This is a little hard for me, but I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how I can build a better relationship with my eldest child. I have four children, aged between 1 and 6. My younger two, they are babies and I have endless patience with them, my older two not so much, which I feel very guilty about. My 5 year old is a dream for the most, she loves her siblings, helps me about the house and is generally a very laid back child.
My eldest is 6 and is a very polite, bright little girl. She also has endless energy and I tend to find she wears me out the most. She is going through a bit of a phase just now of being rather ungrateful for treats/days out and I am finding it hard to not be irritable with her and keep my patience. I have recently been diagnosed with PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) and have started taking medication for it, as well as new job where I work three shifts a week until the early hours, so I know these are all probably factors in how i am acting recently, but if I am honest, I have always found her rather hard work and I would really like to build a better relationship with her, instead of maybe expecting too much from her because she is the 'eldest'.
The problem is, I have so little time, in between school runs, caring for all of them, meals, housework and work. I am exhausted most nights and tend to be a bit protective of any spare time I do manage to get. I am wondering if there are other people out there that are in a similar boat and how they juggle everything, if there might be any tips or advice on things I can do to improve how things are at the moment. I hope that made some sort of sense, I am pretty tired right now!