Does anyone else ever get the urge to just run screaming from their life as a SAHM?

[Olihan]

I'm just hoping what I'm feeling at the moment is normal and someone else can understand where I'm coming from.

I have 3 dcs of 5.6, 3.10 and 2.6. I'm a SAHM and have been since I stopped teaching when ds1 was born, so 5 and a half years.

I know in some ways I am very lucky that I don't have to work but the sheer drudgery and monotony of life is starting to send me a bit doolally.

The constant nagging to get them up and dressed in the morning, the horrific 5 minutes as we try to leave the house for the school walk, the constant mithering for food, the fighting, the permanent mess, the fact that I have no time or space to myself, the never ending washing/drying/ironing/putting away, cooking decent healthy meals from scratch that end up in the bin, spending hours trying to come up with meals that they might eat, the battle every night to get them into bed.

It's so bloody wearing.

I don't wish I hadn't had them, I love them more than life but at the moment I just want to suspend my life, go back to being single, childfree and remember who I used to be.

Tell me I'm not alone in this, please?

"I just never thought it would be this soul destroying."

I think the above pretty much sums up my feelings on being a SAHM! I have 2 very much wanted and very much loved ds, but some days I just feel like I am losing my mind I did dtart an OU degree course, which I loved, but no time and no money to continue at the moment

My ds are just turned 6 and 9 months, so am fairly shattered all the time, plus a have a chronic health condition, so life can be tough at times...thank god for grandparents is all I can say!!!

You are most definately NOT alone x

K, looks like Olihan's coach is filling up fast here!

If you really don't like things the way they are - go back to work for part of the week.

If you are a teacher, you always have this opportunity.

Figure out the childcare and do it.

I have all three at home, DD1 was retained at stage so although she turned 6 last week, she won't be starting primary until August and then it's a slow start until mid-October.

So it's 6-year-old DD1, 3-year-old DD2 and 7-month old DS.

Oh, and if DH is working a later shift, then I also have no car and this is a rural area.

Thankfully, have struck up a friendship with a lady whose twins are 5 and whose husband often works away who lives in the same village.

It is wearing - spot on. I stuck it out for about 2 years. Do you think you could hang on until DC's all at school and then you could pursue hobbies and read magazines (like I imagined I would do on maternity leave, ha, ha, ha).

Some of us are just intravert types who need time alone to recharge our batteries/stay sane, no shame in that.

I agree Olihan - it is bloody hard work and can get on top of me at times! I find my PMT days particularly wearing...my patience is very thin on those days and the DC's just seem to know how to rub me up the wrong way

I know I know I know all about growing up too fast, blink and you miss it etc etc but jeeeezus it is hard at times. I find having a couple of hobbies/projects on the go keeps me sane, and also the one morning I have to myself a week (a real high point!).

I love being a Mum, but I do miss my old life too. It's only natural......

PS Can I have a seat on the bus too, but make mine a return ticket as I know I'd only go and miss the b*ggers!

It's no better when you work so I think it's parenting per se that is exhausting, Groundhog-Day-style, not just being a SAHM.

I seem to get the worst of my children - the mad dash in the morning to get them up, washed, dressed, fed, organised and out of the door in time for school. Then the tired, cranky, whingy, hot, hungry and clingy children at the end of the day, that demand all of your attention as they haven't seen you all day but don't understand that if you don't cook dinner, wash the clothes, make the lunchboxes, hear them read, check the homework etc then it won't get done.

I need Mrs Doubtfire!

Can totally relate to this today. Maybe it's the heat that's turning them all into little buggers and us into stress monsters. What gets me is that no matter how much you do, they always manage to make you feel guilty for not doing more. Sound familiar?

Groundhog day - that is exactly it, Mumsnut. Nothing in the routine really changes, even in the holidays, even when we're away.

Shall I book an executive coach with a bar?

Any suggestions for destination, bearing in mind we're going via Scotland, France and Bavaria?

How about Australia, always wanted to go there!

Can you kindly budge up and allow us a seat! Where we off to, by the way! Don't really mind, just get me outta sahm hell!

I'll pitch in if you can do a Devon pick up, but I won't stay too long, I pine for them when they're out of sight .

I've been going through a very bad spell lately and felt really down on being a SAHM. I love being with the dcs (5 of them aged 1-6) but I agree with everything said, it is groundhog day and with 3 under 3 I sometimes feel shell shocked at the end of the day from all the abuse screaming/shouting/tantrums/fighting. My dh works away during the week and although my mum lives with me I she is mostly an extra burden (she works ft and her contribution is the odd nappy change).

But I live for the good moments and they are frequent, it's just that while one is being loving another is playing up . I did get a break away about 3 years ago for a few days, though dh still holds it against me. It was wonderful to just be able to focus on myself and not spend the day covered in crap, but after the first day I was missing them like mad.

I'm invited to a wedding next May and I'm very much looking forward to escaping them for a night or two.
Having said that, I already see them growing up so fast, so while I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, I tell myself it's not for much longer. I tell myself it often and wear dark sunglasses so no one can see the glazed look in eye.

Well, I suggest we coach it to Loch Lomond.

