How well would you say you were coping?

[specialmagiclady]

I've got 2 x DSs, 21.6 and 20 weeks old respectively. And I just feel like in lots of ways I'm not coping. Not emotionally, I'm not depressed, but physically!

I'm a pretty good mum, my babies are darlings. But I can't get ANYTHING done. For every wash I put on, two seem to materialise. I'm hardly cooking any more. My husband comes home from work and does almost all the housework. I've been trying to organise a naming ceremony and building work and it just feels like I'm swimming through custard every day.

I don't even get to make the beds for some reason. This was always my absolute must-do in terms of housework - you know, it could look like a bomb's hit the rest of the room but if the bed's made it's okay. But now that's out the window.

I have a cleaner and DS1 goes to nursery 2 mornings a week, so I have LOADS of help. My husband is incredibly cooperative. I'm sure that my friends who all have toddlers and new babies get so much more done than me. Some of them run part-time businesses and volunteer as well, and I can't even keep my house tidy. Gaaaah!

I know I shouldn't compare myself to others, but if you don't know how high the tide is, how do you know how hard you have to swim to keep your head above water??

So, how well are you doing?

Kathy, I don't mind the glitter too much, it does look quite pretty, it's all over the carpet, walls, our hair and clothes, but DH is sure he looks very silly at work doing an important presenttion with glitter all over his face! I think it looks quite cute on him!

Yes, I utterly agree with Anchovy. If your kids don't have SN (as Gess pointed out on my custardly thread) this is the toughest bit. Honestly. My two are really very lovely and frequently quite human these days.

Listen, we had to leave the house today to get DD1 to an appointment - I quit my desk (have been doing some work with no childcare), bellowed WE'RE OFF PUT YOUR SHOES ON and, er, two minutes later we were out of the door. One day that will be you, too.

Indeed, we're going out for pizza in 10 minutes (my bribery for them leaving me alone to ahem 'work' this afternoon) and all I'll have to do is bellow again. Practise bellowing, and you'll have the full skillset for smallish but not tiny kids, I promise.

How funny - my experience is exactly the same. Sometimes I bellow "WILL you go and [brush your teeth/put your jackets on/collect you bags]" and, er, they do. End of story.

erm. to put it bluntly....IM F'ING NOT!!! everythings upside down and the place looks like a bomb has hit it. lol. I have a cleaner but shes rubbish. think i should sack her....oops its me!!!

My HV said when I was due to have dc3, as long as the dc are fed and have clean clothes (not ironed note!!) then you're doing OK. my dh's work friend added clean kitchen and bathroom to that , not sure that always works but i did feel bad whn ds noticed i had made his bed and said thank you anyone with children especially small ones knows how hard it is. i am always telling myself tomorrow i will get it soted/start flylady/ clear out the washing mountain in the garage.....but so far tomoorow hasn't come

When I read this thread title my reaction was to think about how well I'm coping emotionally with the dc - as in, are they happy? Am I happy? Is dh happy? And the answer most of the time is yes, I have two really happy, creative, energetic dc and I love looking after them. And I am really happy in my marriage too.

The house, on the other hand, is a bit...well, scruffy! Atm there are remains of a marble run all over the floor, evidence of card-making activities with the dc on the table, piles of papers to be sorted next to me. And a kitchen that needs a bit of a going-over. I'm a bit stressed because I have a friend coming to babysit on Sat whose house is perfect and I know there's no way I can get this place looking as good as hers by Sat. It's silly to compare, I know, but it's human nature I guess.

I try my best with the house but I'm not a natural housewifey-type and really it's the people who are more important. It's impossible to be brilliant at everything, and when your dc are little it's more important IMO to love them and spend time with them rather than living in a perfect palace.

I am the type of person who is their own worst enemy. I make rules for myself, almost as a gauge to how well I am doing,w hcih I find I do now that I am no longer at work with targets and a boss to tell me instead.

I come downstairs in the morning, the boys play or watch tv (nearly 3 and just 1). Make tea and play with them.

Do breakfast, turn telly off they play while i wash up and clear up.

I iron or put laundry on, they play, no telly, they "help" me hoover.

9.30am, DS2 goes to bed, DS1 gets TV on and juice and fruit, I shower, make beds, tidy upstairs, dress DS1, brush his teeth, wash his face etc.

10.30am, DS2 wakes up, we all go out, put them in the car, and dash back in to fling toys away, and clear floors. Come home to a tidy house that way.

I make it sound like hard work, and yes it is, but I keep my house and there fore my head ordered and can't operate any other way.

Anchovy and MotherInferior - Gawd bless you both.

Message withdrawn

I'm untidy.

The house is a mess. If I have time without dd I read the paper, a book, MN or (only if a deadline looms) do some study.

