AIBU for snapping during chaotic bedtime with two very young children

[XStitcher87]

My husband is out for the evening. I’m left alone with a 10 month old and a two and a half year old. Bedtime has been chaos. The baby will only settle in the pram at the moment due to the heat, and the toddler is very needy. Bedtime started an hour and a half ago and I’ve finally got both them down. There’s been lots of tears. The toddler managed to slip in his poo not once but twice. And I definitely lost my cool, which made the situation worse.

Generally I find myself snapping a lot and it’s not the mum I want to be. My husband is out of the house a lot due to work so the majority of parenting falls to me. Currently I’m on mat leave but feel I’m going to be an absolute tyrant when I go back to work.

YABU - you shouldn’t loose your cool towards your kids in this situation
YANBU - you’ve got two small kids, snapping is part of the package

Youre only human, doing your best

Tomorrow is a new day and a chance to do things better

Try not to worry, all mums snap at some point 😄 x

You’re literally in the trenches right now. I have screamed into a pillow on more than one occasion especially at bedtime when I’m so done.

I have the same age gap and my DH is military so away a fair bit.

its so hard. What do you mean he slipped in his poo? Where was the poo? I would also loose my cool on this situation!

There's good nights and bad nights. Some nights you will feel like your a demon possessed and your children are monsters. Other nights are just stressful. I think most mums have lost their cool.

As my mother always said, tomorrow's another day to do it again.

Helps if you can find a routine that works but then that can go out window too depending on grumpy kids

You're in a really difficult situation OP. The men get to fuck off to work and have trips away while you're literally slipping in shit. It gets easier though and they aren't little for long(although it can feel never ending at the time). You're doing your best. The fact you are posting here means you are a great mum because you care and are worrying about it. Be kind to yourself. Get yourself a glass of wine/chocolate/cheese whatever your poison is and have a few deep breaths to get back to calm. I hated a lot of the young years which you aren't allowed to say out loud are you. 😂I much prefer life now when everyone can wipe their own arse and use their words to tell me what's wrong. Keep going, you're doing great. 💐

No shade here. I was hanging on by a thread with bedtime tonight. As soon as one settled the other one kicked off.

You are human. Hopefully they've settled now and you can chill.

Thank you so much for your reassuring comment.

Haha, regarding the poo… the toddler likes to have a tactical poo to delay bedtime. He insisted on carrying his potty to the bathroom, which inevitably spilled and slipped in 🤦🏻‍♀️ The frustration came from me telling him to stay still whilst I clean it up and instead he ran around and slipped again.

Only on this site have I see the pearl clutching about snapping, shouting, telling off. In real life this is what happens. People are humans.

I think your AIBU choices are unreasonable!

It’s really common to feel like you want to snap when you have two youngsters to coral, and many parents will have done so (me included). Two kids on your own is stressful when they both need you at the same time. But it’s not just part of the package to snap. It’s not a great way to parent. You can do things that minimize the stress. And you should. None of that is supposed to make you feel bad about a very normal human reaction. You just need to use this experience as a springboard to developing the skills you need to make it all less stressful.

There isn’t one solution. Different things work for different people (and, especially, for different children). So just try things out, keep changing what isn’t working. Make sure you have enough time for yourself and things to look forward to when in the middle of the stress. And give yourself some grace when it all goes to pot.

jeez. My throat is a little sore from the deep base bellow I just levelled at my 2!

Im exhausted. Most nights are a battle to get them to bed before 11pm due to ADHD in one. I know it’s not their fault but I’m not perfect and sometimes I lose my shit.

I have three age 9, 6 and 3 and I snap many a bed time. They wind eachother up, there are three of them, I'm tired after a full days work, I'm hungry, I need some exercise, nobody is brushing their teeth/hair, two of them are fighting, and the smallest one is about to embark on 45 mins of refusing to go to sleep. I snap because I do not have infinite patience. It may not be great parenting but understanding people have a limit is not a particularly bad lesson to learn.

Same here. 10 or 10.30 sometimes.

Even a saint would struggle to keep their cool.

Solidarity that things might get better.

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