From there, we'll get a boat cruise to Inversaid.

We'll need to bring a picnic lunch, the food's not so great, but the bar is fully stocked and the rooms are great!

From there, we can head to Glasgow and catch flights to France, or the option of taking the coach across some amazing countryside to Rosyth, Fife, to catch the ferry to Calais.

Ooooh -- can anyone play fantasy travel plans?

Overnight ferry to Roscoff to Brittany

If there's any spare seats left, can you manage a quick pick up in North Lincs please?

I often think I should be thanking my lucky stars that I'm in a position to stay home with them, after all, they're only young once etc. But sheeez...the monotony, day after day after day...

DH works long hours, and is often away for a few days at a time, no GP's nearby to help out, and I'm often to be found climbing the walls. I fantasize about swinging in a hammock on some secluded beach, iced cocktail in one hand, novel in the other.

As another poster said, its the constant whinging that pushes me over the edge. DS whinges his way downstairs in the morning, I serve up breakfast with a smile - but no, you can bet I've got the wrong spoon today / wrong bowl (taste in spoons/bowls change daily just to keep me guessing).

Climbing down from the highchair, DS makes a beeline for the dishwasher, opens it and pulls out knives etc, whinges when I put everything out of reach, makes his way to the cooker, pulls out the grill pan, whinges and throws himself to the floor at the unfairness of life.

Toys, crayons, books...no interest in any of these whatsoever. And I think - ffs, how am I going to fill the next 12 hours?

I've been a WOHM when DD was little, and I know its just a different set of stresses, no easier or harder. This life as a SAHP can just be so relentless and thankless - and now I'm 36 weeks pg, ready to welcome another one into the fold .

at all the mess stories. I made the mistake once of demanding of DS in an angry rhetorical kind of way, 'Who's going to clear up all this mess, WHO?' and he just looked baffled and said sweetly, 'you are'.
DUH!

Why don't you all get the coach to Heathrow and jump on a plane to Singapore, I've just moved out here. We can sit by the river sipping cocktails... Actually, the DCs had just got over the jetlag and inevitable cold/cough and then DS broke his leg (last week, falling off a climbing frame), so three more weeks of no swimming, no running around, no playgrounds, and I'm going quietly insane.

But really I have no right to be posting on this thread as soon I'll have the dilemma of whether to get a full-time or part-time maid (cleaner/nanny), which is the norm out here... Sorry. And I know no-one's reading this in the UK, but here it's wake-up time, and DD woke up early demanding food, while DS is dragging himself around sitting on a grill shelf from the microwave (while DH is STILL in bed, despite my nagging, grrr...)

Loving this thread! I'm smiling even though I've been up since twenty past four. Fgs!

Baggsy the back seat. Don't care where we go!

I vote Vienna for fabulous coffee and large cakes. Then on to Italy for some Prosecco and anti pasti [sp?].
next morning on some white-beached tropical island having mango smoothies followed by a massage and then the hammock and novel.
I woke up this morning at 5.40 as DD3 joined DD1, DP and I in bed and proceeded to cough into my face for an hour or so until the alarm went off.

Lily Beach in the Maldives. Sigh.

Oh God a coachload of bored ladies! I'd better dust off me old 80s Chippendale outfit!

I'm in the middle of toilet training at the mo with Son Two. This morning he did a "Little Britain" on our windowsill whilst sittng on it. Also continually wiping Daughter One's bum - I feel like one the The Bottom Inspectors out of Viz Comic.

Never mind, the thought that The Nolans are on tour again fills me with great excitement. Ypu ladies have Take That we blokes have those charming lasses from Ireland. Oh to to be their roadie. I could just see me laying out a line of their fave Colombian powder on a mirror when they come offstage. Or going up to chat them up showing off that I've still got all my own teeth.

Ha Manina, I saw The Nolans at an early and impressionable age when I worked as a programme seller at the Edinburgh Playhouse and they were a filthy bunch! The language! my dear!

And beachcomber, where in France are you? My parents owned a farmhouse in Dordogne in the 90s. Not as glam as it sounds - it was 6ft high full of chicken eggs and cow poo when they bought it off a conman in Brantome.

Replace that French wine with Bavarian beer which the trouble is it tastes just too good. I grow my own grapevine here and ferment it down for Christmas to make a passable gluhwein base. Last year I harvested 19lns of grapes and made 10 litres of plonk.

The terrors just came down and said "Daddy Look!" and they were holding hands looking gorgeous. Thats why I do this....

Well I just saw these ladies on Breakfast telly and they look cool! So a special request: detour that bus to Ireland and deliver these girls to me!

Ok Lily, the Maldives it is. Scrap my previous comment saying I don't care where we go.
Or Cornwall if the bus wouldn't make it to the Maldives.

I will read thread in a minute, just don't want to be influenced out of my opinion just yet..

It drives me mad - but I am not sure any more mad than it would if I had to commute and was stuck in an office on gorgeous days like this.

Anyway I have an escape here each time it is too much I take myself off in my head an visualise being there in the big chair with the crackle of the fire being able to see the beach outside - no phone - no children - drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book.

will now read thread hoping I haven't embarrassed myself too much