Dear people who were parents of toddlers in lockdown

[jallopeno]

How on earth did you manage?!!

I'm so sorry. I don't think I realised how much of a struggle it must have been. Hope you're doing OK.

I have a 3 year old (born spring 2020) and while it was a sad year for many reasons, it was also fine being in a baby bubble and on mat leave.

I am often at the playground with my 3 year old and can't quite believe it's the same playground which had tape around it 3 years ago. In 2020, I hadn't been in a playground for about 20 years so it didn't really register what a ridiculous thing it was to be banned from it. They are such a saviour for getting out the house and burning off some energy/seeing other people.

My dd turned 4 just before the first lock down.
DH was working but I wasn't. He was working from home but was so unbelievably busy we wouldn't see him from 8am till 8pm most days so I was parenting alone. It was awful.
Dd was used to going to a childminder 3 days a week, and when she wasn't there we would be out seeing people and going to different groups.
I think I've blocked most of the lock down out but one vivid memory I have is DD banging on our front door screaming to be let to go out.
Now at 7 she's seem ok, but does struggle to play alone, doesn't like quiet and we haven't managed to break her dependence on screens.

DDs were 3 and 5 when we went into lockdown. Both DH and I worked full time in an industry that was extra busy thanks to Covid. The girls basically spent far too much time on screens and the oldest essentially babysitting the youngest while we were on calls. In Scotland as well so they were longer than other places as well.

Most horrendous time of our lives being terrible employees trying to juggle kinds,work and some home schooling, terrible teacher and terrible parent. Working at 5.30am and finishing at 11pm to get everything done and spend some time in between with the kids. All the while watching our NHS staff neighbours putting their kids into key worker childcare and heading off for leisurely bike rides together. Younger DS is more shouty as others mentioned and even now hates being parted for me in the house and follows me around like a sheep. I don't think the memories of how bad it for us will ever go away

I had a 2 year old with additional needs to look after who I couldn’t get any help for, a night shift job to work and an older child to home school all day while dh still worked and I did it all completely alone no bubbles or childcare at all. I ended up having a break down and went on antidepressants, the anti depressants caused a rare illness that I had to take steroids to fix but will never fully go away. I have honestly only just started to re build my life and when people start talking about new variants I feel my panic rising and I feel sick. It was the worst time of my life!

I had a 1 year old and a just turned 3 year old - some days I loved it, others it was hell. Thankfully we have a big garden so we were outside most days and we had a lovely neighbour with a child the same age so they could have water fights over the fence and talk to each other. Hubby was still in work ft so everything was left to me and looking back its where my anxiety and problems with my mental health began as I felt others had it worse so I couldn't say how much I was struggling.

I had a 2 year old (now 5.5) and both DH and I work in high pressure professional jobs (lawyers). We'd also moved into a small flat with no garden as our new house was being renovated - worst timing but couldn't have known!

It was absolutely brutal and easily the worst time of my career/life as a parent. DH and I worked 2 hour shifts between 6am-8pm so would cram calls and tasks that required focus into those hours and looked after DS when we were off shift. In reality we'd be fielding emails/calls in those times and were generally shit parents. There was a lot of screen time. We'd then continue working until midnight after DS went to bed.

I honestly don't know how we did it plus a renovation at the same time. I work in a company full of young employees, very few with children. They were doing Pilates and eating healthily while I was crying into my chocolate out of desperation. Put on loads of weight as zero time to do anything but work and try to parent (badly).

But, while it was truly awful, there were other people who had it hard too (worse). We didn't have to home school, DS wasn't in a critical school stage, we weren't key workers putting our lives at risk in hospitals, we had each other and weren't lonely living alone. We had some lovely times - long walks and seeing friends when we were allowed to. But it was awful the vast majority of the time!

My twins were just turned two when first lockdown hit. They had also just stopped napping. It was really really hard. I can’t stand the theme tune to Teletubbies any
more as it bring me back, not in a good way!

thanks for this thread. You’re right it wasn’t the best of times! I had a 1 year old. I quit my job to look after him and home school my other dc, I was lucky we could afford to.

DC didn’t know any different but sometimes he would just stand by the gates to our local playground, you could see him longing to go in. The first day the playgrounds re-opened, we went - and of course someone came over with their dog and yelled at me about breaking the law and risking lives (they obviously missed the news that it was okay to use the play areas again), it was a horrible experience and they threatened to call the police!. I walked home shaking and cried for about half an hour.

But I felt most sorry for people in flats. We were in our garden an awful lot. I cannot begin to imagine being imprisoned in a flat with young kids all those months.

Ah OP, that's a really lovely post. Thanks!

When lockdown hit I had a 2 year old daughter, was 6 months pregnant, and was preparing to move house We were days away from exchanging contracts. At the same time DH and I both had to work from home and juggle our DD. Luckily our work lets us adjust our hours, DH worked 6-2.30ish. I would put DD down for her nap and worked 1-9.

Thankfully though as my maternity leave started DH could go back to normal hours and they relaxed the rules slightly. It meant we ended up moving house one week before baby was due, my DH was allowed to be there for the birth and I didn’t have to wear a mask during labour.

The fact that I count myself as lucky for that is ridiculous!!!

Being in the new project house, with a toddler and a new baby with no help and nowhere to go was next level difficult. It’s the sole reason I will not have another child. I’m not putting myself through that again!

Thanks for this post. It was shit and it made me feel a bit fuzzy and warm to get some recognition. We all need recognition don’t we? Human beings are funny creatures.

