To wonder if "kids don't get any easier" is just selective memory

[Octagonchecker]

I'm in the thick of it with little kids so my view may be coloured but...when I ask people when it gets easier they say "when they're about 30!" Or "they don't get easier, they just have different problems". I'm struggling to imagine this right now honestly. I can't relax and start doing anything leisure-wise in the evening because there's a strong chance my toddler will wake up. I don't sleep more than 5 broken hours most nights. I spend every meal time getting up and down, I never get to eat a meal in one go. I spend every moment I'm with my toddler monitoring his safety in some way. We have no family nearby so me and DH can't go anywhere or do anything without the kids. How can older kids be harder than this!? Surely being able to tend to your basic physical needs makes a massive difference??

Well I just mean neurodivergent people are not the majority of people, less than 20% I think. My son is autistic. I just think if you have a child with high needs it isn’t very comparable and so often the “just you wait” comments are directed at vulnerable newer mothers, and I just think actually, if your story isn’t what the majority of people experience, it isn’t very helpful to weaponise it against newer mothers. Not saying that’s what anyone here is doing, but it certainly happens elsewhere on the site.

Mine are teens now abs I have less time fir social life. I miss the days between about 5yo-10yo when your day was over by 7/8pm. Now im dropping them off for the start of a club at 7.30pm, not picking them up. Idont relax until 10pm...

But overall, easier than toddlers. Maybe Primary School is the sweet spot!

I think physically it gets easier but emotionally it can be a lot harder.

I find it ironic that people are saying when they're older the problems may be bigger but it's easier to cope as you're getting more sleep - I've had so many sleepless nights worried sick about my teenage/ young adult dc. One dc finished sixth form, broke down and said they didn't want to be here anymore. Not much sleep around that time. It was so much easier when they were little.

If you've got or had happy, confident, motivated teens who have friends, interests and a healthy amount of self-esteem, then yes, it'll all seem like a breeze in comparison to having toddlers. But when they're troubled, then tbh it's heartbreaking and very, very hard.

Extreme situations aside, it’s hands down easier. I sleep properly now, let my 14 and 11 year old throw any problem at me and I’m in a good state to solve it. 4-5 hours of broken sleep when they were tiny made everything harder. Everything.
(I need my kip).

Older teenagers here, one about to go off to uni. I've loved all the stages 😍 but the trickiest for me has been toddler age and mid teen age. Toddlers because they're super mobile and want to be independent but haven't yet learned to be safe so you have to watch them like a hawk, and teenagers because again they naturally want to distance themselves a little (especially boys when they get extra testosterone and again are wanting to flex their wings). Now one of them is driving and that's a safety stress all over again! At least with toddlers you know where they are at all times but it's much more tiring physically I'd say.

Yes I hear this a lot too. We’re older parents (43 with an almost 2 year old and a 4 year old) so most of our friends and siblings have older children/teenagers. Amongst the issues they’ve collectively experienced are MH crisis, police for petty crime, school refusal, etc etc I can totally imagine if I were experiencing this yearning for the baby/toddler phase when you could control and protect them! But right now I co-sleep with my girls and I’ve not had a night apart in 4 years, they’re every intense. The 4 yr old is getting easier and I can totally see 2 years from now it all being much easier. Hang on in there I reckon

I think it's different for everyone. All my DC were non sleepers and two had health issues in early childhood so I had a good decade where at least one was awake every 2-3 hours. But the teens were a breeze so yes, for me, it definitely got easier as they got older. And so much more rewarding. To be honest I think babies are boring and hard work but they steadily improve with age. But it's not just the child that makes things easier or more difficult but whay's going on in the rest of yoir life. My hardest time was when my youngest was a baby, middle one in nursery, eldest at school, my Mum was dying with Alzheimer's and I was working full time in an acute hospital specialty. I was rushing from one thing to another all the time and continually tired and stressed. That's a year or two I wouldn't want to repeat But I have quite a lot of friends who have had big problems in the teenage years including a couple who were divorcing and their teens were going off the rails simultaneously. I'm sure they would say that was the hardest stage for them.
You really can't generalise. People aren't necessarily lying or forgetting the difficulties of the early years when they say things didn't get easier for them but it doesn't mean there won't be improvements for you.

I’m a single parent so going out in the evening hasn’t got any easier for me. They are 11 and 8 now and I’ve resigned myself to not going out in the evening (unless they are with their dad) for another 8 years or so.

the problems are very different, I often can’t sleep now due to worrying about various things rather than them waking me.

i don’t have much of an evening now as I go to bed very soon after the 11yo.

its not harder just different. I don’t have more energy than I did when they were younger though.

