Don’t be depressed, if you indeed are depressed and are not just claiming to be because you want to make people feel bad or because you think it makes you look like a good person.
Ages three and one are absolutely brutal in a way that’s difficult to explain to anyone who hasn’t got that combination. Apart from anything else, disturbed nights and days with constant endless clamouring can break you down very quickly.
I was a very good parent. I took my baby / toddler DS on nature walks; toddler groups, swimming, library rhyme time, read to him, showed him the world. I found it hard (ds was a habitual 5 am riser) and tiring and sometimes boring but I didn’t let on and anyway I knew it would get easier. And I did notice a big seismic shift in him around two and a half: he became more independent and less needy and he started sleeping a bit later in the morning when he dropped his nap and he became a bit more rational (only a bit, mind.) And then I had DD.
Regret doesn’t mean you look at your child and wish they didn’t exist. It’s more a grief for your old life, a worry you’re getting it all horribly wrong, a desire to do your best by them but they often have conflicting needs, stress and loneliness and boredom combined with business. It’s a strange time.
I always thought I was very resilient but three and one nearly broke me and I cannot understand it at all when I see these memes of elderly people claiming to want to go back to that time!