Is 3 the hardest age yet?

[Maybemaybenot76]

My son turns 4 in Feb and every day is a battle. He is the sweetest, kindest and most thoughtful little boy I’ve ever known - but he is testing boundaries constantly and I find myself threatening “no more treats!” all day, every day. I feel like a crap mum!

I find that if I can just find the patience to explain why not to do every single thing I ask him not to, the outcome is much better - but my god is it hard! Especially at almost 38 weeks pregnant, sometimes I just don’t have the will to crouch down and explain again why he can’t hang off the door handle and swing back and forth.

Anyone else going through this stage? When does it get easier? He’s the light of my life but it is so hard sometimes.

Oh dear God, yes - and I cannot imagine doing it at 38 weeks pregnant, it’s bad enough without a bump! You poor thing. Mine is almost exactly the same and he is being so trying some days. He has a cold and isn’t sleeping as well this week which may be part of it.

My DC’s current trick is to refuse to tell you what he wants (eg “Do you want a ham or a cheese sandwich?” “Not telling”) and then roar with fury if you either guess wrong or don’t take immediate action anyway.

I swear DC1 was never quite this trying but I have a vague memory of life suddenly getting easier around this time so I am
hoping the New Year will bring Good Things 🤞🤞🤞

Bless you, that is not easy when heavily pregnant, be kind to yourself. I definitely found with both of mine that age 3-4 were very testing with this kind of stuff - didn’t suffer with ‘terrible twos’ much. I saw big changes in the run up and after turning 5, also with starting school. Hang in there.

I hear you. Mine was quite a difficult baby but it eased up significantly between 12 and 18 months and we had a really lovely, easy 1.5-2 years.

Then age 3 came along and hit me like a train.

I have a 4 month old so my capacity for responsive parenting is significantly diminished as well.

Omg yes. I felt so smug because mine was fairly well behaved at 2. And then he turned 3 and I was like oh my god I don't want to do this anymore 😂😂😭 I can now say he's just turned 6 and although not an absolute angel he is lovely and we have lots of laughs and he's a lot less unreasonable 😂

Thank you for posting this. I can’t imagine how you are doing this 38 weeks pregnant. My son has just turned 3 and I don’t know what’s gone wrong. Refusing to do things, being rude. Yesterday was an awful day, and at the end of the day my husband and I agreed that we’d had a parenting fail day.