My 2yr old dd is unrecognisable, I can't cope

[cupcakes4all]

My dd is 2 this week. About 3 weeks ago her baby sister was born. Initially all seemed well but things have rapidly started to disintegrate.

She has started to wake howling and screaming nearly every night at 2am, crying for us, sobbing and then running around, wanting to play, still sobbing and saying no to everything.

I am literally sat here in tears, I am so worn out. She has come back from nursery and I have just endured a complete meltdown. She didn't want to eat lunch, I then had to bundle her upstairs (not easy with csec scar) and then the nightmare ensued: she was thrashing and screaming, pushing me and yanking her top off, nearly strangulating herself. I tried to pin her down, to keep her from hitting her head or kicking my scar, she screamed herself into a rage. I then let her go and she stood in a corner, still crying like mad, tears and snot streaming. I have smacked her on the bottom. I feel like shit, I then started crying myself and I feel like a terrible mother, I can't cope. I should never have hit her.

I have been hit so much as a child and vowed never to smack mine but I just did. I'm at the end of my tether.

I don't recognize my dd anymore. In nursery she hugged and kissed me when I came in. I don't even want to scream at her, I feel so guilty now. What should I have done? What can I do? Why is she like this?

I currently have my mum here and try to spend as much time with my dd, leaving the newborn to my mum but the csec scar makes it difficult to bathe and carry my elder daughter.

Please I'm despairing.

i'm with you cupcakes..have just posted similar thread. i also resorted to shouting and smacking and feel terrible. BUT WE ARE KNACKERED!!!!
here's to a better week this week :)

The first 3 months of DS2's life was pure hell for me. I remembered when he was six weeks old, I was at a play group's Christmas party, DS1 was going through a particularly foul teething phase, I was ill and DS2 was being... well... a 6-week-old baby; completely unpredictable. I remembered thinking I CANNOT GO ON, I JUST CAN'T. I was all over the place. I shouted at DS1 all the time. He watched TV ALL DAY LONG cos I couldn't deal with him otherwise... Every night I went to bed in tears swearing I will be a better mum tomorrow. It was horrid. But things slowly got better...

DS1 is now 2.7 and DS2 11 months old and we have pretty good days most of the time now. The shouting/smacking ( I did smack DS1 a few times in the early days as I would see RED at some of the stuff he did!) has mostly gone. We get out and about to do fun stuff, DS2 laughs at DS1 in a way no one else can. DS1 tells me a dozen times a day how much he loves me and his brother. It's really nice! We still have bad days now and then but nothing like before.

Hang on in there, the first few weeks are horrendous as your DD1 is reacting to an event that she probably realises is going to change her life but cannot quite understand it and she is trying to process it in her own way... Take care!