Relationships after kids

Calhoun

bee06 wrote: »

Maybe it’s a man thing. It’s possible that my brain is a bit different than “normal” people! It genuinely never occurred to me that I should approach my career differently because of the financial situation. I suppose it depends on a persons overall financial stability as well. Anyway, it’s probably dragging the OP’s thread off topic now.

Its horrible at times the way we are hard wired. When we had our first 2 and were applying for a mortgage i felt trapped and on my best behavior in work. As the mortgage was coming off my income i was very fearful of getting let go.

The result in behavior was working more hours than i should and neglecting my home life. I am not condoning my behavior but there was a real fear and worry at the time.

When my wife got a very secure job which allowed for more freedom, it meant i could change my ways and make sure the work life balance was right.

Definitely not my intention to seem misogynistic, i think men should focus on what matters (home and family) but just trying to give some perspective on how we think at times.

jackboy

It’s hard for people to accept that keeping a house spotlessly clean and tidy is infinitely more difficult with children. This causes extreme stress for someone who is a neat freak. The partner who gets a bollocking for sitting on the couch instead of scrubbing the house does not realize they are doing anything wrong because they are not doing anything wrong.

With sleep deprivation, the previous tiny annoyances are greatly amplified. There are no easy answers, it needs to be toughed out for a couple of years.

shesty

This is true but also with more than one smallie it is about all the day to day work that is necessary.Washing clothes, making lunches, digging out uniforms, making meals and last of all, clearing up the stuff every evening to make room for you to sit down!My house has fallen by the wayside but all that stuff before that alone would take up most of my evenings every week, and that is the stuff that you do need two people to help out for.

Even when you have a dishwasher :-)

jester77

shesty wrote: »

This is true but also with more than one smallie it is about all the day to day work that is necessary.Washing clothes, making lunches, digging out uniforms, making meals and last of all, clearing up the stuff every evening to make room for you to sit down!My house has fallen by the wayside but all that stuff before that alone would take up most of my evenings every week, and that is the stuff that you do need two people to help out for.

Even when you have a dishwasher :-)

You sound like you are making life hard for yourself. My kids help tidy up the table after dinner every evening, they then bring all their stuff that is lying around back to their rooms and then tidy up their rooms. While they are tidying their rooms, I clean up the few pots and pans that are leftover from cooking.

The kids then get ready for bed and put any clothes that need washing into the laundry basket. Once they are put to bed, the basket is brought to the laundry room and quickly sorted. If there is a enough for a load, it gets quickly thrown on. And before going to bed, it gets transferred to the dryer.

Digging out clothes takes less than 1 minute, open the wardrobe, take out what is needed. Lunches are prepared in while they are having breakfast.

catrionanic

jester77 wrote: »

You sound like you are making life hard for yourself. My kids help tidy up the table after dinner every evening, they then bring all their stuff that is lying around back to their rooms and then tidy up their rooms. While they are tidying their rooms, I clean up the few pots and pans that are leftover from cooking.

The kids then get ready for bed and put any clothes that need washing into the laundry basket. Once they are put to bed, the basket is brought to the laundry room and quickly sorted. If there is a enough for a load, it gets quickly thrown on. And before going to bed, it gets transferred to the dryer.

Digging out clothes takes less than 1 minute, open the wardrobe, take out what is needed. Lunches are prepared in while they are having breakfast.

Shesty's kids are babies and pre-schoolers. Did you forget what life was like when your kids were that age?

Calhoun

It amazes me how fast a clean room can be expertly destroyed.

Our eldest has autism and she doesn't like it when her things are tidied up.

jester77

catrionanic wrote: »

Shesty's kids are babies and pre-schoolers. Did you forget what life was like when your kids were that age?

Sure I do.

My youngest is not yet 3 and a half and she cleans up after herself, puts her toys back and change her room, brings her plate to the dishwasher and puts her underwear and socks in the laundry basket.

When she was younger age didn't create as much of a mess and she was in nappies, so things were a little easier, apart from the shorter nights.

LegacyUser

It is really tough at the start. I never had a row at all with my missus until we had our child, then we were having screaming fights at 1am. Really bad fights. It's tiredness, frustration, all sorts. Your old lives upended overnight.

It does get better, it really does.

In the meantime, I would suggest try and talk without phones or tv. Have a late dinner together, a greasy chinese delivered once a week, and just try and enjoy some time together. Get a big bag of grease delivered, sit on the floor and just chat and laugh together. Laugh at how ridiculous your life is now. Reminisce about the olden days.

