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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To dread weekends with young kids?

131 replies

escapingthecity · 09/07/2023 13:50

4yo and 1yo. I barely get to do anything I want to do at all at weekends. For example:

  • kids up around 6 like every other day of the week so no chance to have a lie in or catch up on sleep
  • breakfast the usual bunfight so time to enjoy a longer cup of tea or read the paper as I used to
  • spend the whole church service in Sunday school rather than in the service participating in worship
  • visit playgrounds and parks rather than the galleries and museums I love
  • 1yo won't settle in the evening without me (still BF) so can't go out for dinner/to the cinema
  • never get to enjoy mealtimes because always up and down sorting kids
  • taking them swimming just splashing about, not the long lane swims I love to do

I long for the rare occasions when we manage to get them down for a tandem nap.

It's the bit about a child free life I miss most. I feel like I never get to choose what I would most like to do any more. It's always about the kids.

When does it get better?

OP posts:
Mumsday · 10/07/2023 22:28

EmmaOvary · 09/07/2023 16:54

The thing nobody tells you about having kids is how shit it can be. I only have one (3 1/2), my husband and I were both around today and we still found it hard. Maybe the posters who ‘really don’t find it that hard’ have lucked out with easy kids who never have tantrums and do exactly what they’re told, sleep 14 hours every night, etc. Among my circle of friends, there are far more mums saying they won’t have more than one because their existing kid is such hard work. But of course someone will be along to say that’s their fault.

No, but that’s not normal. One child really shouldn’t be that hard and I do think parents in this situation need to look at what’s gone wrong.

coxesorangepippin · 10/07/2023 22:29

Stop bf and stop going to church

Mumsday · 10/07/2023 22:33

WolfFoxHare · 09/07/2023 19:32

Also this kind of post really isn’t helpful. I only have one child and I found it very hard at times. You didn’t, hooray for you. Maybe there are some things I or the OP can do easily and you can’t. We’re all different, with different abilities and tolerances, and at different points in our lives. Offer a shoulder to
cry on, offer solutions or suggestions, but don’t plop onto the thread to say ‘Why are you struggling, I didn’t!?’

Show quote history

The solution is sleep training, boundaries, active rather than passive parenting, discipline, realistic expectations of what small children can and cannot do, not making a martyr of yourself and seeing to your own needs… etc etc.

But no one wants to hear that. All these things seem to have gone out of fashion. It’s not a coincidence that there are more and more parents who can’t cope with their children.

MrsSkylerWhite · 11/07/2023 08:39

DojaPhat · 09/07/2023 16:07
MrsSkylerWhite · 09/07/2023 14:46

Well, what exactly did you imagine when you decided to have children?
Yes, YABU.

“How is this at all helpful. Even with all the advice, insight and foresight we now have access to it's never possible to determine the exact way parenthood or rather motherhood will affect us. Even if some of us knew from the jump it would be difficult it would be damaging to suggest it's a negative to feel bad for finding parts of motherhood extremely hard to deal with, even if those parts”

OP does not appear to have adjusted her expectations at all. That would help her.

Original poster
escapingthecity · 11/07/2023 16:17

I have massively massively adjusted my expectations. And I still sometimes get to Sunday, still feel exhausted and have another working week to prepare for. 4yo will play on his own for quite a while but 1yo can't yet, and usually wants to join in with 4yo, who isn't always keen on that, so they can't be left to play together unsupervised yet. Because I have to finish work c4.30 to collect them I often have work to finish late in the evening and at weekends too.

Thank you to those who recognise that even though we love these tiny people we also had a prior self we liked being and who it hurts to lose sight of.

OP posts:
MadamWhiteleigh · 11/07/2023 16:24

You will get your life back, I promise. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, when you’re in the thick of it, but you will when they’re older.

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