The kids winge and cry

[BurntToastSmell]

I have two very demanding young children. A toddler (2 years) and a baby (9 months). They winge all day long (I really mean: all. day. long). Aside from look after the kids on my own all day (7am till 6pm) I have to keep the house clean, make their food, make sure all the dishes are washed, make sure all the clothes are clean, take them to baby & toddler groups, AND run an online business. I'm at the end of my tether because of the constant winging all day long. My friend has suggested using an ipod and turning the volume up full so I can't hear their winging. Is this reasonable? I don't know how I would get all my chores done otherwise, but I feel terrible. I read that if you leave young children to winge/cry, you can lower their self esteem and make them more anxious (due to elevated levels of cortisol). I really hate leaving them to cry but I don't know what else I can do? I don't want to put them into daycare/nursery until they are 3.

You sound nuts op.

Get a nanny or cm for the kids as its better tham being ignored by their mother.

Regarding money grow the fuck up.

Enjoy softplay.

I'm quite concerned about the op

YANBU in- Asking for help
Resenting your DH for implying you can't use tumble dryer
Having a natural reaction to children whinging.

YABU in- Being constantly defensive
Having an unhealthy diet of ready meals and diet coke (£18pw??)
Slating nursery workers
Dismissing many suggestions offered here.

Your DH is BU in- Dictating tumble dryer usage (just PUT IT ON ALREADY)
Keeping you in the dark ref finances.

He is NOT BU in- Being considerate in the mornings
Cooking dinner EVERY night
Taking the children out for 2 hours every Sat
Doing the grocery shopping
Working FT on top of all of the above

None of us are Mary Poppins. Look at the bigger picture, find positives. You have a DH you love, two healthy kids, a roof over your head, a decent salary coming into the household, your own on line business, food on the table. I know it's easy to list the positives but they SO are very positive. So what if other mum's dress their kids in xyz? It's not a competition. Stop spending money on clothes and toys that are NOT needed. Devise a rota for you to manage the housework and if it doesn't get done, stop beating yourself up! Start cooking lunches, ditch the ready meals and diet coke. Loosen up.

So am I MrsKR and I don't think people yelling at her is going to help her one bit :(

Oh FFS OP, I read the book, twice. The lack of intellect and education amongst childcare workers is NOT the point of it. His central point is that very young pre-verbal children get stressed out when they are left in group childcare settings, because they aren't able to comprehend that their primary care giver is coming back, that this can raise their cortisol levels and that there is some evidence that this in turn can lead to long term emotional pre-dispositions to stress and anxiety. This is based on SOME studies which APPEARED to show this is SOME children plus a bunch of anecdotal evidence no different in value from the stories of other peoples experiences than what you have had on this thread today.

He also thinks middle class mothers who are degree educated are more likely to be motivated to engage in educational activities than very young childcare workers. He assumes this Mother is a full time childcarer (not working from home) and that she has made caring for her under 3 her full time career, bringing to that task the full rigour of effort and organisation she brought to her prior career. He assumes the nursery workers are teenagers doing an NVQ who are not particularly interested in a career in childcare.

These assumptions are extreme and hugely simplified, although I do see a logic to some of his theories, they are very very generalised and it is RIDICULOUS to allow such a generalised ethos for raising children to override your personal circumstances. You are working, caring for two under two and running a house alone, not spending your days taking for toddler to French and music classes while someone else brings in all the money and cleans your house for you.

Intelligence is virtually impossible to measure and there are different kinds of intelligence, which all have value. My son's nursery manager has a kind of emotional intelligence that I do not have. She is fantastic with his age group because she is able to use her considerable ability, combine this with 5 years of daily experience and deal effectively with the issues common to all toddlers going through this developmental stage. Could she knock out a report like I can? I doubt it, as I've been doing that daily for years and have gotten really good at it. But she's much much better than me at play-led learning and my child benefits from her skills.

Thorough research involves LOOKING at nurseries/childminders for yourself. You clearly need to do some fieldwork on the subject as you are coming across as misinformed.

Crikey - I went away as at work to deal with a customer at the end of what I wrote then came back and posted not knowing the OP had written the last two entries so you can stick that angry face right up your backside.

Also telling a person who is quite clearly at the end of her tether that she is nuts is unbelievable.

