To wonder what life is like with NT children?

[Itwasallgoingsowellthenboom]

Dd, 6, currently being assessed for adhd & autism. She is wonderful, incredible, brilliant, interesting, hilarious, very bright, individual, strong willed and full of character. This makes for a life that’s never dull, but it is non stop and utterly exhausting.
From birth, I struggled and wondered why I struggled when others didn’t seem to struggle as much. Some things were easy and it was great, others like sleep and just general calming down, were v hard.
I expected things to get easier as she got older, it feels harder though. She’s so hyper, so strong willed, just everything feels difficult at times, nothing is ever easy. I was wondering how it is for other mums of children a similar age? Is it like this? Are most things a struggle? Getting them to listen to you, get dressed when you ask? Do you just tuck them up in bed at 7 and pop downstairs for the rest of the night, as opposed to having to lie next to them, whilst they move around, play, chat and can’t switch off until 9.30?
I always felt sure of things when she was little, yes she was energetic and I was tired, but now it seems even harder and I feel like I’m crap mum, I didn’t feel like this before. It was my dream to be a mum, I stayed home with her until 4, co slept, breastfed, went to all the classes, we had a good life, now I feel it’s just so very hard, I don’t enjoy parenting at all, there’s no let up at all
Is this all parenting, is it just more difficult with nd chindren or am I just doing things wrong and being a shit parent??

I have three children 5 and under. 7.30 bath and then story. The two boys go down by 8.00pm zero issues. 5 year old gets a quick card game and up to bed. It’s easy. And they sleep until 8am every morning (or later!)

so no my life with three children is nowhere nearly as difficult as yours. Every night I know my day with children is done at 8pm and that is very liberating

my sister has a ND son and life is so so hard for her. Proper meltdowns, unpredictable behaviour and on it for 14 hours a day at full speed. Her parenting life is much much harder than mine. She always wanted more children but says “I can’t roll the dice again”

your life IS hard. Very hard and much much more difficult than many parents with NT children - they may think they have it tough but they don’t have a clue

From birth, I struggled and wondered why I struggled when others didn’t seem to struggle as much.

I felt this too. Mine always seems like he's the last one at everything at school, he gets frustrated easily, co-sleeps (our bedtime is like you describe it), often things are a struggle. He's seven, NT.

I have one of each, my youngest has ADHD and dyslexia. It can be exhausting, the transition to secondary school was brutal, as it uncovered all the cracks I'd been telling school were there for years.

He's highly intelligent, and can score above 90-100% in science and maths, unless he gets distracted and has a rubbish prompter, in which case he's lucky if he gets his name on the paper.

Getting routines in place is important, and things are getting easier. I will admit, it's upsetting seeing how challenging the little things can be for him, when his older brother has had an easier road.

I have both.

I didn't realise how much harder a ND DC was until I had another.

Some DCs are so much easier.

12 hours of sleep at night.

Compliant at home & school.

Eat normal food.

Have friendships.

Don't embarrass yourself in public.

Few tantrums.

I'd have 5 DCs if they were as easy as NT ones!

It doesn't necessarily connect to neurodivergence in the way you think it does.
Both NT and ND children can be incredibly challenging at different points. Completely dependant on the context and the individual child involved.
My middle is ASD and I've never had any issues regarding sleep or anything like that.
In fact my eldest was the one who slept least as a young child and he is NT. He sleeps well now but for the first years he was a nightmare.
I've 3 kids and they are all Completely different in terms of the challenges they present.
Of course there's some forms of ASD and other things that might effect children in an extreme way and as a result yes, on the whole parenting them will be much harder work than parenting NT able bodied non chronically ill children.
But actually it doesn't necessarily follow that you will have a harder time parenting a child with ASD than you would a NT child.
My friends son for example, I just couldn't cope with the levels of energy and lack of interest in sleep.. however he can focus fine at school, does not have adhd.. he's just an incredibly energetic child.
Luckily none of mine reached those heights of energy.
Alot of it's just luck of the draw. All kids are different.

Is this something that will become easier with age? as I was always told since she was little, if so, what age? or is this just it forever?

.

you notice little things like parents of young NT children will be at a large gathering chatting with other adults. They actually sit down, have a drink, and enjoy themselves. They seem to believe that the general crowd is enough to keep an eye on their kids. Meanwhile, we are shadowing our children, maybe get 2 sentences of adult conversation, and leave utterly exhausted.

Having a child with autism is really, really hard. I have no advice but my heart goes out to you. I imagine it's quite a lonely place to be.

