overwhelming feeling of guilt every night??

[Butterflyy20]

so for a while now i e been feeling a lot of guilt in the evenings when my son has gone to bed, i always feel like i'm not good enough and he could of had a better day etc. i am pregnant with baby 2 and he is 17 months at the moment and obviously going through his stages of being angry and frustrated, and sometimes i feel like i could handle it all better and i'm an awful person. it just worries me especially when i will have 2 children will i ever be good enough for them??

Op, I have similar thoughts.

You are doing a brilliant job! Don't beat yourself up.

What works for me when I think like this is to pick something small we didnt do today to do tomorrow. We didn't go to the park. We didn't read enough books. I really want to have more cuddles. Try and do that the next day.

@yeahdarling that's a brilliant idea, i'll try that tomorrow! glad i'm not alone

I have always had these thoughts too. You know the best thing you can do is to listen, be interested, spend time with them. Make time to do that tomorrow - you will feel so much less guilty 😀

Me too, the guilt has increased ten fold since becoming pregnant.

I’m holding onto the hood that they will be friends and have a play mate soon. This is only a tiny proportion of their lives and it will get better.

@yeahdarling

Op, I have similar thoughts.

You are doing a brilliant job! Don't beat yourself up.

What works for me when I think like this is to pick something small we didnt do today to do tomorrow. We didn't go to the park. We didn't read enough books. I really want to have more cuddles. Try and do that the next day.

Such a good post!

OP, this is such a common theme for mothers.... You are not alone! I currently feel the same about my 3 year old as I also have a young baby. The advice above is brilliant. Also, remind yourself that guilt is such a useless emotion unless you use it to channel positive changes, even teeny, tiny ones! Every time I feel guilty, I think to myself 'no point feeling guilty, just try to make the little changes that will prevent that feeling'.

A very normal emotion but also very pointless, and a waste of energy really, not that any of us can help it sometimes. All it shows actually is that you are doing a brilliant job and have set your standards incredibly, possibly unachievably high. Do you think bad parents worry like this? Probably not, so you are not a bad parent.

The guilt morphs over time, I get pangs sometimes thinking how my teens will be gone in the next few years to Uni or whatever and that I must try to spend as much time as possible with them now, and appreciate them. I make a point of telling them how much I love them as often as I can without making them cringe, so that I can never say to myself later, "oh I wish I had made sure they know how deep my love is for them" - I text them during the day with funny stories and they do the same to me.

I am confident you are being the best mum you can be to them and doing a fantastic job. Be kinder to yourself.