[hollybells]

Holy cow! I was interrupted then came back and finished my post. There are now a whack of new posts. I'm going to go ahead and post and hope it's not too repetitive or way off track.

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I'm sorry things are so hard right now. I have tried for the past couple weeks to figure out how to phrase this. I apologize if it does not come across as intended and that you can hear my heart in this. I think you're an amazing mum and have walked through challenge after challenge with amazing love for your girls.

I've wondered as I've been reading this thread if perhaps you're locked into a cycle of being afraid of early bird's outbursts and underparenting (discipline-wise) to avoid triggering another melt down? The thing is, she's searching for those limits and boundaries, even if she swings wildly at them when they're put in place, and she's going to keep escalating until some sort of equilibrium is reached.

When you mentioned your dh hitting his limit, it actually helped me focus on what I've been thinking ... are you familiar with Barbara Colorosa? She talks about permissive / jellyfish parenting, authoritative / backbone parenting and authoritarian / brickwall parenting. The one you're aiming for is authoritative / backbone. Maybe if you talked about that with your dh? It sounds like you're a little closer to jellyfish at the moment (which I get) and he's thinking brickwall will fix things right.now.

Sometimes we can find ourselves so stuck that we can't see past just getting through the day and dreading the next. I get that and between life for everyone now and the major changes your family has experienced in the last year or two, you've had a double whammy. Rather than try to do all the things and tackle everything, try to agree on finding a couple boundaries / expectations to address and working on those, knowing there will be huge feelings and reactions that will almost definitely increase dramatically in the beginning.

I know that there are a lot of things happening developmentally and wrt mental health and that there won't be an easy, fast solution. I just sense that what you're trudging through right now isn't working for anyone, including early bird, and something has to change. I found Barbara Colorosa's writings when I was in teachers' college, long before children. I worked in special education, mental health classes and regular classes and truly found her approach practical and applicable in all of those settings. She influenced my parenting long before I found gcm. I was given "Kids are Worth it" when I was pregnant with my eldest and have re-read it over the years. If there are issues with her books that conflict with gentle parenting, I'd be shocked but ymmv.

I'm sorry you and your dh aren't on the same page at the moment but am praying you can come together and find agreement (and progress).