What will help her then? Telling her she's right to be fucked off and irritated by her kids and yes, it's fine to stick on her iPod and ignore the poor little sods?
That yes, nursery establishments are run by thick people for the benefit of the offspring of similarly thick, poor people?
That yes, she does need to work to keep her kids in expensive clobber to keep up with the snobs she associates with at toddler groups?
Yes, her husband is a tight-fisted, lazy arse who is being unfair to her?

I'd be delighted if DH came home from work each night and cooked the dinner, ditto if he took the kids out on his own for an hour or two at the weekends.
If the OP is in fact depressed and not just a self-centred moaner then I suggest she visits the GP for some help.

Erm okaaaaay clippedpheonix you might need to calm down a little too !!! The things she is now saying arent nice. I think we both agree to that. How on earth am I supposed to know you hadnt read/been away before you posted !! So I will refrain from sticking an emoticon up my arse thanks all the same !

Agree with alice verbatim !!

sounds like you have a lazy bastard of a partner on your hands too alice.

The op does have a twisted way of thinking. I wonder what she was like with one child. If she couldn't cope with one, then why have a second? (Unless it was unplanned).
Also, here's another thought, could the bad household diet be causing behavioural problems in the children? Do they eat these ready meals too?

I don't think she is nuts. I think she is depressed and has got caught in negative cycles of thinking. It's not about how lucky she is, or how much money she has - this is irrelevant to her problems.

She needs to seek more help from her GP and get herself in the right frame of mind to make changes.

phoenix where on earth do you get that from ???? FFS!

I'm perfectly calm crikey.

Did I get it wrong here and you weren't directing the angry emicon at me personally?

"I'd be delighted if DH came home from work each night and cooked the dinner, ditto if he took the kids out on his own for an hour or two at the weekends"

I got it from here crikey. Is the man a saint because he does this. Is the OP lucky? It's not much in the whole scheme of things really is it?

No the angry face was just a general Grrrrrrr to the comments. Not you.

No the OP's husband isn't a saint. My point was there are a lot of men who do a lot less.

Sorry you've had a crappy morning.

Incredibly cheesey but as a single mother to 3 children and expecting number 4 (with the same age gap as you have again - same age gap as between my older children) I try to live my life according to this short story:

Mayonnaise Jar and Two Coffees

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Coffees

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar . He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students again if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full..
The students responded with a unanimous ?yes.?

The professor then produced two Coffees from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed?

?Now,? said the professor as the laughter subsided, ?I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things?your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions?and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

?The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else?the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first,? he continued, ?there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.
?If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
?Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first?the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.?
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Coffee represented.

The professor smiled and said, ?I?m glad you asked. The Coffee just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there?s always room for a couple of Coffees with a friend.?

Easilybored has it spot on.

OP, you seem to be fixating on the tax/income side of things, but it's a red herring fed to you by your DH. Earning £52K as an individual would result in a monthly take home pay of £3078.00

Earning £26,000 each you would take home £3368.00 between you, but keep in mind you will have lost the "free" childcare that you are currently providing by not working and will have to find at least £1,000 a month in addition to both you and DH opting for a salary sacrifice in exchange for Child Care Vouchers (and that's if you're lucky enough to have an employer that offers them).

You will also have to use holidays when your children are ill and can't attend nursery/childminder (whilst still paying for that place). When your holiday is used, you will have to take unpaid leave. Unless you work for the same employer with same hours, you will also have to pay for commuting costs for an extra person (car/tax/insurance/petrol/railcard), decent work clothes etc

So to summarise your current income is £3078 per month with no childcare costs. Two earning £26K each would be £3368.00. If your DH thinks he can find full time child care for 2 children (an under one will cost more than the 3 yo by the way) for less than £290 per month he's in lala land.

Re nursery workers, they do a bloody good job for a pittance wage in most cases. I am educated, my DD attends nursery 3 days a week and adores her keyworker and playmates (she goes to GP's for 1 day as well). You don't sound like you're cut out to be a SAHM, I'm not either, but I accept it whilst enjoying the 3 days a week we do have together as "our time", knowing I get to go and speak to proper grown ups and have a wee/cup of tea in peace when I'm in the office.

You seem to hate it 7 days a week, but refuse to look at any alternatives. You're not happy, the kids aren't happy and your DH seems to be very resentful of you being a SAHM. Change something.