It does get better, believe me. But it takes time. Being a parent is **** hard, you're doing great.

shesty

Ah look, my five year old and three year old put stuff in dishwashers and clothes baskets (sporadically) and my one year old has taken to (oddly) putting stuff in the bin -rubbish only....so far...but no matter what, they fall into bed at 7:30 and there is still work that needs doing that they can't do.The advice above is good, takeaway night saves on clean-up too.But the fact remains that a 1 &2 year old are essentially two babies.Even another year in their ages will make a huge difference.It is hard OP and you are not alone.

jester77

shesty wrote: »

Ah look, my five year old and three year old put stuff in dishwashers and clothes baskets (sporadically) and my one year old has taken to (oddly) putting stuff in the bin -rubbish only....so far...but no matter what, they fall into bed at 7:30 and there is still work that needs doing that they can't do.The advice above is good, takeaway night saves on clean-up too.But the fact remains that a 1 &2 year old are essentially two babies.Even another year in their ages will make a huge difference.It is hard OP and you are not alone.

We always cook for 2 evenings, do a stew on Sunday, sorts out Monday. Bolonese on Tuesday for Tue/We'd, so on. That way one of us is only cooking max twice in the week. Leaves time for other stuff.

rainbow kirby

jester77 wrote: »

We always cook for 2 evenings, do a stew on Sunday, sorts out Monday. Bolonese on Tuesday for Tue/We'd, so on. That way one of us is only cooking max twice in the week. Leaves time for other stuff.

We do that as well, it really helps. I also tend to keep the freezer well stocked with things that can be cooked for a low effort dinner should they be needed.

I have a 3.5 year old and a 20 month old and work full time. I do the overwhelming majority of the work at home. I'm constantly exhausted and don't get enough help even when I ask for it. It's incredibly frustrating.

mitresize5

A man here so I'll give you the enemy perspective :-)

Two full time workers, two kids, 6 and 2. Work in the home spread as much 50/50 as possible

We went through the exact same thing, huge stress on the marriage, tiredness, irritability, etc ...

Whether you like it or not you are both going to have to change, once both of us realised that things became a lot better.

Most men just don't see 'it', i.e. I can tidy the house before my wife gets home and be delighted with myself, my wife can come in the door and spend another hour cleaning. So now if something really specific needs to be done she'll tell me and I'll happily do it rather than her bottling it up and driving her crazy

On the other side my wife has very slowly come round to the fact that we have two young children, the house wont be a show house again until they are gone. So she has learnt to not sweat the small things, i.e. its ok that all the toys aren't tidied away every night. Mud from football boots in the hall, thats ok, it doesn't have to be cleaned up this very second or else.

We have come to the conclusion that we are doing our very best on both sides and that's all we can do,

edit: if at all possible get a cleaner once a week for a few hours for the bath rooms, floors etc ...

Princess Calla

catrionanic wrote: »

Thank you for posting this, dreamstar. I'm sorry you're finding things hard. Parenting can be very lonely, and even moreso when your relationship is in a bad place.

Honestly, I think this is one of the last big taboos in parenthood which isn't really spoken about. People don't want to badmouth their partners, or make it seem like they don't have their lives together. So they just let on that everything is fine in their relationship. But I think that secretly, behind closed doors, most people with young children are feeling a massive strain in their relationship. I wish that people would talk about it more, because it helps to know that this is normal and you're not alone, and that people get through it.

I've never resented my husband as much as I have since my first boy was born in 2017! Then when my next boy joined us in 2018, the resentment levels were through the roof. All through pregnancy and the early babyhood, we argued. There have been several instances where we talked about separating. I've felt really alone and hopeless. We came very close to calling it a day.

My baby is nearly one now, and things are a lot better. I feel like my husband took a long time to grow up. He still wanted to go on mad nights out til 5am, to come home and put his feet up and do no housework, and to only do the fun parts of parenthood but none of the early mornings or nappy changes. I felt disrespected and discriminated against. Like I had married a sexist. I felt like he didn't care about my welfare, and was only interested in himself.

He's growing up now though, bit by bit! I still have days when I could hang him from the rafters, but they are getting less frequent. And of course, things get easier as the babies get bigger and you get a little more sleep.

You're not alone in this. You will get through it. It will take time, and lots of talking and explaining. But you can do it.

I could have wrote this word for word!!

Having a baby will show you cracks in your relationship you never knew were there.

It does get better though!

dreamstar

catrionanic wrote: »

Thank you for posting this, dreamstar. I'm sorry you're finding things hard. Parenting can be very lonely, and even moreso when your relationship is in a bad place.

Honestly, I think this is one of the last big taboos in parenthood which isn't really spoken about. People don't want to badmouth their partners, or make it seem like they don't have their lives together. So they just let on that everything is fine in their relationship. But I think that secretly, behind closed doors, most people with young children are feeling a massive strain in their relationship. I wish that people would talk about it more, because it helps to know that this is normal and you're not alone, and that people get through it.

