At breaking point with parenting; have lost hope of it getting better

[kettlesonnow]

I have posted about this before but not on this board. I don’t know how anybody can help me (so if I seem to be saying no a lot please don’t take that personally) but I need to reach out.

Basically I feel I made an absolutely huge mistake when we decided to have a second child and this haunts me almost daily. I have read threads on this and most seem to be from women with the youngest child aged under one, so things are still shaky. For us, well, we’re nearly three years in and it’s still fucking awful!

My two are five and nearly three. Apart, they are OK … definitely not perfect but manageable.

Together they are unmanageable and I have really tried to follow the advice and read the books and it hasn’t made any difference at all and I’m still miserable.

They work one another up, they won’t leave one another alone, if one is happy and playing quietly the other intervenes to ensure that ends. They become different people around one another and people who in all honesty aren’t very nice. I am frequently mortified by their behaviour to be honest and I’m conscious that makes me tense up and things more likely to go wrong.

I am now at the point where it isn’t advice on parenting I need but how the hell I can survive this without becoming someone I dislike too. I’ve become irritable and tense, impatient and easy to anger. I’m also absolutely filled with regret for the life I could have known. And I know I need to get past this because I can’t do anything about it now, but I just can’t.

I’m there with you. I don’t regret DS but the fighting, complaining, competition between them and just the mega stress of supervising constantly to ensure they’re not battering each other is so far from the ‘but they’ll play with each other’ scenario I anticipated when I had a 2nd.

I’m exhausted.

Thanks @Twisterlollies . It’s awful the way situations you can’t foresee somehow ruin the day or evening. Today ds came out of school with sweets from another child as it was their birthday. Cue dd whining she wants them. Tell ds to put them in his bag and have them later. Of course he ignores me and gets them out anyway. Dd screaming and charging around the house after ds wanting sweets; ds cackling manically and winding her up.

Sometimes I really wish I was parenting in the 1980s and I could give the pair of them a bloody big smack as I’m sick of it.

I’m so unhappy tonight. I wish I knew what to do. I saw my GP a few weeks ago and I wish I hadn’t bothered. I wish I could get myself into a more positive frame of mind but I can’t. All I can see are the tears ahead filled with screaming and yelling and conflict and then eventually they’ll both leave home without happy memories of their childhood,

Hi OP. I just came back to the thread to ask how you were after a couple of days off the website but can see you’ve already posted. How is your weekend going?

I absolutely 100% know what you mean about the screaming and conflict. My head is full of ‘noise’ - even when they’re not screaming, it’s still in fight or flight mode, I never get that feeling of calm stillness. Today has been challenging. Culminating in DS (3) throwing his dinner on the floor making an absolute mess, followed by an enormous tantrum. Every meal, every bedtime, every car journey is a challenge. My face is actively uglier from the amount of time I spend frowning, and the exhaustion. As I said before I’ve said the same thing ‘leave him/her alone’ ‘you’re spilling your food’ ‘don’t run off from the potty before I’ve wiped you’ ‘careful with your drink’ ‘stop screaming’ so many times I’ve developed a stammer and now have to actively state each word very slowly when I speak or I just trip over myself.

I just want to be sat in a pub garden, in the sun, with a friend, with no plans. Nowhere to be, no housework to do, no snot to wipe up, no endless bloody screaming. Just that free, summer night feeling I used to get.

Even typing this I’ve had to break as I’m trying to settle DS and DD keeps shouting through to wake him up.

I honestly feel my future is just exhaustion and moments of cortisol surging stress and screaming

Yes there is no such things as parenting so you can avoid the tantrums/fighting, whatever you do it will become a source of conflict and screaming.

What time do yours go to sleep? Mine haven’t been sleeping til quite late (between 8 and 9) I think because it’s so light at night now. But youngest is up at 6 so I have no evening either. And it’s not unusual for one of them to sleep talk, shout out randomly in the night or need the toilet so 70% of the time my sleep is broken. So I have no evening.

Do you have options to spend one on one time with each child during the week, even for just a few hours?

This is a well meaning comment but it leaves about 165 hours a week where they’re together.

It does yes but when you're drowning in parenting nightmare a change is as good as a rest. 1 can feel like a mini holiday when they're small.

I’m right there with OP and all 3 hours would do is slightly calm my nervous system but then instantly have to go back to the cortisol inducing stress again. I’d rather not have the break at all unless it was something significant and long enough for a proper rest.

What consequences are there when they misbehave? What works, what works partially, what doesn’t work at all?

Whats the father’s contribution to parenting?

I'm really sorry you're feeling like this. I think I've seen your posts before, you're certainly not alone, because I've been on here way too many years and I've seen posts like yours going back over 5 years as well. Parenting can be incredibly stressful.

