During the day, F who's 5 months is an absolute joy. Happy, smiley and very easy going baby. However, N who's 2.5 yrs is the typical toddler. Full of tantrums, arguementative and such very hard work. And at night, the toddler is an angel - off to bed at 7pm and sleeps right through until 7am without a murmur during the night. Whereas F goes down at 7pm, usually wakes around 10pm and then spends the rest of the night screaming and refusing to settle/sleep anywhere - in her cot, in my bed, in my arms.
To make matters worse, H is an overtime-obsessed shift worker so is very rarely home - so I'm left to cope with this by myself. My family are local, but when I ask for help get comments like "we'll have N over to play in the summer, when the weather's better and he can run around the garden". Or, "your brother didn't sleep for 2 years, it's just something you have to deal with". Or "I told you have 2 children was hard". As for MIL, she adores her grandchildren from a distance. Lives about an hours drive away, but will only come and visit them for special occasions and purely to play and take photos of her beloved grandchildren. When asked to help, she says that she'd rather not as she doesn't feel comfortable doing practical hands-on things with them whilst they are so young.
No need to reply - I'm actually coping OK. I'm just very tired, sat downstairs by myself once again listening to F scream through the monitor. I know this is it for the night until around 4am when she'll finally fall into an exhausted sleep. And then her brother will come in all bright and cheery at 7am wanting to start the day! Yawn!