I quit. I've had enough

[Mississippilessly]

Nearly 7 month old baby - sleep is getting progressively worse, not better. Pretty velcro during the day. I don't really get anything done. Has stopped feeding from my right. Cant pump to try and boost the supply because I just dont have the time. I look ridiculous. Spend most of my life bouncing on a fucking yoga ball in the dark.
Bored of people suggesting I have PND. I haven't had a full nights sleep in 7 months. I spend most of my time with a baby attached to me.
I'm not eating gluten or egg as he has suspected intolerances but I have got differing opinions from different paediatricians.

I'm done. I've had enough. No fucking way will we ever give him a sibling. What the fuck is the point of my life right now?

Sorry. As you were.

Been there.

It’s get a grip crisis time but be kind to yourself! Also, this is the worst point, it will start getting slowly but surely easier.

Formula. Definitely.

Longer between feeds. That’s what gets them sleeping longer. First a few minutes, keep building it up. A midwife told me, every time they cry for a feed, change their nappy, as that takes a few minutes, or cuddle or wind instead. This is just to alongate the time.

Cot attached to bed, the safe ones.

Pay for a sleep Psychologist.

Pay for at least 2 weeks or M&S ready meals or online shopping. No cooking or washing up for two weeks. Pay to get a cleaner for a month.

Only go out with the pushchair when the baby is awake. Everything around the baby now. So you Maximise time when they are asleep in your house. Or if it works better for you to get them to sleep out of your arms, do the opposite.

Routine every day, Around the baby. Minimise anything else. Anything.

Spend at least a month doing just what is needed, don’t force it, go with the flow, and get some energy back.

After a month, review if you can do something to help. Then go back to a month doing nothing but look after the baby again if needed.

Repeat until it gets better! Which it will!

Sounds similar to my experiences; agree with all here who suggest the odd bottle might help. I am a massive breast feeding advocate and fed mine for a couple of years each, BUT when they are very hungry and you are struggling to feed it can be a huge help to have a bottle. It does not mean your baby will come to prefer that - no way - they are always going to want breast if they have had a chance to get the hang of it - which you have. I think DS one had mostly breast, plus maybe 2 small bottles a day at 7 months. Oh, and PND is a broadly defined condition - strongly related to sleep severe sleep deprivation. Don't feel stigmatised by people saying that, it's because they have heard that it looks like this - a really knackered, slightly freaked out person. It doesn't mean you have to accept that as a 'diagnosis''. I never said that either, but I did feel like you. It is a phase, it will pass. Really reccomend the bottle - and the breast will hang in there!

Thank you for all the advice. After a lovely row with DH now me and the baby are in the spare.

Oh love. He should be in the bloody spare room, not you! This bit is so hard but it will get easier.

I breastfed for 6 weeks and I was ready to present myself to the Queen for a self nominated OBE. It is that hard!!!!

I grew up in a farming family and we've had to rear both calves and lambs off bottles. I've never ever ever ever noticed a difference in how they fared out. The only thing that would be done would be to give the babies 'beastings' if they were looking like they were weak, which is the first milk you produce before your milk comes in.

I can't quite put into words how much I hated breastfeeding. I felt like a dairy cow.

I can tell you now that you and your baby will sleep better with formula. I used Aptamil and it didn't seem to disagree.

I abhor the pressure put on women to breastfeed. By some fucking men in the WHO. Fuck off. My sanity is as important to my child as your fucking recommendations.

Try formula, ask for advice about it on here, but I couldn't believe it, my child actually slept! What a novel fucking idea!!

You have done brilliantly and now you need to change tack so that you can continue to do brilliantly! You've got bragging rights too - when I say I breastfed for 6 weeks, you can say, well I did for 7 months haha!

I'm outing myself to anyone who knows me here but when DD was 7 months old I phoned the health visitor and told her to come and collect her. Said I'd had enough and didn't realise what I was getting myself into, and someone else would do a better job with her. Left a very long message on her voicemail

She turned up a bit later, gave me a hug and made me tea. Luckily she didn't take DD as she left, and things got better once I'd vocalised how hard I was finding it. It was the lack of sleep not PND that was killing me.

