I feel awful...

[whatahorriblemum]

I'm such a bad mum, and so ashamed of my behaviour today that I've had to change my name. My ds aged 2 has been really playing me up today because he is tired - didn't go to sleep until 8pm and woke up at 6am - and this is just not enough sleep for him. So, I put him down for a nap after lunch, and have been into his room 9 times because he keeps getting out of it. The first couple of times I just picked him up and explained he needed to stay in bed and have a sleep. The rest of the times I smacked him .
He just keeps getting out, even after I made him cry because I threw him on the bed. What is wrong with me? I feel so horrible.

see we can be nice

nikkim

Wahm, you don't think of them at the time because you get yourself locked into a downward spiral where you just get more and more cross - it's easy for someone else to say "oh well, you should have done that." Much harder to put into practice when you're in that situation. If you can stay calm though, and defuse the situation - getting out of the house always helps - you at least don't have to contend with the guilt afterwards of knowing you could have handled it better.

Sometimes I've found myself tantrumming right back at my two year old - and it's so hard to take a step back and say "hang on, I'm the adult here!"

Hope you all get some sleep and have a better day tomorrow.

Take heart, wahm. There can't be very many parents out there who haven't 'lost it' at some time or another with their children and later regretted it. We're all only human and we all have our breaking points - and there's nothing like a difficult toddler to help you discover just where your breaking point is! The important thing is that you stopped before it got too far and decided to post your feelings here instead - thank goodness for MN; what a great means of 'unloading' it is. I so wish that such a lifeline had been around when my own children were small - a problem unburdened tends to diminish in intensity, and I hope you felt calmed and reassured by the other posts (even the more judgemental ones); it's just good to know that there's always someone 'out there' to listen. You come across as a lovely, caring mum who's a bit scared of what she may be capable of doing when she's angry, and upset that she's not the 'perfect mum' that she would like to be (wouldn't we all?!). Just accept that being 'good enough' is OK; you don't have to be perfect; you are allowed to make mistakes - learn from them and move on. Try to understand yourself and then if you can, find ways of avoiding or preventing those situations that really 'get you going.' If that's not possible, and if you feel yourself losing control, remove yourself from the situation by going into another room for a few minutes to give yourself space to calm down; try to avoid smacking if you can, as it's all too easy to really hurt a child when we're feeling really angry. You're doing OK, and you're not a horrible mum.