I only have ND children. Over the years things have become easier in some areas and harder in others. I’m not sat on the bedroom floor anymore or keep needing to get out of bed, but getting them to bed is still a process. It’s normally between 10 and 11pm. I have a lot of experience with NT children (not as a parent though), but I’m fairly sure my children require a lot more of me than if they were NT. It’s hard and it’s tiring, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Well, surely the fact that the other child’s mother isn’t brimming with the joys of life suggests she finds parenting her ‘easy’ child a challenge too?

Sympathies, OP, but my neurotypical son was an irritable high-needs baby, and doing everything you describe and more at 6. He’s 12 now and still strong-willed, emotional, and not a great sleeper. And fabulous.

My autistic son struggled with sleep. His gp finally prescribed melatonin and now I buy it from biotin. It does get easier as they get older. I found the age you are at the most tiring. I have a nt daughter and it’s also exhausting. Not quite as much when they were younger-it was the unpredictability of my nd son that made life particularly hard. But now it is what makes life so fun and interesting. IM also a teacher and find parenting my own teen very hard when I can do a brilliant job teaching them. But I know students listen to teachers and not parents so it’s not unusual. Hang on in there!

YANBU to wonder, I do the same. When other kids are told no and they don’t go in to an awful meltdown kicking and being aggressive. Or when other kids manage to go bed before 3am. I have 4DC. 2 of whom are on the ASC pathway and 1 is being referred for ADHD. She doesn’t stop. I have to stay up because she can’t be trusted not to act on her impulses. Like when she threw something at the neighbour out of the window it’s exhausting.

got to wonder why I had four really.

There is a misconception that all NT children are easy, some might be - but I don’t know many parents that have found the age you are experiencing a breeze. I sympathise with you OP as it does sound difficult, and I know mums of ND children who have struggled with different areas of parenting - it tends to be more behavioural stuff. But my NT DD never sat still. Was cheeky around bedtime (and still is!) and is full of so much energy - she’s a tween now and is usually dancing around the house or doing a move from sports - putting her in classes has helped to “displace” her energy. She was mute for half of her childhood so I would have assumed she was ND - I’ll be honest with you - I do not know if she is or isn’t as it shows up differently with girls. But we’ve had our challenges and now that she’s 12 it’s easier to communicate with her. I’d say the only thing that has made it easy is her personality. But regardless of how polite and well behaved my child is, parenting is 24/7 and exhausting- and a juggling act and as parents we have different levels of what we can handle too.

I do hope it gets easier for you at some point though. I hope you are able to come across techniques that help. A few ND parents I know found that getting to know their child’s triggers etc has helped.

I think it's much easier to introduce new routines to NT children. I had relatively easy children and at 6 they were all in bed by 7.30 and I could trust them to settle themselves after a bedtime story even if they didn't fall asleep immediately. We had same routine every night after baths/homework they'd watch Cbeebies bedtime hour with milk and a biscuit and then go up for bedtime story.

I know from my job settling ND children for naps can be harder than with NT children and if they do fall asleep easily they can find waking up again hard.

My ND daughter is the same age as yours, and is actually really easy to parent at the moment. Maybe it helps that I have clear boundaries and have not found it difficult to enforce those boundaries (I'm pretty immune to guilt trips). But since you're an early childhood teacher, you're probably pretty good at that as well! Just mentioning it because many of my mum friends struggle with that - they want to do everything just right and have such high expectations of themselves.

What is draining (sometimes) is my worries about her future; how she is going to find her place in a world that obviously is not made for her. I think she will be much harder to parent as a teenager, when kids become so keenly aware (and often ashamed) of their difference. So I am very aware it is up to me, as her mum, to help her build a strong foundation and sense of self now. But when it comes to day to day parenting, she is really easy. She thrives on routine. She is bright and good-natured, almost unfailingly kind. She is too "different" to be popular, but other kids like her well enough and most of the time she prefers playing by herself anyway. Some of my friends with NT children have a much harder time - some have kids who still wake them up several times a night, or kids who really struggle with bullying at school.

I think in general ND children are more challenging (and obviously it depends on what type of ND), but it is never black and white. Personality, circumstances at school, the chemistry between parent and child (parents with ND children are much more likely to also be ND), this all plays a role.

I have two DC OP, I suspect both ND. If DS2 is, I suspect ASD without the helping of ADHD my eldest has.

They are both difficult but in different ways. Thankfully sleep and bedtimes have never been an issue and we’ve reached 9 and 6 so I’m hoping it won’t become one. Neither have a lot of the classic problems with routines and new places so we’re able to do a lot of normal things that might be out of reach for some more “traditional” ASD children.

I think it’s the ADHD that I find hardest. My DS1 is antagonistic (ticks a lot of the ODD boxes) and constant in a way my DS2 just isn’t. DS2 does have explosive emotions, and if I was to get a call from school saying one child had lashed out, I would put money on it being DS2. But day to day, he is easier to manage than DS1 as he isn’t oppositional nor antagonistic and doesn’t have moods that seem to take over the household. In between his tantrums he has a very sunny disposition.

