Which stage or process in parenting do you think you made a right old mess of?

[notanumber]

I found potty training far and away the most difficult and stressful thing I have had to do as a parent. The only time I have ever hit one of my children has been over struggling to get him to use the toilet.

I don't think that I'm Mother of the Year or anything I do really, but false modesty forces me to declare otherwise, but I think I'm basically a pretty good parent. When it came to potty training though, I was a total disaster - I should have reported myself to Social Services.

Yet I've had friends who have breezed through it the bastards. However, they have really struggled with, say, breastfeeding which I loved.

Obviously this is so far - I am aware that there is probably many a nightmare scenario just waiting for me.

So what about you? Which stage or process did you find most unbearably awful challenging?

Supersal, that's some stuff to be proud of! Dd1 did a trip to Malawi last summer, and in October we left nos 2 and 4 home alone for a week - did them the world of good and they now get on much better. Just wish dd2 would tidy her ing bedroom.

Had to laugh at dd2 today - they were apparently talking about Mother's Day presents at school. Top gift seems to be Adele CD. Dd knows that if she bought me that, I'd force her to listen to it on every school run.

I'm feeling your pain TSC - I really am.

Luckily its only one of them. The other teenager can be a bit Victor Meldrew but generally he is a dream. If it was two of them at once being quite this obnoxious I don't think i'd still be sane.

The teenager bit.. I had two teenagers and a baby . So the big two were 9 and 12 yrs when little DS was born. They are now 20 and 23yrs (nearly) and little chap is now 10yrs. I was going through a bad time with partner and so didnt give them enough time or emotional energy. I feel so guilty now. . .
They know I love them though and am always there for them now, to help in any way I can...

sleep- messed that up for a long time, he still needs me to go to sleep, and he always had milk to go to sleep
breast-feeding, managed 8 months
but then he had milk out of a bottle til he was 3
feeding- ignored most of the fuss, and he eats ok now
potty training went ok, but I don't think that was down to me, it just happened
do ok with the tantrums too, there are a lot of them, but i have patience

I would do a lot differently
and yes, dreading the teenage years

potty training, closely followed by secondary school transfer! There's a lovely haitus (sp?) between about 6 and 10 when life's lovely!

tweens and early teens

Messed up on sleeping (and still paying for it 3 years later). Good at pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, weaning and potty training. Just the bloody sleep!

I found the weaning/sterilising everything stage very fiddly, especially when planning travel etc, having to take squeaky clean baby cutlery etc

Teeny baby BFing stage relatively straight forward, though often felt marooned in house with baby on booby for long periods

We potty trained two DCs with no problems, but third is refusing to entertain the idea of being nappyless, so I agree it can be hard - I recall with the others having to take those fold out potties everywhere we went .

A friend of mine once stood in a queue, in a terribly, terribly posh London store, with her merchandise/credit car in one hand and a turd-in-potty in the other hand, as her toddler had just pooed and she refused to loose her place in the queue

I messed up on education.
Really kicking myself that I didn't go private for them.

Big Big regret.

Teens

If a toddler has a tantrum you can ignore it or pick it up and put it in a safe place or distract it with something. You might not get enough sleep with a little one but you are not lying in bed at night distraught at the thought of what your toddler might be doing a) to themselves b) to their prospects c) to other people. If a teen does something you don't like or has a tantrum, or goes their own way against your advice, this can involve smoking/drug/porn addiction, alcoholism, truanting, sleeping rough, sleeping with other people from a young age, possible pregnancy and consequences or STD/STI's, violence to people and belongings in your home, stealing, getting in trouble with the police, screwing up their education and being so foul and abusive that it is hard to cope. Compared to that, potty-training and sorting out food issues and sleep issues is a breeze.

My teens are currently okay but they have had moments when they weren't and even slight brief versions of the things above feel like complete nightmares when you're the parent dealing with it and trying to help. Some teens will breeze through these years and be no problem at all but you can't tell which will be which.

if i could do it again I would be calm and lovely and never shout

I would stop tidying and cooking and cleaning etc, and play with them more

I say this to myself at least once a week...I have yet to listen to myself

Breastfeeding - never quite managed it for longer than a few weeks. Thought I had it down this time (DS3 only 11 days) and already have been defeated, I will personally regret it forever as this was the one thing in their whole life that ONLY I can do - selfish but true.

