Mum guilt and entertaining 4 year old

[boopbooo]

DD,4, is lovely but after mat leave followed by both me and DH being furloughed then me wfh she expects a lot of attention. No family around.
DH and I try to do 1-1 time with her but she still wants us to play ALL the time and at this point I hate it a bit, also because she is then often very silly or really bossy so it's not enjoyable for us or bonding.
We do loads of activities with her at home and locally, days out, two nice holidays this year, play dates wherever possible etc but I feel horrendous mum guilt if I'm not constantly doing what she wants/playing with her but also have stuff to do at home etc and don't want to be bossed about/play pretend for hours on end. We can't seem to get the balance right and I find it makes me anxious.
Friends often comment on how their kids will play for hours by themselves which makes me feel awful. Her birth was extremely traumatic, I was rushed to surgery and didn't meet her til following day so I'm sure that plays into my mum guilt also. We also get lots of comments on how one is easy and sometimes it doesn't feel that way when you are their play mate. I don't feel I'm enjoying my much longed for child and just feel down all the time.
Even reading this I sound awful and think I shouldn't have had a child.

Also all our friends have gone on to have a second and when we see them playing together I feel so guilty too. Can't have another due to birth injuries.

Does she go to nursery?

Yes three full days when I'm working, we go to play groups, soft play, play dates etc usually mornings on my days off.
We usually find most people have more than one and are not as bothered about meeting up as us as they have a sibling to play with.

You’re not alone. This is such an only/oldest child thing. My 4YO wants to play pretend all day, every day, and has zero interest in playing with our 2YO (who, in fairness, is not yet verbal enough to include in pretend)

She has no interest in pretend alone, or pretending anything mundane. It is always TV characters or books. I would preface this by saying we cut out TV before summer started and that has really added to this.

She wants you to do all the heavy lifting as a parent; if she wants to play paw patrol, you’re being in charge and coming up with the problems to be solved and she’s… not really solving them, or actively contradicting them, or immediately declaring she doesn’t actually want to play after haranguing you for half an hour to drop everything to play pretend (only to ask again two minutes later) It becomes Parent Theatre and it took her a very long time to learn that we won’t tolerate any pretend game that just involves her character whining endlessly with no way to be satisfied.

I started trying to wean her off it gently, but it got to the stage where, when we went to a setting where she was comfortable and familiar and could go make new friends, she just started looking for me to play with her instead. I’ve been pretty much tying “pretend” to a single activity a day (something I need to otherwise do anyway like a dog walk or hanging laundry) and refusing otherwise.

I’m a stay at home parent with an other half who works 12+ hour days and travels often for work. It genuinely was affecting my day to day life because it was relentless there for a while. Thankfully she does seem to now be growing out of the constant need.

@notenoughteaintheworld
Yes when we go to groups she will often ask me to go play with her when she has friends there, ffs!
Often she will assign us all roles in pretend play then we have no idea what we are doing or just have to run about.
We have started to involve her in helping with chores or cooking etc but tends to be a bit of a pain and ten times the mess tbh