Does it ever ease up?!

[okthen]

We have a 3yo and a 12mo. Today went like this:

4.30am 3yo wakes up (uncomfortable as she has worms)
Wakes 12mo up, he cries (he has a cold and is teething)
Feed baby
All back to sleep
5am, 5.30am- baby needs settling
6.30am all up and hungry
Breakfast, get kids dressed
Can't tackle massive pile of dirty clothes as have to wash all towels, sheets etc because of worms.
8am baby does massive liquid poo. Goes on high chair, his clothes, my clothes
Change his clothes
9am I have bath. 3yo comes in, needs a poo. Wants to get in bath with me, upset that she can't. I get out, wipe her bum.

And so it continues, we crash from snack to meal to more explosive shit, via nose-wiping, tantrum-calming, wrestling the baby away from the 3yo as she drags him round by his neck, dropping everything to take baby for a nap walk as he won't sleep, etc etc.

Now it's bedtime and me and dp are like shell-shocked soldiers staggering off the battlefield. There are literal mountains of washing heaped at every turn, the kitchen is pebble-dashed with grated cheese and pasta, we haven't washed up the lunch dishes, and it's Monday again tomorrow.

Surely weekends won't always be like this?!

I'm sure I don't need to add that I adore these children, and they bring immeasurable happiness to my life. I know we are so lucky, too, to have no big problems eg serious illness to deal with.

But... But, I'd really like to have a relaxing weekend, to sip a leisurely cup of coffee and read the weekend papers (without it being a scheduled 'me time' with the clock ticking...), to sleep all night for weeks at a time. To not deal with shit and nits and worms on a regular basis. To not be screamed at, by anyone. To want to stay up past 10pm.

Parents of older children, will I ever reach this holy land of tranquility, or is it a foolish dream?

My girls are 12 now and most of the time they are lovely, good company and like to get up about 10 am on non school days. Bliss.

I think it's easy to forget how it was though and the OPs description is hilarious. I wonder if it's only mums that forget and look back with rose tinted specs. Occasionally people will say to me " oh twins, bet that was hard when they were babies/tots" and I get all wistful and start to say how adorable they were and what a breeze it was, until DH cuts me short and reminds me what a bloody hard relentless task it all was, most of the time.

6yo dd is an utter delight. She needs me for very little. All of her essential needs she could manage herself if necessary. She can make a basic meal, bath herself, plait her own hair, tidy up and all the other things I found myself having to do for her a million times a day just a few short years ago. And they start becoming actively involved in their own families. They choose to do things for you instead of creating work for you. DD will get up before me and make me breakfast in bed. She'll tidy up mess as she sees it. She keeps an eye on the time and motivates herself to be ready. Having a child of about 3/4 and above is brilliantly rewarding after the sheer monotony of the first couple of years when you merely exist each day, achieve v little that anybody else would measure as remarkable and truly discover the meaning of doing just enough to get by. It's very hard to express to anybody who hasn't had children, the sheer relentlessness of caring for every little need a baby and toddler has. Ohhhh and the exquisite juxtaposition of loving them with utmost ferocity but also wanting them to just bog off for an hour.

Of course, I also have a 2yo who spends an alarming amount of time posting smallish things into things marginally bigger than they are in such a way that you can never un-unite the now useless objects. And drawing on things which aren't paper. And making so many indescribable, inarticulate noises at such volume that you feel like being declared as a rural cousin to the London zoo. Plus talking incessantly about tractors and combine harvesters and steam rollers and expecting me to join the feck in. And did I mention waking up seventy billion times a night just to sing/spin round the room/whinge/chat.

It does pass and becomes much easier.

And you do miss it. Eventually. But you have to reach the nadir of being so frazzled you can't quite remember the depths to which you sank and you replace the reality with lies memories of summer days and beatific smiles.

BTW, washing? I have two children with a spectacular vomiting/diarrhoea bug. Everything we own is in different piles, ranging from, bagged up because it's fetid to normal washing which I've hidden behind the laundry basket because I can't even imagine washing non-essentials for the next 8 weeks. Obviously I'm ill too having been vomited on spectacularly no less than 5 times in 4 hours on Saturday so I'm managing the piles of washing whilst clinging to a bucket and groaning.

show I feel like shaking my fist at the basket of 'normal' washing, taunting me with memories of how I thought we'd get it done on Saturday morning... Poor you being sick, feel better soon.

sandy I think there is more pressure on women to preface every -massive slight whinge with 'of course I adore my child/ren but'

2&5 to 12&15 are fine

Beyond that I don't know

~Show of bloodystumps, I'm very jealous and impressed with your 6 year old watching the time and motivating herself to be ready. I'm still waiting for that to kick in with one of my 12 year olds.

I am the first to admit that I have the most biddable, thoughtful, people-pleasing child in the world. She never tantrummed, doesn't complain and is generally the easiest child in the world to parent.

I also have ds who is parented in exactly the same way but is a whirling dervish of a boy and can out-tantrum any other child in the world. He does the opposite of what he is asked and cackles with the sheer pleasure of it.

