Is my experience of parenting normal

[YoucancallmeAl86]

My dd’s are 5yrs and 20months respectively and though I love them with all my heart they are such relentlessly hard work and I have absolutely no idea how to make it easier.

Everything is a battle but bedtime and overnights are particularly horrendous and I’m so far past the end of my tether I'm now in the territory of just disliking being a parent.

I guess I want to know if we just have particularly tricky kids or if this is normal? And if it’s normal I just marvel at how humans have survived for this long.

To give some context our five year old has NEVER slept through the night, we’ve co-slept which is our best solution thus far but she still wakes regularly mostly because she still isn’t dry overnight and wetting triggers insane overreaction and half asleep tantrums.
We took her out of pull ups about 3months ago as she was wetting through 2-3 nappies per night, going nuts everytime she wee’d and had us going through a ritual of cleaning her and drying her while she screamed and cried becuse she’s half asleep. Now she’s not in the pull ups, the same cleansing and drying ritual remains but this time I’m washing (often multiple) pissy sheets every night.
I have no idea how to get her dry overnight or for the many associated melt downs to stop. We’ve baffled two sleep consultants and are waiting for an NHS sleep clinic so fingers crossed we get some help on that soon.

Our youngest isn’t anywhere near as bad as the eldest sleep wise but even she will scream for upwards of an hour every bedtime, she’s not as bad going down for a nap and at least naps are good - about it 1.5-2hrs at lunchtime. Her overnight sleep is pretty hit and miss but usually solved by one of us sleeping on the floor in her room.

Add in the little ones early terrible two’s tantrums which happen all day everyday, big’s extreme sensitivities and OTT reactions to anything she doesn’t want to do and my husband and I are just in exhausted disbelief that this is what parenting small children is.

Please tell me it gets easier and when please.

Thanks for reading 👍🏼

That does sound unusually hard Could your eldest have some SEN? Or does she have a habit of drinking loads in the evening?

That sounds hard. Have you tried dry nites? They go up to bigger sizes. Then at least the sheets problem is solved for now.

What have Nursery, then school, and also your HV at her checks, had to say ?

Speak to Eric, the charity for kids toileting

they have nurses and really good advice

5 is ok to not be dry with but the distress and frequency does sound hard

Gosh, that does sound hard work. Eric as someone else suggested and school nurse, maybe they have some better absorption pull ups styles you could try. Talk to school and ask them if they think there are any SEN issues with your eldest. Has she met other milestones?