SAHM for 6 months and my nervous system is so dysregulated and I feel stuck
Hi everyone, I am a kind of new SAHM to a 2.5 year old and 11 month old. I stopped working back in January to be a SAHM, and the first few months were fine, but the last 2 months have been the worst time of my life.
To preface, my 2nd has still not slept through the night, and has gone through some awful sleep regressions that I swear have traumatized me. My first was STTN by 6 months and has always been a decent sleeper. My 2nd has also always had an irregular nap schedule no matter how hard we tried, and has been down to one nap a day for about 2 months now. He still wakes up 2-3 times a night for a bottle. We have tried no bottle at night and he won’t go back to sleep. He goes down at 10am for nap, and my toddler goes down between 10:30am-11am for nap. They both have a bedtime at 6pm, this has always been the schedule since my oldest was 6months, and trying to keep them up later results in an earlier morning. Currently we are up around 5:30am everyday. I don’t have the willpower to try different bed times now to see if they will sleep in later as I am pouring from an empty glass.
I am completely burnt out and exhausted. Every day is so long and so hard. My husband is a great help when he gets home from work, and gives me decompression time after he gets home, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. I genuinely feel like I’m the worst mom every single time I lose my shit or yell. My toddler does normal toddler things that I could handle if I was functioning properly, but as I said earlier, I am pouring from an empty glass. I can’t tell if I’m struggling with anxiety, depression, or just plain overwhelm. I have ADHD and am medicated but it feels like it does nothing to help anymore. I can’t stop my brain or stop the noise. The constant noise is what is driving me insane. Of course kids are going to make noise, but lately all of the noise is too much I want to turn it all off. I try so so hard to make sure my kids are eating healthy, limited screen time, getting outdoors, doing activities, etc. but it’s so exhausting. I’m so withdrawn and disconnected from them because of the overwhelm.
I so badly want to work out, and we even have an at home gym set up, but I can’t get through any work outs because either my toddler is constantly screaming “mommy, mommy, mommy!!!” or my youngest is doing normal baby things and getting into stuff.
I want to go on walks but I dont feel safe walking with two young kids by myself as I am a young woman. I can’t protect all of us if something were to happen. I can’t take them to the park by myself for the same reason.
All outings are so stressful that I find myself just wanting to stay home even if I’m going insane being stuck at home. But the meltdowns and tantrums in public actually send me into a spiral. Keeping two kids regulated in public seems impossible.
They are not bad kids at all. But fuck, this is so so hard. Anytime I yell or lose my cool, I feel completely fucking awful and swear I won’t do it again. But then an hour later my toddler has kicked her younger brother again and it enrages me.
I’m so scared to ruin my kids or to make them scared of me because of my emotional outbursts. How the fuck can I regulate two young kids when I can’t even emotionally regulate myself?
I am in therapy and have done so much work on myself. I was doing amazing a year ago, and now I am the worst I have ever been.
I need help.