Feel like my dd is actually making me unwell

[burntoutt]

I know this sounds awful and I would never say it out loud hence posting here. I have a 4 year old dd who will be starting school in September. She is a lovely, vivacious, hilarious child and I truly adore her but she is so demanding. From the moment she wakes up she wants something, be it food, attention, things getting for her, me to play with her. I know this is all quite normal. In the last 6 months her behaviour has taken a turn for the worst and there has been a lot more silliness, not listening, tantrums, quite babyish behaviour at times. We’ve had to leave places with my older dc over the holidays because despite trying to be firm and have boundaries, her behaviour just becomes unmanageable.

She has worn me out since the day she was born. No family support other than Dh who works full time and isn’t around as much as me (I work pt). He’s also not great at managing the behaviour, he loves her but I’m very much the primary parent. We went on a holiday earlier on this year and he was just miserable throughout because he couldn’t cope with her. That’s another story.

I’ve suffered from anxiety in the past but have been a lot better the past few years. However since this decline in behaviour I genuinely feel my anxiety creeping up again. I feel like I’m hyper vigilant at all times, waiting for the next demand or tantrum. During the holiday I was trying so hard to keep everyone happy and manage her behaviour that I had a bit of a crash out and just felt shocking all week - really anxious, couldn’t eat properly, bad stomach, like I was physically ill. This feeling hasn’t truly left. I am overwhelmed and exhausted. The only time I feel properly able to relax is when she’s asleep. I hate saying this as I know it’s fairly standard and that it’s probably because she’s ready to start school at which point things will hopefully calm down and I’ll get a bit more time just for myself too. But I feel so pathetic that I’m suffering from anxiety of trying to parent my own child. Can anyone relate?

Yes I can relate, my kids are demanding, contrary, negative, noise machines (as well as being funny, creative and lovely). They just genuinely seem less reasonable than my friends’ kids!

You sound really burned out which is understandable. In the same situation I just tried to add any possible extra resource to the family. Extra uniform so we could wash less, batch cooking and picnic dinners, lowering expectations on cleaning (and then lowering them again 🤪). Spending so much more time outside. I got a meditation app just to sit in stillness for ten minutes at a time (Plum Village is free). Also making sure I went out with friends. Can your DH step up a bit?

The summer before starting school is very difficult

You are the fourth person I've heard say that this week

It gets better, I promise

You’re not alone in this. I think everyone finds parenting overwhelming in one way or another and it’s ok to admit that.

She absolutely is just ready for school and once she is there, she will use her brain more, and be more active and be naturally more relaxed.. hopefully. She might have a period of being overstimulated at first; and that might be hard.

I think you need some time to be you. Not mum, not work you, not wife. You’ll find getting this easier once she’s at school, especially if you continue to work part time.

I’ve always worked part time so that I’ve always got time to just be myself, first I would just rest on my days, go for a walk, catch up with odd jobs.. but as I got more comfortable with it, I then started going for brunch in my favourite places or to my favourite restaurant for tiramisu just because, to the cinema, spa so on and so on.

your husband will probably need the same grace, somewhere along the line.

behaviour is such a tricky thing, because children don’t know how to behave , the just go off of what they want when they want it. 🤣

Not unreasonable at all! Sounds like you need more breaks to recharge - is that possible?

Thank you for the kind comments. I feel so ridiculous being this affected by parenting my own child. I just feel drained. On my days off with her I try and get on with errands and jobs and she is quite capable of playing alone for a little bit but I’m just on high alert always for the inevitable ‘mummy’. As I said, it’s like hyper vigilance awaiting the next interruption, demand or tantrum.

It’s not really possible for me to get more breaks at the moment but when she’s in school it might get easier. I could do stuff on an evening when she’s in bed but by that point I’m so knackered I can’t really face going out.

You don’t always need to go out,

I didn’t experience this due to parenting but, did due to other reasons and I had a really incredible therapist that said .. sometimes it’s about tending to one of your needs. She told me to take 10 minutes, and just do one thing I wanted to do in a way I wanted to do it every day and make it routine. My children were 2 and 6 at the time, once they were in bed I would sit in my egg chair in the garden having a hot chocolate. Just listening to the world.

maybe you just need to add one thing into your routine? Something that takes just 10 minutes, then build it up once she’s in school and you have more time. X