They both sound lovely, show

Yes, it gets MUCH easier. Mine are six (next week), and 2.5 years and I feel that in the past few months we've finally passed into a new, easier phase. A child under two is hard bloody work, and a 3-year-old and a baby is hard bloody work, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I now get to read again, sleep all night long, get up at 7, and have some down time at weekends and on holiday. I'm recently out of the trenches, so I can totally relate to your description (though not the worms, thank goodness - yuk!). Hang in there OP.

Hasn't got easier here and mine are 5.5 and 2.5 :(. Full on relentlessness, never play together without violence resulting and today dd pooed in the Lego box. Everyone told me 5 year olds got easier, they were wrong in our case.

I am the first to admit that I have the most biddable, thoughtful, people-pleasing child in the world. She never tantrummed, doesn't complain and is generally the easiest child in the world to parent.

I've got one of them. I've also got 2 who are not at all like that. Life is fun....

I've just sat down and had a good cry. Shit day.

Mine are 6, 3 and 1. I think you go through days, weeks when you feel like you are drowning and other times when you can almost keep your head above water.
In saying that my 6 yr old DS is easy. The work comes from my very, very intense DD age 3 and my DS age 1. So yes, I already know, they do get easier. Some days are still shitty even with that knowledge!

Poor you princesspants as its dreadful when you feel like that. Having 3DC has definitely tipped me over the edge. DD1 is 6 and no trouble except that she tells longer stories than my mother,DS is nearly 3 and is a massive tearaway who drives me to the edge every day, DD2 is 6months and luckily an angel so far. Heaven help me when she starts moving and talking too......can't even see a pin prick of light at the end of the tunnel for the foreseeable future.....

Ah princesspants- I feel for you. We definitely want a third, and some days I think we must be insane... But there's no escaping that We're Not Done.

Do not do it okthen unless you are 100% sure. I was coping reasonably well with two but three has completely tipped me over the edge. My house is a state, I can only deal with one day at a time and struggle to plan ahead, I get nothing done all day, I lose my temper so easily, I can't spend the time I want to with each DC and I'm mainly really miserable. I'm selling this aren't I?

hen- I do feel 100% sure, weirdly enough- whilst knowing that it is, in some ways, mad. Do you believe the light at the end of the tunnel will emerge at some point? And do you think it will all be worth it then?

I'm feeling for the relentlessness for all of us.

I have a 9 year old with HFA, so she's a delight but ridiculously hard work, and a 3 year old who is lovely but doesn't sleep and tantrums quite a bit.

Throw in DH away mon-fri, my full time job and a stomach bug monday night and I could have just cried. God it's shit sometimes isn't it?

DH and I say its 23 hours of utter drudgery a day with 1 hour of lovely 'my hearts so full' moments

Stillenacht - no words but am holding your hand

Hen - we're thinking about a third (I know, bizarre isn't it!)

Would you say unless you're 100,000000000 sure not to? We're sort of ranging between, really want to and are we mad?!

Stillenacht, I echo Moobcross- you must be a warrior. Thanks for some perspective x

I was coping reasonably well with two but three has completely tipped me over the edge.

Same here

It has got better over the last year (DD3 is 6) but I'm not sure that I'll ever fully recover from the last 5 years.

Definitely no plans for a 3rd here.

DH and I were talking about this yesterday and saying that whilst we often get those massive surges of love for the children it rarely happens when they are together - only when we have some one to one time with them.

I'm just looking forward to a time we can be a bit more of a cohesive unit rather than having to divide and conquer all the time!

Ah thank you okthen and moobcross xx

It is relentlessly hard. Literally the only improvements over the last 10 years is that DS1 is so independent now. He has grown into such a mature boy (despite his brother being such hard work and they have never played together, not once) DS1 had to grow up pretty damn fast but compared to his peers he is like an adult now. DS2 is now 'functionally verbal' and can ask for things but thats as far as language goes.

Add my work (slave...sorry, teacher) to it. My life is bleeding nuts!

I always get all paranoid on these threads, because I loved the first two years and genuinely did find it a breeze most of the time. I used to stress a bit about sleep when that went bad and DS went through a phase of eating NOTHING but I generally enjoyed spending time with him and the rewarding parts far outweighed the drudge, although of course that was there as well.

Then since he turned 3 it's gone from bad to worse TBH :( I've come to the conclusion that I'm either depressed or just an utterly terrible mother. What's worse is I constantly feel guilty that he's an only child and/or fantasise that it would be easier or more interesting if I had more than one child, and hence, I want more. Plural more.

Maybe we will. I don't know if it's utterly insane to even consider it or if it will be the thing that helps me to enjoy it again. I never saw myself as a parent of one child, which is not to say there's anything wrong with that, it's just it's not me. It's very intense.

bertie if it's any help I really dislike one on one with my dc unless we are actually doing something as I cannot cope with the intenseness and constant attention they need.

Now taking my ds out for a fry up while dd is at her dads is lovely and we natter away, going shopping with him is lovely but jheeze at home he wants me to sit with him, play with him, he follows me around and wants to talk to me argh. Where as normally they talk to each other and sit with each other and don't tend to ask anything of me apart from if they can have this or that to eat. I would find one harder then 3.