I am exhausted

[RedRobyn2021]

I went a good couple of years without so much as a cold and then the past 6 weeks we have all been poorly at one time or another. Currently in bed with what I thought was a cold and now I'm being sick too.

Fortunately my lovely mum has taken my DD 22 months for the day swimming etc to give me a break. First time she's had her when I've not been at work and felt so guilty I cried when she left this morning.

I'm so run down, I've been thinking about how much pressure I put on myself with parenting my daughter. I've been really strict about refined sugar in her diet, I've co-slept with her in a cot next to my bed for her whole life, breastfeeding or cuddling for every wake up, I've restricted television even when it makes things harder and tbh I could do with a break.

Then I open up social media and other mums are watching while Disney films with their children and their kids sleep in the own rooms sleeping through the night and they're making Christmas biscuits together and drinking hot chocolate... going on date nights having seemingly the best of both worlds and getting to be themselves as well as mummy.

And it feels like all the things I thought were the right thing to do just feel like I've made everything harder for myself. I just feel like a failure. Why am I like this? Why can't I just go with the flow and worry less?

It's like the fact I've never allowed my mum to have DD except when I'm at work 2 days, because I feel like it's not fair on her and I'm being selfish. I wouldn't hold anyone else to these standards, but I give myself the hardest of times and it's wearing me down and making me a grumpy, unhappy person.

Just wanted somewhere to put my feelings down.

Don't be so hard on yourself. You thought you wanted to parent a certain way and now with some experience you've realised that doesn't suit you. Now you can introduce some gradual changes and figure out what works for you.

Facebook isn't showing you real life.

But you have realised you can't continue how you currently parent, so it's time to relax a little and make changes.

Perhaps you need to relax a little and sometimes do things for an easier life.

It sounds like you've fallen victim to the mummy martyrdom narrative that is so pervasive in attachment parenting.

My kids sleep alone. They watch TV. They spend time with my parents, they get babysat, they eat ice cream. They're perfectly happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids, and just as importantly, I'm also happy and healthy and well adjusted.

Having a kid doesn't mean you have to become a slave to their every whim and a maniacal adherent to every rule! That level of obsessive devotion isn't good for kids anyway, it's stifling.