Help ...

[Smoothman]

Hi I've never asked for help all these years so this is a big step for me. First time I'm postibg here. I'm a dad with two young kids under 5.

Struggling with the daily grind. No help from outside. Just me and my wife. Some may say we have it good just having to look after two kids. We feel every day is a struggle. Older son autistic. Younger son hyperactive and too young to understand - constantly irritating and triggering older son. Eventually causes friction between me and my wife.

Every day feels like an emotional rollercoaster. Constant feeling of frustration and anger. Overwhelmed.

I guess I'm not really sure if I'm asking a particular question, but is parenting meant to be like this? Is it this stressful for every parent?

Just feels like me and my wife spend all our time just looking after kids and treading on eggshells all day. And it's impossible for us to avoid arguing between us two because we are putting out fires all the time and if one of us gets "lazy" then whole house gets topsy turvy. Always living on the edge.

Just desperate for solution. I guess I don't know if it'll ever change.

OP I found the young child years really difficult. It seemed like a never ending grind and I honestly wished I had never had kids some days. DH and I seemed to exist in separate planets in our own little stress balls. Now our kids are older and it’s so much better. Our relationship is better, and things are much less frantic.

Have you good the SN Children Section yet @Smoothman? I found having young DC pretty full on, like you we have one with ASD, which brings an extra level of daily challenges, or at least it does for us.

How is DC1's sleep? One if the things I found the hardest was the fact that our DD just couldn't get to sleep and would shout for us usually me to go back to her, for hours.

Are you a member of any ASD support groups near to you?

I have a baby and a toddler and I would say it feels a bit like this at the moment. However the biggest thing that makes it feel better is when me and DH are working as a team, have each others back and can support together. Sometimes we are like this, sometimes we aren't because it's very easy to slip into competitive tiredness. Our house is a mess, there are never quite enough hours, we never really feel off duty. My kids are NT as far as I know and I can imagine if one child has additional needs that could make it so challenging. I know if our toddler is going through a bad patch with her sleep or is ill it can tip the equilibrium from manageable to a vicious cycle of everyone getting tired, less able to cope, arguments, toddler getting more wound up etc. So your question...is it meant to be like this...I think its normal for it to be very hard work and intense. But I don't hate it, I find it quite fulfilling and we have lots of moments of joy.

If I was to offer any advice it would be to work on communication with your partner to see how you can best make use of each other to share the load, have regular breaks, look after each other etc. I hope you can get to a place where you don't feel miserable and can get through the hard bits and enjoy the fun bits.