I've stopped feeling bad about it. Partly because I've moved to a bigger house where it's easier to dilute the mess and make it look marginally acceptable, but mostly because it's part of my big self-acceptance drive.

I'm a bit of a nerd (took a long time to become comfortable with that), I'm rather intense on some issues and way too frivolous on others (usually the opposite to those around me), I'm never going to be a size 10 (or 12 for that matter....) and I'm untidy. And it ain't gonna change.

[Grin]

Repeat after me: it doesn't get any worse than this.

I read that post out to DH and he said, 'It does if you have more children.'

Bellowing also therapeutic. Oxygenates you, makes you take deep breaths, and all. Keep bellowing, and all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.

Oh I heart mumsnet! I feel so much better. Also because Fridays are my favourite day - DS1 in nursery all morning and cleaner here!

Meanwhile I've got to go and get venue sorted for DS2's naming ceremony tomorrow, MIL, FIL, BIL & SIL all arrive lunchtime. Only just recovered from camping last weekend (we've done NINE washes in this house this week!)

Glad to hear bellowing is valued life skill. I am a prodigious bellower - early vocal training means my voice can reach into the very belly of hell if I want!

Keep it coming, all you non-copers out there. And provided i don't spawn again, this is the worst it can be? amen to that!

NOT AT ALL

My mother was a primary school teacher "of the old school". I believe they learned bellowing at teacher training college. I seemed to have picked it up the knack of it perfectly

Rosylea I wish I was more like you!! I am the opposite tomost posters on this thread. I was brought up to clean all the time and seem to cope well with looking after DD1 18months and DD2 12 weeks and keeping the house clea, washing done, cooked dinners each night and house clean and all pretty nice for when DH comes home but I am constantly wracked with guilt that this cleaning fettish that is in my genes means I am not spening enough quality time with the DC.

I make sure I take them out every day even if only to feed the ducks and I do play with them but tend to do half an hour with them then a couple of household jobs and break the day up like that. I wish I could be happy to live a bit more messily and spend all my time with them in their precious young years :-(

RFCMummy - then do it!

Me and you both, trinityrhino!

I dont iron. Tidy house every eve, but complete mess again by next day. DD and a cockatoo=very messy house. Constantly seem to be washing up, since dish washer broke and always doing clothes washing. Hate hwk and very worried about what state house will be in when go back to work 5 days and not 4 in Sept (am a teacher). Amongst the chaos, dd seems to be doing wonderfully. Luckliy I am not house proud, neither is dh and fortunately my mum lives far away so she does not see the mess. Actually, the only time I do REALLY tidy, is when she visits and that is once in a blue moon.

I am if not drowining then frantically paddling in
junk mail - rafts of it
Detrius from the car from a day out that just gets dumped in the kitchen
socks
feeding an ever hungry 12 year old
trying not to let the 6 year old watch too much telly and not Tracey Beaker
bits from the holiday which STILL haven't gone back where they should
newspaper
marking still to do (am a teacher)
Sonnets and love poetry (see above)
the bathrooms which really should be cleaned but I can't be arsed
The garden which looks like a jungle
My elderly parents who want to climb up wobbly step ladders to pick my damsons
Making interesting things with the sodding damsons
Plums, buckets of lovely but irritatiing plums which the tree has produced (more cooking...)
Finding school shoes for the 12 year old with ENORMOUS feet who won't do shoe laces (dysraxic) or slip ons. (derth of velcro at big sizes)

Sod it. Going to read a book

Coping?

All my carefully prepared wholesome single-portions of soup/casserole/healthy lentilly homemade ready-meals are languishing at the bottom of the freezer because all I have time or energy for is toast.

I can regularly be found sporting fetching combinations of pyjama bottoms and sequined strappy tops and winter coats because I have nothing clean left to wear apart from what lives on the floor of the wardrobe and can be stretched around my enormous pendulous abdomen.

I haven't hoovered for so long that I have to pick the dog hairs off my nipple before BFing.

My sitting room floor looks like an Infacol-bottle holocaust.

But they tell me it gets better.

ROFL at ChubbyScotsBird! I live in a tiny flat, so not much to clean, but its basically not very tidy, and I only have one DD (10 months).
I try to do a "proper" dinner every day in the evening, and manage to stick the washing machine on most mornings, BUT as a SAHM, I find the mental side of it draining sometimes. I love DD more than anything else in the world, but I sometimes do feel the weight of being responsible for her completely. If shes sick, hungry tired, whatever, then it boils down to me, and no matter how tired or irritable Im feeling myself, it all has to be put aside because she comes first. IM doing some part-time work for this month only, and just the GUILT I feel for putting her in a nursery she doesnt know very well is killing me.
It is a little overwhelming, but I know that when she gets older and more independant, life will get easier, and I`ll have more time for solitude