That sounds so worrying. I wouldn't sleep either. I hope they are in a better place emotionally now and things are easier.

just because your Sen child is easier as a teen it doesn't mean everyone else has the same experience. My Sen teen was far easier as a baby than they are now.

Certain things are easier but other things are harder. Dd1 announcing she’s going to drive to Manchester for a gig - very stressful (passed her test in January), applying for uni, twins doing GCSE’s (not level 7-9 ability and struggling with motivation to revise - very hard work). The stress is different. I don’t think it’s easier though, just different hard.

I have an 8 year old and a 1 year. The 8 year old comes with her own challenges, but I can absolutely assure you that it's a world away from baby/toddler stages. Life gets unbelievably easier as they get older (and yet here I am, starting again 😂).

Edit: sorry, 9 year old! She just had her birthday.

It's a different sett of problems every year.
Choosing a school
Making friends
Falling out with friends
A whole bunch of new bugs descending on kids every autumn and spring term
More serious health issues.
Realising the possibility/probability that you kid has some neurodiverse issue and you will spend the next 5 years navigating the process for diagnosis and support
Fights over homework
Bad behaviour in class
A school teacher destroying your kids confidence.
More fall outs with friends, more bugs, sickness, tears going into school, tears coming out of school
then in y6 WhatsApp starts and social media, which is a huge tin of worms!
Then SATS
Then everything above repeated again

Shall I start on the teenage years???? 😂

No one has ever suggested 8&10 are difficult though. The golden years.
it’s potentially the teen years. Only potentially though, many are a breeze.
but many many teenagers have all sorts of huge problems, you can read about them, and getting up and down on a dinner table will pale in to insignificance if you are living with a teenager who may do something very worrying.

Never gets easier, just gets different. But mostly all fun

Mine are 12 and 8 and it’s a million times easier now. Our 12 year old is always off out with his mates and our 8 year old entertains himself for hours practicing his football skills. Leaving the house no longer involves military planning, we get to enjoy holidays without being 24/7 lifeguards and meals out are enjoyable.

Our youngest was at a sleepover recently and our eldest was on a D&D campaign in his room so we just hopped in the car and went shopping, had a coffee and even ended up in the virgin store and booked a holiday. Granted, we’ve not hit full on teen years yet but I hope we’ve done enough of a good job that it won’t be anything beyond the usual teen stuff.

But it must be so different for everyone, because I’d say that having a newborn is unquestionably easier than having a two year old!! I totally understand that not everyone loves it, but I’d happily do 0-6m forever. I personally think I find 12-18m the hardest bit.

In general though, I get what OP is saying and I think I agree. My 5yo is definitely the easiest of my three. But I’ve got a lot of parenting left to do and maybe the teenage years will be awful. 😬

And do you go onto threads telling new mothers who are struggling “just you wait”? Or do you accept their experience might be different to yours? Because that’s what matters here. I don’t care what anyone’s experience is, what I care about is people smugly patronising newer mothers. I had it happen to me a lot, I was so vulnerable. To this day it makes me angry and that is why I am so blunt on threads like this, because those women were talking shit. Either because they were dramatising, or because their experience was entirely unrelatable.

Also my 11yo is harder work than my 8yo

I can 100% say, through experience, that anyone who says kids don't get easier and the challenges are just different, are correct.

I still lie awake worrying about my DC so have plenty of sleepless nights. I worry about them going to cities where there is violence, using public transportation, their MH, their career progression (or lack thereof), their relationships and anything else they share with me that I can't now control or solve by having them in the house with me and younger with none of these problems.

Have to agree with this.
When we divide and conquer whoever takes our 5yo basically has a day off compared to the 2.5yo who is a force to be reckoned with

I’ve seen a similar thread before and it does seem those disagreeing bring up the teenage years which does seem a fair point as some teens do seem difficult to manage. If you have a baby or toddler the teenage years are hard to picture just yet so hearing that it gets easier at least for a while when they’re in primary school would be nice.

I have an almost 5 year old and a 2 year old. I notice how much easier the 5 year old is now.

I also notice people often say children get more expensive as they get older which I find hard to believe if you pay for nursery.

But do you really do this night after night, every night, for say 6 weeks solid? On top of feeding 2-3 hourly, recovering from labour? It’s statements like this that frustrate people. No one is saying teens or young adults are easy, but unless you have a particularly troubled young person it is highly unlikely the exhaustion is as relentless as those early weeks adjusting to parenthood. This is just an illustration.

I have a 6 and a 2 year old and even I feel I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - they’ve become friends now rather than separate children with little in common.

Having nieces and nephews younger has really made me realise how easy they are now compared to babies. Helps that my 2 year old has amazing communication and can tell me exactly what she wants - this is the main turning point in my opinion!