What did the GP say? I am wondering if it's worth speaking to HV or someone more specialist in terms of either parent support (family hub if you have one?) or mental health. It might help to say you are having thoughts about hitting your children, even if you know you would never do this, to convey how stretched you are and how tough you are finding things.

OP said she doesn't need any more parenting advice, she is looking for support with her mental health.

Thank you.

I definitely wouldn’t be able to share any of this with a RL person and I don’t want to trigger intrusive interventions. I can parent them alone; I’m a good mum. I just really cannot manage them together.

What would you consider intrusive intervention? If you mean social services, having thoughts about smacking (which is not illegal in England, although I'm sure you know it's not likely to make anything better) is not going to summon them to your door. Your children are not in danger of harm. But it does sound like you need help and support, probably IRL support, and sometimes what it takes to get the support is to be honest that you are not coping.

I get that but at the same time I really don’t want it to be known I’m not coping (even though I’m not) because once that stable door has opened the horse has very much bolted.

And I’m not really having thoughts about smacking. I am just acknowledging that it’s very difficult to change a child’s behaviour without some sort of ‘fear’ sanction which I don’t have available to me if you see what I mean.

This is a horrible situation for you OP. You have my full sympathy. Kids fighting can be so relentless, infuriating, and means you can’t turn your back on them to get your own stuff done, which just exacerbates all the stress and makes life feel impossible. And I know what you mean about not wanting to turn into someone you don’t like. I can fully relate to that.

I just want to say they are very likely to grow out of it. Not completely, but enough not to feel this awful for you.

Is there any way you could instigate a play date and get either of them out of the house? It sounds like having them away from each other as much as you can is actually the break you need. (& I use the term “break” very loosely).

I am someone who finds it hard to ask for help and my kids didn’t do many drop-off style play dates when they were little. But I was surprised how many other people seemed to have arrangements to pick each other’s kids up etc. They must have asked each other for help.

I don’t know much about your circumstances. I know this is easier said than done sometimes.

I really wish I could hold onto that @hellohellohellohiya but it isn’t just the arguing and screaming, it’s the way they are whipped into a bit of a frenzy so easily together and egg one another on to do things they just don’t do alone. I’ve probably not explained that well. I’ve become the most horrible mother lately. I shout; I say things that are awful because I’m desperately trying to shock them out of whatever stupid shit they are doing, I’ve cried, they’ve cried. It’s horrible.

They aren’t together all the time but they have to be sometimes if you see what I mean.

You’re not alone. DS came through at 6am this morning and all I could think about were my child free friends having a leisurely lie in and then getting to choose what they do today, something that I briefly experienced now seems like an impossible fantasy. Then the fighting started straight away. Honestly some days I just want to run away and hide

Same, climbing over me, elbows in my breasts, stomach, legs. Shrieks of indignation and cackles of laughter. It’s miserable.

I’m also shocked at how long this goes on for. I really thought by 4ish most of the highly needy behaviour would be dissipating but DD at nearly 7 is still like a limpet and wakes me up to get in my bed every morning etc

It just all feels so much more intense and persistent than I thought it would be at this point.

I find it hard to think we are ever going to move into the next ‘stage’ where I’m not relentlessly pestered

Where is your partner in all of this and what childcare are you utilising?

I have nursery, school and DP, while it helps, I still feel the way I do. I’m either working or looking after the kids or doing housework. My sleep is still interfered with every night. I still have to sit at the table while they scream and throw food every evening. I’m still woke up at 6am by elbows digging into me. A weekly hour of yoga won’t touch the sides. And DH feels the same way a lot of the time. We are both quite down.

My ds is quite independent and if I ask him to go back to bed for a bit with his Tonie box he will but not if dd is up and about and she shouts MUMMY … MUMMY from her room.

Partner. So in the week he’s always been at work a lot - sometimes away, sometimes leaving for work at 630-7 and getting back 7-730, so either will children in bed or only just out of it / about to get in it.

Even if DH is there, in the same room as them and I am say trying to have a shower or something they will STILL come and find me and tell me something. Every time.

But it is all very difficult at the moment as DH is … not sure how to explain this but basically crippled following a fall on ice a few months ago. Various tests and other things have been inconclusive; he has some more this week. So that’s not helping my stress levels!

@kettlesonnow what do you mean by saying once people know you’re not coping the horse will have bolted?
What do you think will happen if you’re honest about it?

My question is genuine is not a criticism.

I’m a single mother of 2 with severe mental health challenges and I felt like you a lot over the years. I can do them both on their own just about but together it’s an absolute nightmare.