I love being a mum, I love my daughter but it's been a rough two years for me and I just need to vent. She's been a shite sleeper since day one but she's amazing otherwise but......
By now I thought I would have stopped breastfeeding day and nights. She has two main feeds then little comfort feeds. It's these 2 mins comfort feeds I want to cut out and I've tried everything. I'm getting to the point where I want to stop my milk artificially.
I thought I’d have my evenings back, instead of half an hour bed time routine and then sitting for half an hour patting her to sleep like the sleep nurse said. Yeah thanks, just replaced one sleep crutch with another.
I thought she would have been eating three solid meals and three snacks a day. She's like a cow who grazes and then decides she doesn't want to eat, but then she wants more boob, I say no, she strops. If she doesn't have enough to eat during the day she's up more at night and guess what she wants ..... boob.
I thought I would have lost the two stone I put on in my first year of motherhood instead I rely on sugar for a quick hit of energy.
I feel like an absolute failure
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Need to vent
bigpinkdinosaur · 27/10/2020 21:00
You're not a failure. Breastfeeding for as long as you have is a great achievement. And I still pat / rub my toddler's back until he falls asleep- you're not alone 
You have my sympathy.
When my son turned two I started to really tire of breast feeding - I found his constant demands for it really frustrating. He’d always be saying “Miiiiiillllllkkkkkk” in a really whiny voice - it drove me mad.
And dont get me started on how much I hated the middle of night wakings and only wanting milk!
He did have substantial feeds at times but at other times he’d feed for 40 seconds then come off, and then 15 minutes later he’d be asking for milk again and this could go on and on.
When he was 2.5 I had really reached my tolerance and I had to go cold turkey on his snacking feeds - it was a very difficult week or so but he eventually stopped asking for it. He still had a substantial feed in the morning, early afternoon and before bed but apart from that I just told him no. He was still waking up in the night though and I would breast feed him (him usually only wanting it for less than a minute) because it was easier than dealing with his temper if I said no.
A few months after that I introduced the timer and told him that whenever he fed he had to stop when the alarm went off. I’d let him help set the alarm on my phone and when he heard it go off he’d stop breastfeeding without any arguments. I started off with the alarm limit being set at 10 minutes, then after a week I reduced it to 5 minutes and after a week I reduced it to 2 minutes and then ended up just stopping asking and he stopped waking in the night for it too.
It was a long process and it wasn’t until he was about 2yr 10m that breast feeding came to end.
In some ways extended breastfeeding is really lovely, but in other ways it is really, really trying.
You are not a failure at all OP 
If you are, we all are!
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