14 weeks - lost my parenting mojo.

[TinyTeacher]

Hello there,

Looking for a bit of a nudge/suggestions to get me back on track.

14 weeks and feeling rough. Mostly just very tired, but I have a cold and the snottiness keeps setting if my morning sickness to retching a lot.

We are caring for terminally ill MIL at the moment, which is adding stress and is having a very negative effect on children - 6 year old is waking with nightmares once a night every night, twin 2 years have also started waking again. The children are disturbed as she shouts a lot and gets very distressed. We are waiting for her to be assessed for residential care.

Sorry for long back story.... but basically I am VERY tired! Today I have stuck the TV on for nearly the last 2 hours. While not great, I'm sure my toddlers will survive that as a one off, but I really don't want it to be a habit! Any suggestions to help me shake this? Or very easy things I could be giving them to do? We normally go out for lots of walls etc, but as someone needs to stay with MIL 24/7 we are spending a lot more time in the house. DTwins are usually good at playing on their own, but they do make such a mess and I'm just too tired to face much mess!

Inspirational words or ideas to get me off my arse please!

All things considered, I think you're doing great. I'm not sure how you're coping tbh.

Use screens as much as you need to get through it. Caring for someone is hard enough without small children and pregnancy to contend with. Don't feel guilty, you must be exhausted.

Can you ask family/ friends to take the kids over the weekend? If you're not already using childcare I'd strongly recommend getting the 2 year olds into a nursery as a short term measure.

Could you pay for additional carers? And try and catch up on sleep or do something with the kids (if you have the energy)? I'd be throwing as much money at the situation as I could (even if I had to borrow), as it sounds like this situation will improve soon.

All the best

X

@Zimzimmaa not coping all that welltbh , strictly in survival mode! I don't normally struggle to think of things to do with my toddlers, but my brain is totally frazzled!

My parents are helping out with the kids and the house a fair bit. They can't do weekends as that is when they are busy but they popped in last night to tidy up toys and do dishwasher/kitchen wipedown so I could go to bed with the kids! They can't really be here at the same time as MIL as she starts shouting and screaming and crying (she's never liked them, always been a bit of an issue that they know our children better than she does - she lived abroad when our eldest was born and our younger 2 were born in lockdown, but my parents were out support bubble as they are local to us).

We have a nanny 2 days a week and my parents do one day (I work 3 days a week), but the nanny won't be in the house at the same time as MIL (again, lots of screaming and shouting and accusations of stealing). So that's pretty complicated! Nursery would be difficult - there are waiting lists and for 2 it would be very expensive. For us the nanny is actually cheaper as she is term time only and is paid for exactly the hours we use. As I'm a teacher I don't need holidays/late into the evening.

We had looked into getting a carer in, but again there is a bit of a shortage round here it seems, so a waiting list. It would also be financially very difficult - we were trying to put some money aside for my maternity leave next academic year, but we've already had to spend some of that as MIL has enormous credit card debt and we're trying to reduce the balance of that as the interest is INSANE (she has bad credit history, so can only borrow at a VERY high rate) and we need to get it under control and consolidated into one place and get a payment plan in place. She receives benefits, but can't currently access the account it's paid into - she can't remember any of the details and has lost the card. She cant tell us which bank it's with. We're trying to sort this all out, it's an almighty mess and involved involves a lot of time being on hold.

So just totally desperate for some ideas for low-effort activities I can do with my toddlers so I can feel like I'm doing at least that part of my life tolerably well!

I have no idea how you're dealing with all of that tbh. Ok so 2 year old play ideas:

Play tents- home made or bought
Play dough- home made or bought
Big roll of paper stuck to floor with crayons for them to scribble
Water play in the garden-
Make a little mud kitchen in the garden maybe?
Baby doll/car washing- my twins lived that

Sure others will think of more!

You’ve got to explain to your MIL that she can’t scream at your parents and the nanny. They are there to help you so that you can help her.

Is your MIL bed bound or is still quite mobile?

I cared for my ex-MIL for many years, firstly not living with her and then we lived with her for 18 months leading up to her death, so I feel for you

REST! TV on. Some toys out; colouring books and crayons out. It doesn’t always need to be super amazing activities- you’re doing great.

@yummyscummymummy01 great list, thank you! Its the sorts of things we'd usually do, I just kind of need someone to tell me at the moment! That probably sounds a bit daft.

@LoonyLois I'm afraid explaining won't work. She screams at everyone and can't/won't control herself. She's always been very difficult and s houty, but with the brain tumour it's totally off the scale. She's having a lot of paranoid delusions so she's often either scared or angry because of things that haven't actually happened e.g. that I'm injecting with the to kill her, that we've said we're going to let her starve, that we're stealing her clothes. DH does his best to keep her calm.

@Axahooxa thank you for the reassurance. We normally save TV for when it's really really needed, but they are just having so much at the moment that I feel so guilty!