Back to work with a troubled 2 year old

[user1490895355]

Hi all,
I've recently joined the working mums after 2 and a half years out and 2 kids later and I need some help. I love my job and we desperately need the money but that means my 2 year old and 6 month old are now at nursery 3 days a week and with dad another 2. It's been 6 weeks and the increase in tantrums and "naughty moments" from my eldest has gone through the roof! I was thinking it's the change to routine and the fact I'm away so much now - has anyone else had this?! What would you suggest? I'm with a new employer so bringing up reducing my hours feels pretty cheeky and I don't know how much it will help. At the end of the day my children are more important than my career so if I have to resort to stacking shelves at night when they're sleeping I will but if anyone has any advice I would really like some options!
Thank you in advance!

I think all this will settle down once they get used to you being at work. If you need the money then stay working! They won't even remember this stage. How does your DH handle the tantrums?
When you're with them make a big fuss of having missed them but say working is important so you can all do more things/go on holiday etc

That's what I'm hoping, I guess I just hoped they wouldn't realise the difference and I'd be the lucky one! 😂 he struggles, before 6 weeks ago id always been the one to handle the awkward moments whilst he was the fun one so I guess that doesn't help! We enjoy our weekends so much more now and can go out and do fun things which we couldn't before I just don't want to make their week worse for 2 days of fun 😔

Is your eldest more tired than usual? That affects behaviour too.

Yes I think so which was one reason I thought it could be but he's not sleeping as well as usual even though I've tried to keep his night time routine the same as always! We're now up at 5 instead of 7 now though

How long have you been in your new job OP? Have you got any time off planned? I find with little ones its better to have shorter more frequent breaks rather than 2 weeks in one go.

I've been there 6 weeks now and I have 1 week at the end of April and 1 week mid May planned holiday to treat them but now I'm thinking they could just be settling into a routine then I'm going to ruin it again! It's so hard to know the right thing to do 😔

I've been there 6 weeks now and I have 1 week at the end of April and 1 week mid May planned holiday to treat them but now I'm thinking they could just be settling into a routine then I'm going to ruin it again! It's so hard to know the right thing to do 😔

We had the same - and kind of still have this at every major routine change after holidays. It does settle down - routine, treating him a bit younger than he is and love bombing seems to work a bit better for us than a focus on him being a big boy etc.

At least you've got that week off to look forward to. Best to just chill a bit at home and not plan too much.
If you can take some odd days off that's nice too.