I've never resented my husband as much as I have since my first boy was born in 2017! Then when my next boy joined us in 2018, the resentment levels were through the roof. All through pregnancy and the early babyhood, we argued. There have been several instances where we talked about separating. I've felt really alone and hopeless. We came very close to calling it a day.

My baby is nearly one now, and things are a lot better. I feel like my husband took a long time to grow up. He still wanted to go on mad nights out til 5am, to come home and put his feet up and do no housework, and to only do the fun parts of parenthood but none of the early mornings or nappy changes. I felt disrespected and discriminated against. Like I had married a sexist. I felt like he didn't care about my welfare, and was only interested in himself.

He's growing up now though, bit by bit! I still have days when I could hang him from the rafters, but they are getting less frequent. And of course, things get easier as the babies get bigger and you get a little more sleep.

You're not alone in this. You will get through it. It will take time, and lots of talking and explaining. But you can do it.

This is exactly how I'm feeling. Sometimes he comes home and just tells me he's meeting the lads or heading to a match. That's fine but I just don't have the same freedom. The kids won't settle when I'm not there.

I think most of our problems are due to the fact I'm bedsharing with the little one. I'm going to bed with her and I miss sleeping beside my hubby. And I guess he does get lonely. He's downstairs on his own and going to bed alone.

I just don't know how to sort it. She just screams the house down as soon as she goes in the cot and does not stop.

CheerLouth

dreamstar wrote: »

This is exactly how I'm feeling. Sometimes he comes home and just tells me he's meeting the lads or heading to a match. That's fine but I just don't have the same freedom. The kids won't settle when I'm not there.

I think most of our problems are due to the fact I'm bedsharing with the little one. I'm going to bed with her and I miss sleeping beside my hubby. And I guess he does get lonely. He's downstairs on his own and going to bed alone.

I just don't know how to sort it. She just screams the house down as soon as she goes in the cot and does not stop.

That sounds so tough! Would you consider one of those sleep consultants? I've no experience with them but someone at work mentioned that her son had gotten one for his little boy because they were having a similar issue & it seemed to help.

bee06

dreamstar wrote: »

This is exactly how I'm feeling. Sometimes he comes home and just tells me he's meeting the lads or heading to a match. That's fine but I just don't have the same freedom. The kids won't settle when I'm not there.

I think most of our problems are due to the fact I'm bedsharing with the little one. I'm going to bed with her and I miss sleeping beside my hubby. And I guess he does get lonely. He's downstairs on his own and going to bed alone.

I just don't know how to sort it. She just screams the house down as soon as she goes in the cot and does not stop.

Side car the cot onto the bed for a bit more room or buy a bigger bed and all sleep together. We have the cot at the side of the bed.

shesty

OP ,if you think the sleeping thing is part of the problem, then try to address it. Would he be ok with the baby sharing the bed with the 2 of you? If not, then you will have to get her into the habit of sleeping in her own space. Co-sleeping is fine but if it's beginning to affect your relationship then you probably need to think about changing something.

If you can't afford a sleep consultant, I'd suggest buying a book like Lucy Wolfe's one. From what I've read of her advice, it's really good and a very gentle way of helping small children sleep. The little one will get used to having her own room, but it will take a few weeks of hard work on your part, it won't happen straight away.

As regards the other stuff, you are going to have to sit down with your OP and discuss all this. I mean if he wants to go out with the lads or whatever that's fine, but you need to get time to yourself too and he needs to pitch in and help in the evening. I would seriously consider listing a few jobs that are his responsibility, and I would also consider setting a night a month where you both get out for a meal or a cinema trip or something. Like I said before there is no point seething silently. Two kids is hard - two under 2 or around that is mainly a lot of drudgery and it is hard, but you can get through it. Just don't lose each other while you are doing it.

Calhoun

bee06 wrote: »

Side car the cot onto the bed for a bit more room or buy a bigger bed and all sleep together. We have the cot at the side of the bed.

We have the side car thing and it's excellent. You can always bring them into the bed if they are unsettled and put them back in when it settles down.

fits

dreamstar wrote: »

I just don't know how to sort it. She just screams the house down as soon as she goes in the cot and does not stop.

I had the same issue with my twins. I just gave up on the cot after a while and we worked with what we knew the lads would do. So we put bedrails on the king sized bed and I would feed to sleep and roll away so we could watch tv together for an hour or have a cup of tea together or something. We had a video monitor and would pretty much have one eye on that and one on the tv the whole time because once one would stir, the other could wake up too if we werent quick.

Anyway, in time it evolved to the two boys being in their own rooms with rails on one bed and the other is a mattress on the floor. They sleep independently most of the time now - so there is an end in sight.

It is a major adjustment in a relationship. Its hard.