It’s so difficult.

Wholeheartedly agree with this.

I have two ND kids and one NT. Parenting my ND kids is exhausting. Most people just don't get it.

Op, there’s not much point asking those with only NT children what’s different or easier. It’s not to say those with NT children don’t find days hard, very bloody hard. But it’s not comparable to the relentlessness that can come with raising an ND child. The most balance answers you will get is from those who have ND and NT children. The ultimate difference is, many with NT children are going for that finish line, knowing when they’re late teens they will still need support but the long nights of soothing a overstimulated child will be in the past. I can’t envision a time where my ASD/ADHD child will stop waking after 3/4 hours asleep and not spend the next 3/4 hours loudly vocally stimming or wandering the house….

Well, I don’t disagree on principle, but worth pointing out that the OP doesn’t yet know if she has an ND child. Certainly my son, now 12, and someone no one has ever suggested needed any form of assessment for neurodiversity, was doing exactly what the OP describes her daughter as doing aged 6. I’m unwilling to upset the OP further, she sounds so exhausted, but taking hours to settle at night persisted for a lot more years beyond the age of 6.

I find my nd child far easier and more interesting than my nt one in some ways. Every child is different and NO kid ever seems to want to go to bed or get dressed ever. It's exhausting and now they are a bit older I tell them I get sick of it!
My nd child loves to please and to learn. Her Interests are mature and geeky so she is lovely to chat too. My younger kid looks at me like I'm mad when I try to tell her interesting things about e.g history or geology 😅
My nd daughter is very affectionate and loving. She needs more help so I think we are very close as a result.
She's 11now.
Things do generally get easier op.
Although I'm afraid you may have many many years of bedtimes still.
As they get older you can pick books that interest you more. And find shared interests on TV.
Try and think of the things you have to look forward too.

It’s not just the hour to settle to bed, it’s the whole day leading up to that. It’s not just exhausting parenting an ND child, it’s exhausting being one. But an ND child (especially with ADHD) very often doesn’t understand ‘switching off’, and not in the same way an NT child is fighting bedtime. The more tired they become, the more difficult it is to get them to bed. The usual ‘bath/story/lie down and soothe’ routine seems long to any parent, for some of us with ND children it can feel like going through the trenches, every single night.

As for not being diagnosed yet, it doesn’t mean anything. My middle child was evidently autistic when they started the diagnosis assessments at 3, still didn’t get diagnosed until aged 5. ADHD was diagnosed a year later and I’d been raising that since he was 2. Between the length of time it takes to assess and waiting lists in general, you just have to take it as there’s enough evidence of traits to assess in the first place. If no one raised the need for assessment for your son, either he didn’t actually present like the OP’s daughter does to HCP and other professionals, or he went under the radar. If he’s not showing any signs of being ND now then it was probably the former.

Your daughter sounds wonderful, op, you sound like a great parent doing a fantastic job.

Parenting a nd child (dd is 7) has brought me to my knees, but has helped me to look at the world very differently too (in a good way). She experiences things so much more intensely that it's both a blessing and a curse. Fortunately, we've not had the bedtime struggles with her, but she has tested me to my limits and beyond in a way that our eldest never did (ironically he's nd too - but is a very easy going boy). When I talk to parents of NT children, they'll say "oh yes, but all kids do that" and of course they all test us sometimes. But my dd is unable to tolerate clothes sometimes, the small things others take for granted (like a non uniform day or a school trip) causes so much anxiety that I get slapped, or kicked, or sworn at whilst getting her dressed. Consequences only escalate the situation, normal behaviour management strategies aren't effective and using different strategies often feels counterintuitive when we're told that rewards and consequences are the effective way to parent. This is so far removed from 'normal' parenting of NT children.

Obviously there are some similarities with young kids and there are different levels but being a parent of a ND simply cannot be compared to being the parent of a NT child.

It can be a full time job 24/7 parenting an ND child, utterly exhausting. That's why some are entitled to high level DLA.

Be wary of comparisons because at age 6 there will be other children who aren't yet diagnosed. In fact some aren't diagnosed until High School or later. So the 'NT' kids might not be...

My oldest is like you describe and has only just settled down a bit now at 10. Still barely needs and sleep but a bit less of the mood swings and meltdowns. I totally expect it to kick off again when teen hormones hit. My younger one is awaiting assessment and has always been an 'easier' child but I'm now realising they have just as many difficulties just in a quieter way.

Another thing to consider is that most neurodevelopmental conditions are highly genetic. If you might also be ND then having opposing needs might be an issue.