Is It Just Me?

[ThatNavyGoose]

I am just reaching out to find out if other Mum’s experience a complete lack of patience/extreme irritability by the end of the day. I have a beautiful four year old son. He’s great - high energy, kind, chatty, clever, he brings me and my partner so much joy, truly the best thing that ever happened to us. But right at the end of the day I find I have completely run out of patience, and it seems that’s also when he starts to act up - messing around instead of brushing his teeth, insisting he needs five more trips to the toilet before bed (and no actual wee coming out!), finding every reason under the sun to keep talking and not just lie down and sleep. He is the absolute light of my life but when this happens, sometimes I completely boil over - tonight is a great example, we’d had a really brilliant day at the beach as a family. Got him back and made him some supper - he was adamant even after a lot of food he was still hungry and wanted more and more. Then he said he needed the toilet and sat there for 20 minutes before he’d let me wipe. I finally get him to bed, read the story, sing him his favourite song (45 minutes after he should have been in bed) and just as I’m about to leave his room he says he needs another wee (despite having had four since I took him through to the bedroom!). I’ve taken him to the GP and there’s no UTI or wee issues, it just seems like he wants to stall for as long as possible, right at the time when I’m absolutely desperate to just sit down with a cup of tea. I ended up getting really frustrated and shouted at him, which I felt absolutely awful for as he got upset. I gave him a cuddle and said I was sorry for shouting - I tried to explain to him that he needs to listen and be grown up about bed time but it just seems to fall on deaf ears. In the day time I’m relatively unruffled - if he misbehaves or make a bad choice I remind him calmly and don’t find it affects me at all. But right at the end of the day is a completely different matter - my patience is so thin and I can blow up so easily! Then get stuck in a cycle of feeling really guilty. My partner does very long shifts at work so for at least four days a week it’s just me and my little one from the time he wakes up (0630) until he sleeps (1830) which I don’t think helps. Just wondering if I’m the only one who completely transforms as a parent at bed time?! I’m really proud of the parent I am in the day as I play with him, listen to him, make sure we eat together, have fun together and connect every day, but by the end of the day I feel empty and don’t know how to stop losing my temper. Any suggestions would be gratefully received xx

IME when this happens it's because the boundary isn't clear enough.

Is he actually tired at 6:30? That seems a very early bedtime for a 4yo. It might be hard to enforce the boundary of bedtime if he's genuinely not tired yet.

Would he do something quietly in his room for an hour or so if you did all the teeth, PJs etc and then left him to it and came to tuck him in at 7:30 maybe? That way any messing during the teeth part is just eating into his own playtime. I assume he probably isn't reading independently yet but it could morph into reading to himself for a bit. And then you can have a cup of tea :) Audiobooks can be good too - my eldest used to like "Story CDs" which is what I called them for him but you can play them through a laptop or old phone or bluetooth speaker if you want to.

I think you may be putting him to bed to early. Mine was down to ten hours by that age. I know you are really tired and worn out but would agree with trying to put him to bed an hour latter.

Agree bedtime needs to he later. But also, no it's not just you. The end of a hard day is tough. It's even harder when just getting over Xmas and all the excitement / changes in routine x

Mine DD's are 4 and used to be exactly the same a couple of months ago, what felt like a million trips to the toilet and last minute requests and questions before bedtime! Patience was soo difficult but I realised that they were processing their day and wanting my attention, so what I did was make time during their bedtime routine to talk about feelings, I ask them what was good about their day/what was not so good about their day and just talk for a bit before bed and this has ended the million requests. Not sure how or why but it seemed to work so thought I would share.

There is a book called wise before 5, we read that and there is a page all about feelings. I get them to pick which face is how they feel.

Also, cut down on his sugar intake. That includes fruit and yoghurt. If I had my time again I'd give mine far less sugar. The end of the day always went badly!

And for yourself, eat something when he does in the evening. Don't do bedtime on an empty stomach....

I don't think bedtime is necessarily too early if you know he's tired. DD6 is in bed for 1830, and has been for years. Since turning 6 she reads for an hour before lights out. But she's tired and needs her sleep.

Kids are annoying and overstimulating. Find a way to get a break pre bedtime - let him watch some TV and tell him you need some chill time. You can even explain it's because it stops you getting grumpy during bed time and that it healthy to have quiet time.
Honestly, they do just test your patience and you're only human!

I feel your pain op. I have 2 DS', both a bit of a handful, but well within the realms of normal boys age 5 and 6, but by the end of the day, I have zero patience for any noise or messing around.

I find I get overstimulated with the constant jumping/running/squabbling/chattering all day, and by 7pm I am well and truly done. I try my best to enjoy them, but the constant movement and noise really stresses me out. I am neurotypical as far as I know, but mid-40's and just think I'm too old for all this noise and chaos! I miss the days pre-DC when the house was quiet and I wasn't so bound to the routine of DC everyday.

Having young children is simultaneously tedious and overstimulating. I'm half-bored but also need some downtime without having so many mundane tasks to perform on a daily basis.

Hopefully it will get easier as they get older. Sympathy and solidarity for you op. Personally I can't wait until they're old enough to put themselves to bed, and maybe even get themselves up quietly in the morning without waking me, and take themselves downstairs and sort themselves breakfast. 😉

Does anybody know at what age that dream might become a reality?! 🤣

My DC are grown up now but I'd say don't feel too bad about shouting and him being upset. You're only human and maybe he'll mess around less tomorrow!
I also would suggest making bedtime a bit later.

I came back just to say that I tried some of your suggestions tonight and we had a much better experience! We played a board game for half an hour so he’d fall asleep later and chatted about his day before he fell asleep - the extra connection right at the end of the day seemed to reduce the messing around! Thanks for all the help (and messages solidarity!)