Hmmmm, good and crap.

I couldn't change everything at once, so we have dropped boobs for bedtime only. Which works fabulously well if Beth doesn't have a sleep during the day. She goes right off on the boob but tbh, its not really a solution because she is still not going to sleep on her own. If she has a sleep and I put her in bed (no matter how tired she is), she screams the house down like before. So I have put a chair in the room, sit next to her cot and sing/pat her back/juggle/do backflips until she goes off.
Still waking in the night but she doesn't ask for boobs - or during the day either. So a small win.

The next big issue is Mitch and his behaviour (put it in here no hijacking your thread Div!). I have no answers for you, let alone myself. Its sort of the same because he also has an Fwit father modelling crap behaviour, but the poor kid has been frustrated since he was 4 weeks old. With the colic/reflux he could never seem to sleep and he was always tired or overtired. It took us years for him to catch up on sleep, and to be able to get what he needs, but what's left is a hair trigger temper/reaction, and his fists fly in frustration. He also seems unable to walk past his sister without shoving her into the wall.
I do all you do, and have been for a long time, but it seems to be to be punishing the poor fella for things beyond his control and having no effect at all.
I don't let N take the kids back to his house anymore, at least until he has got some help with his ridiculous expectations of a 3 yr old, and better ways to deal with him, but also because N's mother is the QUEEN of modelling crap behaviour (remember Lulu the Bipolar Bear?), and I refuse to let either child near her. Actually N was on the phone this morning telling me how the old bat got so frustrated with her laptop that she smashed it to pieces. Of course it wasn't her fault....but I digress.

But the icing on the top of the cake and the thing that has had me collapsed in a corner sobbing all week is this. I have called somewhere on referral to have Mitch seen individually and to get some better strategies for dealing with the short fuse, I had a lovely talk with a very nice woman who made me feel alot better, but let me know there would be a 2 week wait for daytime appts, and 5 weeks for evening appts, so I put in for day appt. And waited.

Now I'm totally on the bones of my arse financially. I had to go to the community centre and ask for toilet paper and soap yesterday. I've needed to get back to work for about 6 weeks but I wanted Mitch to get seen to ASAP before he started daycare. I was a bit worried he might belt another kid or something, but they both need the stimulation and the company so I talked my way out of the guilt of going straight back to full time hours.

I still haven't heard from the parenting place, I called yesterday and it seems they have no idea what I am talking about, someone was going to call me back and they haven't bothered. I've waited all this time for nothing and I'm about to lose the plot. I've had a near migraine for 3 days, the kids are climbing the walls out of boredom which of course is no good for the behaviour side of things. I've done ok for the last few months, just cut right back on everything, and it's not been so bad - just doesn't get me anywhere financially, but with having to buy all extra security, curtains etc its blown my fragile budget right out of the water, I'm farked and all I want is to crawl under the bed and wait for someone else to come and fix everything for me, I've got no reserves left now