Toddler behaviour

Is anyone else struggling with their two year old?
I love my daughter to pieces, I miss her as soon as she’s not with me (unless she’s just been driving me mad🙃) but oh my god she is such hard work and I’ve worked with children since I was 17 (now 31) so it’s not like I have no experience with toddlers though obviously having your own is very different.

I feel like she is grumpy 90% of the time. She’s so strong headed and stubborn. Everything is ‘no’ and a battle even when I’m trying to give her choices and have fun with her. I show love through affection and though she enjoys a hug and a kiss here and there if she gets hurt or is grumpy she rejects comfort until she decides she is ready for a cuddle or she’s over what happened and starts playing again, which I guess is fair but I find it hard when I want to help her and she’s rejecting me..and this happens regularly throughout the day as I say she’s grumpy a lot! She is also not very kind to other children, hitting etc when all they want to do is interact with her. She has really good speech and understanding which I would have thought would mean she would be better behaved as I can try and explain/ reason with her but no, it’s her way or the high way and everything I say is rejected with a loud ‘no’

I do have less patience as I’m 34 weeks pregnant and struggle a lot with fatigue and breathlessness so I’m hopeful that I will cope better with her when the baby is here but equally im terrified I will cope even less with her when the baby comes. I spend most my day drained and miserable and wanting to cry because I love her but spend a lot of the time feeling like I don’t like her and it makes me so sad and I feel like I’m an awful mum. I find whenever I’m talking about her to my mum or sisters it’s negative and her dad doesn’t think she’s half as bad as I ‘make out’ but I’m with her all day everyday and he isn’t. It doesn’t help that her cousin is 3 months younger and an absolute little angel in comparison.

If you read all this then thank you and please don’t judge me,
From a very exhausted mum 🫠

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