in ADHD, Autism, & Special Needs Support

How do you do it with several kids!?

I just had my 3rd, she’s 11 days old. Seriously the easiest baby. But still a newborn baby and attached to me, feeding and pumping, waking, etc. I also have a likely ADHD 4 year old and a neurotypical 4 year old. I feel like my adhd boy constantly seeks my attention, mostly in bad ways, and it’s a struggle for me to hold my patience with him now that baby is pulling me a second direction. I think it’s possible he has oppositional defiant disorder as well. Meanwhile my other 4 year old gets backburnered attention wise because hes a rule follower, big helper, relaxed personality- just so easy. Which makes me feel so guilty. Anyways, my son was seen by our pediatrician who agrees he has the telltale childhood signs of ADHD. Not to mention both parents have adhd. We did not yet discuss ODD though and he hasn’t been officially evaluated nor medicated because the dr would like to avoid it unless it affects his performance in 4k in the fall. Would you press that or wait? Based on his day to day I already have no doubt in my mind that it will cause him to struggle in school. I just don’t know what to do. He was getting harder and harder to handle before baby, but im less able to now and he’s really pushing me over the edge. What has helped you or what are good resources? How do you juggle it all? I know it’s also partly hormones but I’m starting to feel like all my kids are doomed in different ways because of this and I feel like it’s starting to cause resentment towards my son for me. I just feel like ripping my hair out all the time.

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Your kids are not doomed. Change your language, it matters. I am a behavior therapist and AuDHD adult raising 2 kid's with Autism/ADHD + 1 with ADHD. I'm an author and instructional designer with plenty of books and resources on ADHD and ADHD parenting. I have journals for moms and kiddos as well. You can message me for a link or just Google me: Teliesha.Sharee and everything will come up. It's too much to type here, but I am a subject matter expert in my line of work. ❤️

My 9 year old and 3 year old are neurotypical and my baby is 7 weeks old and hard of hearing and I still can barely figure this stuff out girl. Solidarity. And you’re doing an amazing job. Try to get all the help from professionals you can. Include your big helper as much as you can with helping! My 9 year old found her purpose in that. (She’s my little sister that lived with me and was the big helper at her old place so it transferred into here too) try not to lose your shit on the other 4 year old as much as possible. I’ve really doubled down on that for myself and I think it’s helping. He truly doesn’t understand why I’m so upset most the time. I try not to say no about the little things that I could say yes to. Constantly saying no and having to enforce it was exhausting. If he wants to wash his hands 3 times, yes. He wants to eat peanut butter out of the jar while I make the sandwich? Yes. He wants to wear his bathing suit? Yes. Saves me from a lot of arguing with a child.

I hope even one thing I said helped. Hang in there!

I have so many mh diagnosis’ including severe adhd. My 12yo is asd and adhd and I have a 2yo red headed wild baby and 3 step kiddos fulltime. I’m always exhausted, but i also have several chronic pain and health diagnosis also that don’t help either. Parenting is hard. Period. Some days I just move along and time stands still I swear to god and other days it’s the best but I feel like I may have a nervous breakdown at the same time. You’re not alone.