To wish I hadn’t had another child?

[ificouldthen]

I don’t mean I regret my second. I love her. But I fucking hate having two kids. They argue and fight; I get no peace at all, no downtime, bedtime takes forever so virtually no evening. I hate it. That’s all

How old are they? Are you a single parent?

May the force be with you! You'll get through it........ eventually.
Load them up on activities and sports and deny them ALL processed foods to ensure their behaviour is as calm and composed as it can be

No; I’m on my own quite a lot with them though. We do divide and conquer at weekends but it means you have a child each whereas divide and conquer once was free time for the other parent.

They are four and almost two.

At 4 and 2 I can promise you it will get easier! mine are 8 and 10 now and days out are nice as they get on and entertain each other, home is hit and miss as they do annoy each other at times but they can just do separate things without each other. 4 and 2 was a dark time but stick with it and make sure you and your DH are kind to each other, it will pass.

I hope so. We had to have a longish car journey with them yesterday and it was just awful with the older one teasing the younger and her screaming and crying.

On their own they are delightful.

At 2 and 4 I think you should have them do much more together and encourage that rather than separating them. Mine are a very similar gap and similar age and I feel we are just starting to reap the rewards of the age gap.
They will pay for so much longer on their own, go off to play together around the house and garden, chat in the car rather than the baby screaming etc

My god I hear you so loud.
mine are 10 and 6 and just argue constantly. It’s exhausting.
I do think the age gap doesn’t help with my 2 so hopefully as yours get older they will get along better as a smaller gap.

I do say that I generally have them both during the week, @Sofiewoo . The age gap is just over two and a half years: DS is four and a half and DD is twenty two months. Finding things they can do ‘together’ is trickier than it might first appear to be and often ends up in DS being semi ignored while I have to give the younger one most of my attention. He understandably gets fed up and does silly things to annoy her then.

I don’t know … I think they argue regardless of age gaps!

These years are tough.

My two were like chalk and cheese, and I would count down the days to the end of the school hols/school leaving age/them both leaving home. It was rough.

My children are adults now, and so close. Hang in there!

When mine were that age, they did bath and bedtime together, stories and cuddles and then both to bed. Is there anyway to make the bedtime routine shorter so you get a bit more evening? Four year old needs consequences for teasing and upsetting his younger sibling (although I appreciate that's not easy on a car journey!)

I can’t do bedtime with them together. They each fight to get on my lap, shove at each other, both want to turn the page, it’s a nightmare. But it does mean it’s past eight when I get them both down and I am in bed myself at nine sad as that is!