Does anyone else ever feel like it's you against the world sometimes??

[mumgoingcrazy]

I'm having a low day (as you can probably guess). DD2 needs therapy every day and to enable me to do this with her, my mum takes DD1 for an hour on the 2 days she's not in pre-school and DH takes her out at the weekend so I can get on with it. My mum has started to slack, and now rarely does the full hour and announced that tomorrow she can't make it at all. DH is very good and knows he needs to take DD1 out somewhere but very much makes me feel like he's doing ME the favour. I know no-one can care as much as I do about DD2's development but it would be so nice to feel I had FULL support from my family and to feel that they cared a lot.

DD2 is making good progress and I really want to get cracking with her and would do more if time allowed it, but to be made to feel eternally grateful because my mum has had DD1 for 40 mins is a bit much.

GGrrrrrrrrr!!

God ... I'm so sorry about the way you are feeling today. It's not fair that you should feel your close family are doing you a 'favour'.

I really think you need to sit down and talk frankly about how you are feeling. Lay it all on the table. Tell them you are eternally grateful for every minute of support, but make it clear that unless you have that support 'things' will start to suffer and all your hard work and daughter's development will be affected because of it.

I'm sure it only complacency that has made your mum 'slack' and if she really knew how this effects your routine, she would realise how important her role is in all this.

DH has to also understand that you are a 2 parent family and by no means is this a favour - simply his obligation as her dad. You obviously cope well and it's easy for anyone else to 'step back' when they see you are so in control.... maybe you need to let them know you can be vulnerable too and are not SUPERWOMAN!! Good luck x

In answer to your question. YES!
remember, tomorrow will be better.
In answer to the mum & DH problem, its sounds awful, but are they really aware of how much you actually do? Instead of whisking away the other DC, could they not be involved in DDs therapy? MAKE DH do it on the weekend (I do) while you go out with other DD. Could mum not stick around to see what it is needs doing?
Makes your family sound crap and I don't mean to. Its just I feel the same sometimes, they seem to think that i spend my time 'playing' with DS and, tho i enjoy it (most of the time), its bloody hard work day after day.
In their defence (DP has said this to me) it could be that you do too good a job with DD, so they don't realise how difficult it is.
Most importantly, remember DD is doing so well because of your (an her!) efforts, but DH and family all have a role in helpng too.
Good luck, here's a big bar of choc and a glass of wine for later x

Apart from MN / other people with SN issues, it is us against the world afaics.

A thought- is there somewhere you can access support from like minded mums? I know that doesnt appeal to everyone in a coffee and cake format (me neither) but the SN rugby session ds's attend has turned into a SN mum chat too and makes a world of difference for one hour a week, enough to see me through the rest

sorry you feel unsupported but its very common. We've never even had grudging help with dd (severe quad CP)

Sounds like you're doing a fab job with DD2, she is very lucky to have such a caring mum.

About DH: I really think you need to talk about it with him and tell him how you feel. He is NOT doing you a favour, you are both contributing to DDs improvement, end of story. (I had to have this chat with DH myself sometime ago, it's all okay now).

Regarding your mum: I think it is very difficult to rely on family for this sort of thing, could you maybe get a local babysitter to look after her for a couple of hours? (not sure if baby sitters have minimum hours???).

Thank you all very much.

In answer to some of the questions: DD1 is involved in DD2's therapy as much as we can, eg the turn taking games and messy play etc, however there are activities that require total focus and for this I need no distractions. If DD2 even hears DD1 upstairs I've lost the focus.

I've gone through therapy with DH but to be honest I get set new things each week and it's hard for him to keep up. Plus, I'm a self confessed control freak and I don't always like how he does it. I also know how DD2 will react to certain things and he doesn't, but this is purely down to the fact that I'm with DD2 24/7 and he just sees her at weekends.

I think re my mum I'll do what 'mummyof2boys' suggested and speak to her and just say that I do really appreciate her looking after DD1 and how important it is that she does this for me. She did say the other day that DD2 has made such good progress does she even need to have therapy every day, but if she saw her with her peers it would be so blindingly obvious that she needs it she wouldn't have even asked the question.

I think re DH, I'll get him to read this thread!! Should be clear as day then!

Thanks again, mn to the rescue AGAIN!!!

Forgot to answer your Q peachy. Yes we go to a sn therapy group each week and I meet lots of other mums there. There are now 3 of us that meet up for coffee on our own which is really nice. I admit I prefer spending time with them than my nt mums. You don't have to explain anything because we're all going through the same thing.

I know how you feel about that. I have 2 sn and 2not and I struggle (and fail) to relate to the mums with just nt kids.

I can't believe ds's grandparents say you don't do enough pipin, mine wouldn't dare say that.

I'd feel a bit of a fraud if I asked for respite I think. It's my decision to do all this therapy. None of DD2's therapists are holding a gun to my head, and DD2 just has GDD. I feel other people would need it more than me.

I do feel better already, it always helps to chat about it with like minded mums. I sometimes don't see all the positives. At the end of the day I do have help from my mum and DH does help too with taking DD1 off as well, and we do have a lot of input from therapists, all on the NHS. So I can't really complain as I know people in other areas don't get nearly the amount of help and have more serious problems to deal with.