Re the Coke habit, could you alternate with a glass of fizzy water which would half your intake and then look to really cut down. It's not good for your health or your purse.

But Alice, that is even worse in my book then. It smacks of you need to put up shut up and be grateful for the small amount of help that she gets because a lot of others don't?

The last thing in my opinion that the OP needs is tit for tat horrid buck up comments.

Just read that:

'The staff have a much lower level of intellect and education than me. That is the book's point. Hence why childcare is only good for poor households, who tend to be uneducated.'

really? in my daugther's nursery the staff are continually educatinng and obtaining new diplomas. Also do you equate poor households with uneducated ones? I could be uneducated and earn decent money (tradespeople earn a good wage around here, i'm guessing better than mine). Or someone can be highl educated on a low income. So how does that fit in with your theory?

So you think you can offend everyone else who has a diiferent opinion than you?

I have two degrees, speak 2,5 3 languages, run two businesses but somehow I don't think I am better than childcare providers yet you do. Still you actually do a rather crappy job with your kids, non? You should be able to run a business and take care of two kids because it's so easy what with the lowly childcare providers being able to do it (they also have to do paperwork during the day like at our nursery I've seen). You also said babies and toddlers don't need stimulation, so what does it matter if you have intellect (get you!), or not.

I think you'll find being a SAHM is not all that's cut out to be.

I pay £900 per months for my DD's nursery. Does that make me poor, OP?

I don't think the OP should shut up and be grateful at all. I do think she should re-think her priorities. On one hand she shuns professional childcare because she assumes the quality of professonal childcare isn't up to scratch, being delivered as it is by dimwitts yet she considers housework and her home-online business to be more important than the demands of her very young and needy kids who sound BTW to be typical of all children of those ages.
She has options and the means to improve her situation by making different choices. She is choosing instead to moan and wallow in self-pity. It's her kids I feel sorry for.

Spaceship, that is lovely and made me

I don't think OP means to insult anyone, she just approaches things from an intellectual perspective.

Op, I have a PhD, and I ignore most of the bullshit that passes for expert opinion. If there isn't based on extensive hard data, rigourous statistical anaysis with credible controls, I am rarely a convert. Especially with emotive subjects. People often perpetuate their biases through their research work, and massage the data to justify their argument.

Think about it rationally, throughout the ages mums have rarely been 24/7 at the beck and call of their children. Poor women worked and rich one's had servants who were barely educated. I assume on average, the children did just fine. So why suddenly do children need a parent focused on them all the time?

To me it seems like your husband is very controlling of you, and you let this happen without really questioning it ? ie you don?t know where your joint money is spent each month.

If I were you, the first place to start would be the financial aspect because until you know what money you as a family have each month, you can?t really decide how to make the changes you need to make; ie cleaner / childcare / giving up your business ? and there is no doubt in my mind you need to make some changes. But apart from all that, they way he treats you with money is an indication of what he thinks of you and your role in the relationship in his eyes.

On 52K your husband brings home £3k per month according to a salary calculator I have just looked at (assuming no student loan). If he pays into a pension, lets say he actually brings home £2.7k. My monthly budget for running our household (2 x adults, 1 x 2yo, 2 x cats) is £2K ? this includes £200 straight into savings and a mortgage of £1k. So in other words we have £800 a month for food, house and 2 x car insurance, tv licence, phone, fuel, water, council tax and water. And we don?t at all live frugally ? ie we have the full sky package inc phone and broadband (£85 a month), a £35 mobile phone contract, £22 gym membership etc. We have an open plan house, so not cheap to heat and we do a lot of washing (use washable nappies ? these are the only things I tumble dry though). The only regular payments which aren?t covered there are petrol and car tax. So on £3k a month you should as a household have plenty to live on imo.

Also re bedtimes, my DH gets in at 7pm most nights, DS is just 2 and goes to bed at about 7.20/7.30. Yes, DH doesn?t get much time with him in the evenings and it does make him sad, but he realises that that bedtime is what DS needs and that is the most important thing, so what he does is spend every minute of that time with DS from when he gets in, and then plenty of time at weekends.

Regardless Alice, in order for the children to be happy, mum needs to be happy and when people think the world is closing in on them they tend to hit out a bit.

Big hug again for you OP.

You have been given a lot of very helpful advice and maybe need to take time to digest your options now. Because you do have them.