To hate having my kids together?

[haditallday]

Individually they are nice children.

Together it’s awful.

The noise is another level. They talk over one another and squabble all the time.

The arguing is constant. The older one winds the other up and she screams and hits out.

The younger one copies the older one as well if he does something silly or even by accident.

I love having them alone but I hate them together.

LOL, absolutely this!

I wonder why we do it to ourselves!?

For me, it’s massively exacerbated by the fact that hardly anyone else I know has two. Out of my original NCT group of six, only one other has gone on to have a second. The other four are one and done. My friend and colleague at work with a similarly aged DD to my DS only has one.

DS starts school tomorrow. I’m hoping amongst the other mums there will be many with more than one so that I feel less chaotic !

Mine are older than yours (also further apart than yours, which has its pros and cons) and I really hear you, but also I have found it does get LOADS better - with age, with practice, with patience, with better work from me to balance each of their (ever evolving!) needs.

It is exhausting, particularly when it's the same shit over and over (my DC1 has always been a massive space invader and I'm like - why are you getting in her space REPEATEDLY, when she consistently shows you she hates it, and when you then think she's so annoying?! She was leaving you alone until that point!! It's like a moth to a flame sometimes....). BUT for increasing periods, it's also the most heartwarming thing. Some of DC1's friends have been onlies, and throughout middle childhood I looked with slight envy at what those families could do without a smaller child (more money, freedom from toilet trips and tired legs and bickering and working out how to keep things interesting for two different ages). I don't feel that at all any more - I wouldn't swap, mine have built-in playmates as long as they remember how to behave, and in a small family the quality (for now!) of the relationship and the love and acceptance they share feels so valuable. We're a team.

I do still really enjoy the relative ease of having one at a time though! It's just nice being able to move between different configurations and enjoy them all, now.

Mine bicker all the time, though they can also play nicely together. They are 8 and 10, I'm thinking of not going to our home in London next summer ( just us 3) as they fight so much, one at a time would be much easier.

mine are 16 & 19.. and they STILL bicker/argue.

My usual go-to is to tell them to be somewhere the other isn't if they can't 'play nice' or leave each other alone in the same room.

I know that's harder with 2/5yo, but if the 5yo has some other safe space to play, i'd send them there, or make them sit at opposite ends of the room with backs to each other.

It is rough.. and i'm afraid it does not improve.

I will add that i'm 44, and my older brother is 48.. and our 72yo mother still has to tell the two of us to stop bickering with each other when we're together.. no-one knows how to needle/annoy the fuck out of you like your sibling. We love each other dearly, but we also still like to wind each other up entirely on purpose.