiday clubs!

I take 2 days A/L then work 3 in the holidays. I think DC would get fed up of my company all week!

get a job and send her to a holiday club?

The weather is shit. The op has no money. She said she has lots of worries at the moment. No need to try to make her feel shit because she's fed up playing unicorns or whatever all day.

Could you set up a type of treasure hunt round the house? Hide things in different rooms and get her to find them (as long as that wouldn't mean her emptying contents of cupboards all over the floor)

YANBU

I don’t care if I should have known what I was getting into, or how much my kid needs me to be it’s parent -it’s still incredibly bloody boring at times.

I also think it’s healthy for a child to realise that mummy or daddy have their own stuff to do, and for a child to be bored sometimes.

Don't worry OP, you're not alone. I used to find the holidays horrendous. No time to yourself at all, constant bloody questions and noise, mess everywhere, I hated 'pretend' games, the days just draaaaaaaagged.

Not everyone finds being a parent easy or enjoyable. I found it extremely difficult in the early days.

It gets better.

Don't beat yourself up because you find it hard. More parents feel the same as you, OP, than let on.

formerbabe exactly it isn't easy and to make op feel bad because she's finding it tough really doesn't help her, which is why she came on here

I find February half term the hardest holiday, the weather is awful!
Mine are 6, 4 and 1. We tried to go into town yesterday so see an exhibition at the museum, loads of roads were closed due to floods, after 1.5 hours (it’s 8 miles away) we gave up and came home.
Today we’ve baked, played loads of board games, watched a film, been to the dentist and now they’re climbing the walls again! The bickering is driving me insane, and the house is a tip.
Luckily my mum has tomorrow off work so I have reinforcements

Ugh I used to hate it too. I hear you.

I get that kids can be annoying but come on OP you really expect to be able to listen to an audio book when you have a little one at home? Four year old's love to chat and it's your job, as her parent to interact with her. Don't worry though because in 10yrs time you'll never see her and then you'll be able to read and mumsnet as much as you like.

I’ve also got sensory overload a bit... the noise! The constant movement!
Love them, love spending time with them, but a wet, flooded half term in February can be tough.

Sorry but I lost any sympathy at the audio book bit.
I’ve just taken my 2 DC to a soft play. Try doing that and then you’ll truly appreciate what hell is.

FFS Mumsnet is full of nasty little people.

OP, you are entitled to look after yourself. You are entitled to take a break. You don't have to entertain your child 24/7. Put the TV on, it's OK for a bit. You've done loads already.

And, can I just add that anyone who writes the words 'get a grip' on a Mumsnet post is clearly lacking empathy and probably has lots of personal problems so comes on to feel better about themselves by insulting others.

DS is 4yo and today we've watched a movie, he's done about 10mins of Hama Beads and I've downloaded a couple of free games on the iPad which he's sat and played while I blitzed the ironing.

Some things that help me:

• clever garden toys that can be used in the house in winter e.g. pop up play tents, throwing net and mini trampolines. They're all but forgotten about by now so they're super exciting when I get them in from the garage. The throwing net is like a pop up indoor basketball hoop thing and we use the light ball pit balls indoors. Placed away from breakables, DS loves throwing indoors. Trampoline wears him out!
• iPad time including a new game or two. Pitched at the right age where DS can do it himself, he'll just get on with it without much input from me.
• Google home games. We have a Google Home and you can ask it to play games. DS plays musical statues with it. Keeps him busy for ages and I can just give the odd encouraging comment.
• new movie plus popcorn for added treats.

Listening to an audiobook was probably a bit optimistic but I can usually drink a coffee in relative peace and get a few rows of knitting in

What YellWat said.

Stop trying to guilt trip the op!

It is a bit unrelenting isn't it.

How about an audiobook for her?

I also agree with a PP's suggestion about dividing up the day into segments. e.g. Indoor play till snack time. Playground till lunch. Reading and games till afternoon tea. TV till bedtime. And factor in the down time for yourself.

Something else that can work well (for you too) is to get physical and silly. E.g. have a pillow fight, a tickle fight, snowball fight using scrunched up paper, indoor 'tennis' using balloons, etc. It relieves tension with laughter.

Lastly, if you can stand to let her get bored, it will pay dividends as she will learn to find her own entertainment. I think this is roughly the age when they start to be able to do this.

Then I hand over to DH while I get on and do the dinner (aka hide in the kitchen away from everyone!)

YANBU OP - and I hope all the nasty replies haven’t made you feel too bad.

My two boys are away this week but I’m pretty confident that if they were home
I would probably end up feeling like you at some point.

Entertaining children is relentless and can be very draining at times - and especially hard if you have no money to take them anywhere and the weather outside is crap too.

There’s nothing wrong with you just wanting a bit of time for yourself during the day and to have some quiet time.

Don’t feel bad about yourself - we are all just doing the best we can

What’s really going on OP? You said tour stressed what’s up?