Struggling going from 1-2

Just need people to relate to and advice.

I just had my beautiful very wanted baby girl. She is 4 weeks old and as a baby is a dream, she’s very easy. My son is 3 years old in a couple of weeks.

I knew going from 1-2 would be hard as I’m not silly but I did not expect it to be this level of hard. I am crying almost everyday and feel so low and worthless. I dread every day and night ahead of me.

I am exhausted as we had a bad birth and I lost a lot of blood and spent time in NICU. I’m low in B12 and Iron due to blood loss. I am taking supplements for this but as you can imagine this plus waking every 2 hours or less to feed a baby is killing me off.

My beautiful boy is very VERY high energy and requires a lot of my attention. He really struggles with independent play and obviously doesn’t understand mummy can’t play as often anymore or that his routine has changed slightly because I’m trying to just survive. His behaviour is through the roof. He’s always been hard I won’t lie even as a newborn but he has become an absolute horror from around 36 weeks pregnant to now. He is slapping, biting, kicking and spitting at me and my partner. Throwing insane tantrums because I can’t play 24/7. I could play with him for an hour and then I’ll stop and he that sets him off for hours. He won’t let me rest if I’m trying to have a nap on the couch even though his dad is playing with him. He is especially awful to my partner who is trying his best trying to manage the two of them to allow me to catch up on sleep when I need it but it’s impossible when our toddler can open doors and run away whilst dad has baby.

I just don’t understand as we are involving him with baby sister all the time, both taking him out to do 1-1 activities and i still put him to bed with cuddle every single night without fail. We have stuck to his routine as much as possible and he has become insanely challenging regardless.

I am so done in and just cry almost all day and night. I feel I have no connection to my daughter as I am a zombie everyday just trying to manage our son that all the attention actually goes to him and I barely get time to bond with her. It didn’t help our journey to her was very traumatic (infertility and miscarriages) so I’ve just never felt connected to her out of fear.

I feel awful. She’s an easy baby, my partner is an absolute godsend and I’m grateful every single day for him but our toddler is brutal and I feel awful every single day that I’m failing him and our daughter. I feel like an awful mum for not coping. He’s due to start nursery in 7 weeks and I feel bad for counting down the days. I love him but I’m not coping with him at all at the moment and part of me does feel resentment as this is our last baby and I feel I’m not enjoying this because he is so challenging at the moment. I’m just feeling such a complex wave of emotions and don’t know what to do.

The good part is he’s great with his sister directly, very gentle with her, wants to take her everywhere, talks so fondly of her and loves to help me etc but any other minute of the day he’s awful to his mum and dad :(

Anyone got any advice? I feel like I’m drowning and just wishing time away. I feel heartbroken.

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You're in the trenches and its normal and its really bloody hard with two kids! I wish more people were honest about this rather than trying to appear perfect.
The best advice I can give is try to practice acceptance. What I mean by that is, the situation likely wont change any time soon. Your family has gone through a massive change and you are all coping. The only thing that's in your power is YOUR mindset and YOUR reaction. You can't change how your son or daughter are acting because they are acting in normal ways for their age.
You just have to try to refrain your thinking from 'my child is misbehaving' to 'my child has gone through a massive change, his little brain isn't process it and he needs some time to settle down'.
Id say 90% of problems are halved if we can just try to stay calm and understanding. That is really really really hard to do when you are overstimulated, sleep deprived and hormonal though. There's no shame in stepping outside snd away from the situation for 5 mims to calm yourself

Oh wow, you poor thing, i really do feel for you, my heart breaks for you just reading how tough this is for you 💔

I had my second baby around similar age gap, my second child was 3 years and 3 months old, but she's always been a really good kid, with that being said i found it so difficult and honestly though how am I going to survive this because my newborn was a really difficult baby and had colic so he would cry in pain for hours on end and all through the night until the early hours of the morning.

My toddler did go through some changes of behaviour here and there, but I did put boundaries in place, your toddler can't be hitting, spitting and behaving badly for you and your partner, I know it's really tough but there needs to be consequences take things away from him that he enjoys playing with, if you've planned a day out or somewhere nice to go, cancel those plans and follow through with it and hopefully you should start seeing some changes. You are an amazing parent ❤️

These are just some of the things i did when my eldest was behaving badly, I'd cancel plans and she would cry and have a melt down but once she calmed down I explained why we won't be doing those nice things today, I'd also turn the TV off and not let her watch a favorite show. They've 18 months old now and almost 5, and they're great together. Don't get me wrong. Some days are difficult, and my eldest can have a proper little attitude at times, but she knows right from wrong and in general they're both amazing kids

I don't have any advice as I am still a few weeks away from 2, but as a mental health professional I do want to encourage you to keep note of the feelings you are having. They may go away as things settle and I hope they do, but it also could be the beginning of PPD. The exhaustion of two kids and the traumatic birth can both make those symptoms harder. Not saying you do have it, but its often easier to treat/manage if you seek help sooner.

