Our oldest just turned 6. We have 4 year old twins. Our baby is 6 months. They're all great kids. I love them with all of my heart. That said, four is the hardest age we've ever dealt with. It was hard with our now 6 year old for months. Now that we have TWO 4 year olds, I feel drained all the time and dh feels the same. We work opposite shifts so they aren't in daycare. I work part time until noon, then he works until 9:00pm. We don't have childcare around here. My mom and dad who did watch them sometimes are moving out of state in a couple weeks. It's not so much a thing of needing a break anyway, because when I get out by myself for a few hours and feel refreshed, I quickly go back to stressed after being home for a little bit.
The 6 year old on his own does great usually but he's only 20 months older than the twins, so he's easily swayed into whatever behavior they're doing. They fight, ignore me, try to hurt each other, laugh and keep doing whatever I asked them not to do. I know it's all normal 4 year old behavior, but I don't know how to get through it. They're 4y4m. It seems like the more I try to be calm and gentle, the worse they get. I try the playful parenting tips sometimes and it works sometimes, although I'm exhausted from it. But exhausted and happy is better than exhausted and stressed. Many times they get into this bad cycle with each other and I can't snap them out of it. They don't listen when I say it's time for quiet time/alone time/take a break/whatever. They just get in each other's faces even more. The 6 year old is starting to say now that he wants some quiet time and he'll go to his room. We're working on respecting privacy, so the kids know if someone has their door closed, you knock. If they say you can come in, fine, otherwise you need to leave them alone. They'll go knock on the door and he'll say he wants quiet time so the twins will scream at his door or pound on it and just yell stuff like "lalalalalalalalaal" or "I won't be quiet for you!" until 6 year old gets mad and things escalate. If I try to physically move them, I can only do one at a time, so when I go back up to the other one, the first one just runs back up there. It's exhausting and I end up yelling several times per day.
A year and a half ago, we did 1-2-3 magic time outs. It worked. I started learning about GD though and decided it wasn't the route we wanted to take. In a moment of desperation a couple days ago (we were leaving a friend's house after dark and they took off running down the sidewalk far away and ignored my "red light" that we say only when we absolutely need them to stop and ignored every other attempt too) I said "That's ONE!" and they listened.
: Yesterday something similar happened with them fighting with each other. They were in the car hurting each other (there is no other way to seat them and they have a space in between, but lean over to pinch) and wouldn't stop no matter how I tried to change the subject, be silly, etc. I said "That's one" and they sat nicely.
I don't want them to only listen when I yell or count them. I *want* to GD them. We tried family meetings but the twins ignore it and "lalalalala" through it or cover their ears.
Any advice on getting through this without losing whatever GD progress we had made before? I yell every day and I know it doesn't make things better, so I need to stop that. But I have absolutely no idea how to deal with this. None. I don't even enjoy being around them most of the time. I know it's terrible to say. I do love them, it's just hard to be around them.
The 6 year old on his own does great usually but he's only 20 months older than the twins, so he's easily swayed into whatever behavior they're doing. They fight, ignore me, try to hurt each other, laugh and keep doing whatever I asked them not to do. I know it's all normal 4 year old behavior, but I don't know how to get through it. They're 4y4m. It seems like the more I try to be calm and gentle, the worse they get. I try the playful parenting tips sometimes and it works sometimes, although I'm exhausted from it. But exhausted and happy is better than exhausted and stressed. Many times they get into this bad cycle with each other and I can't snap them out of it. They don't listen when I say it's time for quiet time/alone time/take a break/whatever. They just get in each other's faces even more. The 6 year old is starting to say now that he wants some quiet time and he'll go to his room. We're working on respecting privacy, so the kids know if someone has their door closed, you knock. If they say you can come in, fine, otherwise you need to leave them alone. They'll go knock on the door and he'll say he wants quiet time so the twins will scream at his door or pound on it and just yell stuff like "lalalalalalalalaal" or "I won't be quiet for you!" until 6 year old gets mad and things escalate. If I try to physically move them, I can only do one at a time, so when I go back up to the other one, the first one just runs back up there. It's exhausting and I end up yelling several times per day.
A year and a half ago, we did 1-2-3 magic time outs. It worked. I started learning about GD though and decided it wasn't the route we wanted to take. In a moment of desperation a couple days ago (we were leaving a friend's house after dark and they took off running down the sidewalk far away and ignored my "red light" that we say only when we absolutely need them to stop and ignored every other attempt too) I said "That's ONE!" and they listened.
: Yesterday something similar happened with them fighting with each other. They were in the car hurting each other (there is no other way to seat them and they have a space in between, but lean over to pinch) and wouldn't stop no matter how I tried to change the subject, be silly, etc. I said "That's one" and they sat nicely.I don't want them to only listen when I yell or count them. I *want* to GD them. We tried family meetings but the twins ignore it and "lalalalala" through it or cover their ears.
Any advice on getting through this without losing whatever GD progress we had made before? I yell every day and I know it doesn't make things better, so I need to stop that. But I have absolutely no idea how to deal with this. None. I don't even enjoy being around them most of the time. I know it's terrible to say. I do love them, it's just hard to be around them.
: I just repeated what I said and walked back upstairs. The one upstairs kicked the wall a few times. A few minutes later I went to get each of them and held them and said that our family rule is to use kind words, kind tones and kind touches. I repeated that you can be mad, but may not hurt. I hugged them and asked if they were ready to play gently and that was that. *I* feel more calm because I knew that there was an end in sight, it wasn't going to just be nonstop fighting. I felt like I was much more able to be calm and deal with the issue.
Mother of 4 ages 7 and under going through VERY similiar things. 
