To think always having the children with you is stressful?

[mistyfields]

I know people are going to say ‘well what did you expect’ kind of thing but honestly I didn’t really think about this.

I have two children, aged four and eighteen months. They are with me all the time unless I’m at work.

They are fine, nice children, very stressful together but not anything out of the ordinary. But … you can’t really do anything, can you?

I used to enjoy wandering around new places and looking at shops and cafes and restaurants, I can’t do that now because my toddler would cause mayhem. That’s not forever and my four year old isn’t too bad but even so I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself - I’d be constantly checking he hadn’t wandered off or picked up something he wasn’t supposed to and so on.

I know it sounds silly it’s just only really starting to occur to me that that’s it - I guess the time to be an ‘adult’ again happens when they’re teens, maybe?

But if you work the whole time they're at school there's still very little time for yourself.

Plus annual leave is never as much as school holidays so taking occasional days off isn't always doable.

DD starts secondary school in September and I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. She can be left alone long enough for me to go for a run, I won't have to do school runs which I sometimes use my lunch break to do at the moment!

1. Yanbu in one sense. I remember the huge luxury that was food shopping without children when mine were that age. Dilly dallying round the shops- heaven.

1. But - it's not till they're teenagers, just till 4/5 and at school.

1. And but 2 - why is your dh not able to take over evenings and weekends so that you can get some adult time?

Are you really so tunnel visioned you can’t at all empathise with what OP is saying? you just HAVE to pick at it?

We were on the Tube the other day, saw three kids running riot , their mother nose deep in her phone - not a single attempt to rein in their behaviour.

I op said DH isn't around much though...

Thing with getting dad to have them so I could wander around a nice little town is that … well, I wouldn’t to be honest: I don’t know if others would but the two of mine together are tough going and I wouldn’t do it for anything random like that. Plus a lot of the joy in things like that are that it’s sporadic.

I don’t regret them or anything like that, it’s just me thinking out loud (and ignoring the silly ‘well wandering around bookshops with my toddler would be totally enjoyable’ posts.)

...so?

Wouldn't do what? Leave them with Dad? Why the fuck not?

If you have the hard stuff, then so must be ...

Wow. So your actual problem is that either your partner is a completely useless dad, or you're extremely controlling and won't let him be a dad.

As suspected, your op only made sense if it's actually something else

Yes it is really hard. But these children have a father - why are your expectations if him so low?

Why are you so argumentative ? Why is this annoying you so much?

I totally get where you're coming from! I might get a couple of hours a month of grandparent babysitting if I'm lucky, and when DH is around he'll take them, but largely I'm either at work or with the kids (similar ages to yours), and it's so intense and tiring.

DH is away a lot for work but gets a lot of downtime when he is - he's very hands on and often says he'd prefer to be home with all of us, but he doesn't really have a clue what it's actually like having almost no 'me' time.

The problem I find is even though I can manage a bit of a potter round a market or a trip to a cafe or whatever, I have to plan and manage so carefully to make sure they don't go totally feral that it's not relaxing at all like it used to be. So for now I don't really try as I'd want to do it as I like to rather than a compromise where I feel I should have enjoyed it but really spent more time thinking about how to entertain a toddler and a preschooler. Give it a couple of years...

@BrokenHipster - that only works if you have very set work hours, or no other children. Dh took Ds out from 9-4 yesterday, but I Had loads of work to do as I had busy order week. So my ‘day’ child free whilst dh wasnt working, was me working. It’s not a day I can spend at leisure walking around an art gallery.

My DCs are 8 & 10yo and DH isn't around much to take on any decent chunk of childcare. I used to find the lack of alone time draining, and still do sometimes but it's been much much better for years (although it probably helps that I work on my own, even if work isn't particularly relaxing!). You're still very much in the trenches with those ages OP.

Once DC2 is a bit older, you can get them doing extracurriculars together, which buys you an hour of alone time sat in the car a few times a week with a book or a bit of doom scrolling. There will come a point too when you can take them to soft play knowing they are old enough to get on with it with minimal supervision whilst you read your book (provided you are able to screen out the background noise and are confident your DCs aren't the kind to be softplay hooligans 😬).
They also became much more self-sufficient at home some years ago, meaning that although I still had to be in ear-shot, I could escape and spend short spells 'alone' doing the things I wanted. It is worth putting in the hours when they're young to teach them to get their own cereal, get a glass of water or make toast (we have wooden tongs to fish the bread out of the toaster) - they were both doing all this by 4yo. My 8yo can now make her packed lunch, a cup of tea and cheese on toast, and can operate the microwave to heat the milk for hot chocolate or make hot Weetabix.
We leave our 10yo home alone for short stretches too now, which she loves as she no longer has to be dragged along every time we need to run a quick errand and it also makes popping out more straightforward. Another 2 years and I will be able to do those kinds of errands completely alone...

Hang on in there, you don't have to wait until the teen years to get some time back.

I'm not argumentative and it's not annoying me at all. I'm just summing up the issue.
First day on MN?

Not at all. If you have more children, dad looks after them too!! Any time. If you needed to work that day, go another day to the art gallery.

Always having the children with you would be unbearable. Nobody should have to cope with that.

The first few comments seem to be particularly goady/thick.

I'm the same as you op and I get it, if I'm not working I have my toddler with me and it's very hard to get things done. Also have a school age dc who has a lot of out of school commitments (sport, groups, social stuff) so my life basically revolves around meeting both of their needs.

Do you have a Dh who could watch them in the evenings so you can pop out to see friends or go to a class or something?

My house is in total disarray. Dh and I haven't had a date night in 2.5 years and I don't think people who have lots of family support get it at all.

If you can't leave his own children with him to go food shopping, then that is a huge problem.
And it's why @BrokenHipster went on the channel she did, so often when posters post here, an entirely different problem, emerges.

You are certainly being argumentative, you've been difficult for the whole thread for no reason 🫠 You're coming across as very irritated by the op so if you are actually not at all annoyed you might want to reread your posts before you do post them, as your posts come off very wound up!

Been here since 2007, so, no.

So back to the op's point. I am with my children most of the time unless I'm working. As is my DH. That can be tiring.

Ha, I also used to fantasise about a hospital stay.

I think people with an available DH, or family on hand to help out will never understand what it is like to not have that. Similarly, people who would think nothing of paying a babysitter £50 to have an afternoon wondering round the shops/seeing friends don't understand that it would be unthinkable for others. For both the extravagance of money, and precious family time.

It is hard, OP, but it gets better very quickly.

I don’t have another day. I work Mon- Friday, but Ds only has morning nursery place until 11.30am. So I’m limited to mornings working alone. If I have a busy week of orders I have to work after 6pm when dh takes over, or weekends when dh takes over. Art galleries aren’t open Sundays here. Most shops shut by 12pm Saturday here, all day Sunday. So if I need to go it’s weekday afternoons, but with Ds.
If it happens to be a quiet weekend it’s household stuff or family time as that’s also limited.
School doesn’t start until 6 years here, and when it does, it’s finished by 12 also

Op. I assume your children are 'tough' all week and you do it all on your own. So tough that their father couldn't manage it for ONE hour. Why do you think you should have to do it all week on your own but he shouldn't have to do it at all on a weekend to give you a break?

Definitely rethink attitude to your DH. It’s not fair on him or his relationship with them and the more you act like you are the only parent worse it will get.
If you go into hospital today as an emergency for a week would he be able to care for them smoothly? If not then that should be a wake up call.
Why did he have them if he doesn’t he want to spend time with his children and take them places.

This is why I had a mother's help.