It's okay that this feels hard. It is. You're dealing with something incredibly difficult. I hope it feels better and you get some sleep soon

I understand. That adjustment is HARD. Mine are 21mo apart. No outside help and during that time even a MIL that went out of her way to be cruel over the phone. A lot of tears during that time period. It does get better ❤️ and relatively fast and then before you know it you almost forget what it was like until you hear or read something that brings you back. Since your son is 3, can you look into sending him to preschool even if for just a few hours a few days a week? That break would be amazing for you both

I also found the transition from 1-2 very hard. The constant mum guilt that you’re not doing enough with one of them, not bonding enough with one of them, etc is really hard. It sounds like you are doing your absolute best and everything you’re feeling is very valid and normal. The bond with my 2nd took more time, for all the reasons you listed, so know that part will come in time. It does get so so much easier, right now you are right in the middle of the hardest part. Hugs to you 💗 DM me any time if you want to vent

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SAHM refuse to allow my husband into their special girls only clubs and we cant find any other SAHD in our area so he's completely alone.

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The working moms all have office jobs so its hard to relate, I have found very little success meeting other blue collar moms in my area, and if one more SAHM tells me they couldn't imagine leaving their baby to take care of someone else's baby all day im going to scream.

Is there ANYONE who can relate, even a little bit?

How would you approach this?

In the park with my 6 year old and the sprinklers are on. She's playing in them and there's a bucket (like a sand bucket) on the ground, so she picks it up and starts filling it with water.
When we were about to leave the park, my daughter says "that lady over there was so rude to me. She told me if I want to play with the buckets that I should save my money and order it or buy it because it's not that expensive" . If you know anything about me, you'd have to assume I would say something because are you fucking joking lmao.

So I approach her and ask "did you tell my daughter that she should save her money and buy her own bucket?" And she kind of laughs like that was ridiculous and then says I told her these buckets belong to these kids and that it isn't hers and they're not very expensive on Amazon if she wants to get one.
I replied "she's a child."
Then she says "well I told her no and she kept stealing them and filling them up"
So I replied "stealing?" to which she said "well not stealing, but she played with it after I told her no"
I said "it's a bucket" and she continues defending her stance and I just okayed her like 3 times and left her talking. The words I wanted to use just weren't worth it. And it was so hot and we were already leaving the park. But oooooh I wish I witnessed the exchange because wtf? And my daughter is super sweet and friendly, so if she was a little jerk I'd understand more.
And what kind of parent says you can't play with my kid's things? A water bucket? In the park? Really? Like it's your right, but grow up?

Advice on Relationship.

Hi Everyone, I’m first time mum at 31 years old and just need some Advice on my relationship whether it’s healthy relationship and it is controlling?

Since we had our daughter together,
I feel like there’s more control now than before like having a go at me how I treat our daughter and doesn’t like that I have opinion on things I feel like I’m walking on egg shells most of the time but it’s ok for him to tell me few weeks ago if we split up our daughter is living with him but I can still come and see her but that’s not for him to decide! He’s grabbed my neck before in argument and he throws things when he’s in heated argument with me in front of our daughter, one time he throw controller at my knee then says stop been pathetic that shouldn’t hurt, When we have Arguments he calls me names like prick, thick cunt, spacker how can you call woman them words except me to be ok with it! Behind closed doors he’s different person to in public but ages ago he kicked off in pub when we was having meal out with our child because I told him he was taking control because he just took my phone off me without asking then started crying because how he reacted I just felt embarrassed to be honest. It is all in my head or is this relationship one sided and controlling?

Found out my husband (sorta) cheated

My husbands phone broke last week and he finally took it to Apple yesterday and they were able to fix/recover everything. We’ve never had secrets or hidden things and I have always had access to his phone so last night after he went to bed I went into his hidden photos to make sure my sexy photos I’ve sent were still on his phone or if I needed to send him new ones.

And boy was I SHOCKED. He had THOUSANDS of AI pictures of naked women just all over it from like 2024-mid2025. And if that isn’t bad enough, he had *recent* screenshots of pictures and videos of naked women off Snapchat stories. Starting sometime at the end of summer last year all the way through my pregnancy early this year and during my miscarriage. Even specific ones on the day of our anniversary and 2 days after we lost our baby.

I have felt completely gutted ever since I found them (on accident I was not snooping). My entire body has felt heavy and sick and shaky. I feel so disgusted that these skinny women with huge boobs and butts are all over his phone when I am the biggest I’ve ever been after losing our second child. The worst part is these women look nothing like me. I confronted him and he deleted everything but he didn’t see it as cheating even though I’ve specifically said it before that I’m not okay with it and that if he wants time to himself (which I support) he should only look at pictures of me. I feel like our whole relationship and marriage is just a huge joke. And now I am questioning everything.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you but am I valid for feeling this way? I know I should be but this just took me for complete surprise and I just feel broken.

For the record I don’t want to end our marriage but I also don’t know how to get past this (yet) and I told him if he ever does this again then I’m done.