I’m starting to get really worried about my daughters mental health during lockdown. Prior to any of this, she was a really cheery, well behaved (as far as 3 year olds go) & pleasant little girl, if rather headstrong.
Then lockdown happened at exactly the same time her baby sister arrived.
Initially, she coped well. She has always enjoyed time with us & reacted well to her sister. She was excited to help with baby sis & didn’t appear to really miss anything.
But the last two weeks have been genuinely awful. I’m sat in our bedroom crying my eyes out at the child she has suddenly turned into & how sad & angry she must be feeling.
She started by throwing tantrums akin to her two year old self except the rapidly progressed to extreme anger & her hitting & whacking us, the walls, the door.. she screams in absolute rage. They last up to 45 minutes several times a day. Inbetween these, she is so cross and frustrated at her toys, the games we play, our daily walks .. something inevitably goes not the way she wanted in her head (which we have no idea of until she melts down). She is rarely happy anymore, her laughing & smiles are so few & far between.
At night, she’s waking up multiple times crying and needing us in her room to fall back asleep. If the wrong parent turns up to settle her, she goes straight into a violent tantrum. Between feeding a newborn & her wake ups, we are getting basically no sleep.
We are trying so hard to give her lots of attention & it not all being about baby sister. She’s showered in love, toys & we are trying to make lockdown as fun as two exhausted parents can do. My other half is working full time in a stressful role & yet has to break off constantly to try help me deal with a furious toddler and a baby who needs feeding or rocking to sleep etc 😞 I see all my friends doing fun activities with their kids and I don’t even have the time to shower most days let alone set up quirky science experiments, phonics activities etc etc
I know this would have been hard even without lockdown but unable to take her to do her fav things we did every week such as swimming, softplay, gym class & the loss of normal routine with nursery mean we can’t even get her out the house much as a distraction or treat. We’ve obviously also suddenly lost support of grandparents who had planned to look after one or other child as needed so the other could have attention! Not to mention our elder daughter is baffled as to why she can’t see her family she normally sees few times a week.. she keeps asking us to take sister away so Granny can come back. 
As if in her head, her normal life has stopped because of baby sis. We’ve tried to explain what’s happening but she’s just turned 3 and she doesn’t understand.
I’m just at a loss as to how to make her feel better & get my happy little girl back 😢 I’m so exhausted physically & emotionally, I could honestly just run away. I dread waking up every morning as it’s another 22 hours of battle..
No idea what I’m asking for in this post, maybe just comfort it’s normal & she’ll be OK maybe