The inevitable happened! – Mummascribbles

Last night the inevitable happened. I broke down. It was always going to happen the more Zach pushed me away and when I could feel those tears coming, I let them fall.

He woke up about half an hour after falling asleep (it took us over an hour to get him to sleep!), and 15 minutes into our dinner being in the oven. I sat and ate mine while daddy sat upstairs with him and then we switched. I knew there was going to be trouble but I didn’t quite anticipate how much. He was peaceful when I went up, probably nodding back off to sleep, but daddy had to eat and so I had to take over. Upon daddy leaving the room there was immediate tears and wailings of daddy, daddy. This went on for some time. I tried to settle him, tried to sooth him but he didn’t want me. I took him out for a cuddle, we sat on his toybox for about 5 minutes having some cuddles that he’d resigned to but he was soon wailing again asking to go in our room. I took him into our room but no, he wanted to be in his room. This happened several times before he asked to go back into his cot. I put him down and he told me to go away (seriously, he’s 2 for god’s sake), so I asked him if he really wanted me to go and he said yes so I sat over quietly on his toybox and he still wailed. He was literally inconsolable and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to calm him down – in fact, my being there was making him even worse. So I left. I went into our room and sat on the bed. And I cried. I sobbed with my head in my hands, because I felt completely helpless and completely useless as a mother.

I don’t think I’ve cried from motherhood since the other half’s birthday two years ago when Zach was 3 weeks old. That was a day that Zach had spent crying – all day long. By the end of the day I was in floods of tears, on the phone to my sister, asking her to come round and help me.

I haven’t cried over motherhood since that day.

I know that he is doing it on purpose. I know he is testing me and pushing me but he is making me feel like the worst mother in the world. And I also know that it is ONLY when daddy is around. When I picked him up from my mum’s yesterday he was so happy to see me. He actually came over and requested to sit on my lap. This morning when daddy was in the shower, we were sitting snuggled on the bed playing on the Cbeebies app. Again, this morning on the way to nursery I asked him for a kiss and got one, he wanted to be carried into the room by me and he happily gave me a kiss and a smile when I said my goodbyes.

So he does love me (of course!). I’m not a terrible mother, he just wants his dad but that’s putting a huge strain on the poor other half. With his sore throat, Zach has been up most of the night for the last 3 nights – and as at those moments he doesn’t want me anywhere near him, the other half is having to deal with it all. He’s exhausted, I’m exhausted, Zach’s exhausted. It’s like having a newborn all over again!

But we’ll get through it because as parents we always do. That’s the challenge of parenting isn’t it?

***Since writing the majority of this post, his nursery have called to say he’s very emotional and I’m en route to pick him up. Let’s see how just the two of us get on until daddy gets home – it’s like a little experiment! Hopefully he won’t come home to two inconsolable people!