Going back to work too soon by allowing circumstances to dictate to me what I should do and then being pushed along into childcare I wasnt happy with.

However, I am brilliant at weaning, feeding good food, homework, reading, playing etc.

It all balances out and I have realised that parenthood carries with it some kind of failure complex/guilt for every single mother (prob fathers too) and that those guilts are different for everyone.

Tantrums, I've never been able to 'not' react to them, they wind me up and I simply can't help reacting which is completely the wrong thing to do. Which also meant that I ended up with a DD who knew I'd react so kept throwing them.. I was and consider myself to be completely crap at this.

I'm with the smug brigade when it's comes to potty training tho :)

I think the trickiest stage is the one you are at now!

Seriously, I had my children over 40 years ago and for me the worst part was when they were teenagers, not only because two of them sort of grunted for about a year and one of them was very morose, but they came through that. The very worst part was when they were out and about with mates (no mobile phones in those days) and especially when they were about 17 and they (or a friend) had just passed their driving test, and were out in cars. I will never forget lying in bed waiting to hear their keys in the door and never slept till they were all in.

My mom used to say "at least when they're little you know where they are" and I thought what a strange thing to say, but I knew what she meant when mine grew up and were teenagers. They're all married or with partners now and children of their own, so I don't have that particular worry, but I still worry about them if things go wrong.

To be honest I think we worry about our children from day 1 onwards........it's just that the nature of the worries are different, but the intensity doesn't change. I call it the agony and the exctasy!

Have 3 'kids' 11, 12, & 24 yes 24. Had it real easy with no1 dd, on the whole easy to train potty, dry nights, rarely cheeky then at 13 downhill ( didn't get along with stepdad) I didn't help much had post natal depression with dd 2 (now 11) an my younger brother died. Ds ( middle child) what a joy, so laid back he was horizontal. Quick to potty train, speak, eat anything put in front of him especially carrots and dry at night at approximate 2 1/2. Youngest, dd2 nightmare, fussy eater, harder to potty train, tantrum tilly was her nickname only now are we having the rare bed wetting! Each and everyone different, an I wouldn't swap any of them.

BeerTricksPotter. I am posting to say I love your name. (it made me laugh on a bad day)

I was such a good teenager

I wish I knew how my mother did it. I undid all her good work with dsis (7 years younger) who I persuaded her needed "more freedom" than I had. She was horrific to my mother as a teenager because of the very freedoms I never had! Dabbled with drugs, drank far too much, shacked up with a self-harming abusive lad at 17, nearly dropped out of school, didn't get good grades. It was pretty horrendously stressful!

On the other hand, although I excelled academically, my sister is extremely socially adept and now has a good job, car, lovely partner and is very close to my mother. I have much of this too, but just caused less hassle on the road there

Who knows how these things pan out??

I've only read the OP (sorry!)

I think it depends on the child and the parents really!

DS is now almost 17 and was an absolutely brilliant baby but a very difficult toddler and the years 7-11 were varied, but now he is a very easy teenager and we are actually very good friends! I look at him now and can't believe how well he has turned out - when he was 3, I was convinced he had been sent to make my life unbearable and more difficult (although he still managed to be adorable!!)

DD1 is 12 and was also an easy baby, a hilarious toddler, but quite difficult from the ages of about 4-10. She obviously has her bad days as we all do but seems to be doing ok so far. Strangely, I'm not looking forward to the teenage years with her, I fear they won't be as easy as they have with DS...

DD2 (have remarried so different father to the older ones) had lots of problems as a baby so it wouldn't be fair to say she was difficult but it was a challenging time. She is a hilarious toddler though and still is very 'easy' in comparison to most. She also has her difficult days but they all do really don't they!

With all of them I found weaning reasonably easy but potty training quite challenging. I don't want to sound smug but they have all slept through the night really well. DD2 has bowel problems and might not potty train for a long time so I'm happy with that...

Potty training also the worst thing for us so far. Worst two weeks of my life, actually. Social Services would have had a few words to say here, too. Settling at nursery was probably second worst. But I've only done the first 3.5 years, so who knows what horrors are in store .

My dd is 11
Tickiest stages so far in order

1. birth

2.potty training

1. breast feeding

Everything else pretty damn easy compared to these 3 things ( so far )

trickiest even