The ONS ran a weekly survey about mental health /wellbeing during at least the first lockdown (have forgotten details, will see if can find a link) and I read some interesting analysis which showed that for families with kids under about 10 the parents' mental health suffered a great deal (on average of course) but where the kids were 10 and up the parents were less impacted but the children suffered more. Obvious really but interesting to see it borne out in research.

My eldest kids were young primary age during lockdown 1, I was heavily pregnant with my youngest and working much more than my usual hours due to half my team being furloughed. Childcare and WFH was awful, I remember several.times waking up and just crying about the day ahead.

I only did it for a short time as went on mat leave as soon as I possibly could, then homeschooling with a newborn in tow was nothing compared to the stress of work with a child hovering/charging about needing attention you couldn't give it. (Though the later lockdown in winter to spring 2021 was another story - homeschooling got more serious and the baby was on the move, everyone was bored and fed up and stressed, it felt like one long dark cold afternoon)

I feel angry and sad on behalf of those of you who did childcare and WFH for longer and with younger kids. I also feel angry and sad on behalf of my teenage family.members who suffered anxiety, isolation, mental and physical health impacts during and after lockdowns. Neither experience negates the other, there were lots of ways to suffer in lockdown

Thanks OP. Our lockdown was a mix and match of everyone else's stories above. Pregnant, feral toddler, full-on work, relationship strain, wall-to-wall TV, fear, guilt, loss, weight gain, issues we have never been able to put right since.

Puddle jumping...if you know you know...

My 4yo is about to start school and I've been wondering what the impact of lockdown is like on this reception cohort.

I am very glad I did not have primary school aged children. My colleagues who did were broken humans.

I just want to add that as tough as I found it. I felt more sorry for the new mums who had to give birth on there own in them first few months, who then didn’t have the opportunity to find their “mum friends”. And when you eventually went to baby classes you had to stay 2meters apart so you never spoke to anyone anyway.

The adjustment to mum life is hard enough when you can go out and see people. I couldn’t imagine doing it stuck at home.

Also, those who did home schooling of little ones who couldn’t read or understand tasks set by themselves, I couldn’t even comprehend having to do that whilst working as well.

My youngest was 3.5y at the start of lockdown.
It was fine. Maybe she watched too much tv. I took a lot if meetings on Teans with her on my lap. My colleagues were accommodating. Everyone had different struggles.

I think i have blanked out these memories! I had a 1yo and a 2.5yo when it kicked off, and we both worked. High risk family as well so home alone for ages

I do feel like psychologically and emotionally school agw/teenage kids had it worse, but gosh it was physically hard!

My DDs were 3 and 7 when lockdown started. DH and I were full time WFH, any spare time we had was trying to homeschool the 7 year old, so the 3 year old basically sat on screen a lot of the time. I felt horrendously guilty and it affected my mental health a lot - along with the onset of perimenopause, not that I knew what it was then! It was a pretty shit time!

Thankfully her nursery opened as soon as they were able (I think it was after 10 weeks) and things instantly became a lot easier.

All that said, with hindsight, I do think my kids did escape relatively unscathed from lockdown, as they were so young and were happy enough being at home with us which I am forever grateful for. I think teenagers suffered a lot more and missed out on so much.

My DD loved being at home with us and was delighted not to have to go to childminder. My work was great and really supportive. It was a stressful time but also a very precious opportunity to spend quality time as a family.

I agree that it was hugely worse for older kids. If it happened now I think she would suffer horribly as she's such a social child.

Same. I still feel resentful. Of those people and teachers!

I had an 18 month old and a 3 year old and it was hell in some ways. Then I got furloughed and it was a bit better but Jesus, I wouldn't want to go back!

My lowest point was when someone shouted at me in Tesco for my buggy being too close to her, and another time on a bus, someone threw the nappies I had just bought at ASDA at my head narrowly missing DD in the buggy because I refused to sit in the wobbly wobbly seat with a tick in it and sat in the accessible seat with a X on it, even though I was still as legally far away from her as necessary. I used to have to hang three to four heavy bags of shopping off the handles and walk home with them, because they didn't make single mums with no car a priority for delivery slots. I'd have to hold the buggy for ages on the bus because it would tip otherwise, and drivers never waited long enough for me to take the bags off the buggy. With hypermobility, diastasis recti, breastfeeding, sleep deprived, and still not really recovered from pregnancy/long labour the year before. Just as the lockdown started was when I was getting my life into some kind of good routine after homelessness- new home, baby clubs, weekly delivery, settling into motherhood, budgeting for nice days out.
I'm still not really recovered from the chaos and isolation it created for me.

It was horrible and I felt like I was loosing my mind. I had a 2.5 year old and 5 month old so was on maternity leave. My husband was still able to work out of the house so wasn’t home until 7 or 8 most nights. At one point he was the only adult I spoke to in person for 3 months. I don’t think he realises to this day how awful it was.
We are in Scotland so the play parks were shut for a while which was rubbish as we lived directly opposite our park and couldn’t leave the house without walking past it and it was hard to explain to a toddler why we couldn’t ever go in at that point.

My DD turned 1 during the first lockdown. We moved in with my in-laws and all four of us wfh while tag-teaming looking after her. Even with that she was a bit neglected, I don't know how we'd have coped if we hadn't been able to move in. We watched them announce that schools & nurseries were closing, and packed there and then (PILs had invited us by this point of course!)

I nearly cried with relief when the nurseries opened back up, and again when they re-closed the schools later on but kept nurseries open.