Bottles helped a lot from that point on, at her suggestion

Thanks again all.

I really want to he clear that I dont want this to become a ff or BF debate. I dont think I'm a saint for BF (and neither am I trying to martyr myself ).
I dont believe that ff babies necessarily sleep better. And I'm put off by the faff. But it would mean DH can do more. Undeniably.

Get the formula in!, you will feel much happier, much less pressure and the load can be shared.

If you've got formula and bottles, put the baby in with him and shut the door. If you haven't, put the baby in with him and when he brings him back for crying, feed and then return him. And shut the door.

His turn for a night.

You're right, it's not about bf vs ff. It's about sleep. And how much fucking need it right now.

From experience, DH is not the enemy. He's probably trying, wants to help and is frustrated because he doesn't know what to do.

My Dd has just recently had a baby. She specifically ff so that I can help and share the nights with her as she has no partner. I can't imagine how hard she would have found it had she not done this. Sleep deprivation is the worst thing ever. I've even found it hard helping my daughter. Harder than when I had my own three children but I'm obviously that much older now. So I can't imagine how hard your finding it. Definitely do whatever needs to be done for DH to be able to help more.

It's about sleep. Formula facilitates that. If it's a toss up between you walking out on your child or giving them formula, what would you choose rationally?

Get some sleep woman!

This has brought back bad memories!
I switched to ff at exactly the same time. The initial problem was that DS refused the bottle which almost sent me over the edge, especially when the health visitor said “well, you should have switched earlier” wtf?!

It was resolved by me going out till very very late (would have been better being out the whole night, I admit) so that DH had to give bottle. When DS realised I wasn’t around to present my boob, he had to admit defeat and, of course, drained a whole massive bottle then fell asleep. It was much easier after that.

I hope your DH will listen tomorrow morning, realise he will still have Sunday to ‘get over’ attending to an all-nighter with his DS and do this for you as it will make a difference to all of you. Just make sure DS does a big burp before getting to sleep.
I don’t know back story but it seems unfair you have had to shift to spare room tonight. If this would be likely outcome tomorrow, then arrange to stay with a friend - without baby.

Good luck. This WILL pass.

@somuchinfo You sound like a wonderful mother. Are you the proudest grandmother on the planet yet?
I don't know why the WHO seems to put statistics above the health of the mother. Madness.

@Whatad as hard as it's been I am so proud of my Dd and I absolutely dote on Dg, he has brought so much joy into both of our lives! He is four months old now and it's all starting to get a tad easier!

Do you allow ds to cry at all during the day? If you put him down and he's dry and fed and winded and warm enough etc how long will you let him cry for before you lift him? I ask because if he can get used to being put down during the day it will be easier to get him to lie quietly at night even if he wakes up. As he's 7 months have you thought about trying a cot in his own room? Maybe he's sleep better in his own space? Does he feed to sleep or go down awake? For me the issue wasn't getting dd to sleep but rather getting dd to be content in her cot, awake or asleep, on her own. I don't think you can make any child sleep but you can teach them to be happy in their own company for long enough to go to sleep.

Of course you do @somuchinfo.

I'm done with parenting and I have a very stubborn dd who ignores me, so I suspect I'll be told to do one whenever grandchildren come along - hopefully not for at least 10 years! As it is, I 'bore' my dd. So I'm sure I won't be welcome whenever grandkids come along. I guess it's hard to be a grandmother and find the right balance of not interfering and helping. My aunt was brilliant with me - actually two aunts, but the first would just say 'tell me what you need done - I'm here to work, not to look pretty' and the other one would say 'just come over, you'll be fine'. My mother was a nightmare, but that's for a whole other thread.

OP, you need a little bit of help. It's all fine and dandy if you're an earth mother in the Himalayas with half the village feeding your child and doing shit for you, but in modern society, with all the demands on us and the social isolation, I feel formula is the way forward if BF is affecting you adversely.

I haven’t RTFT but my DD1 was exclusively breastfed and a Velcro nightmare. I vowed not to make that mistake again and when DD2 was born I introduced a bottle of formula of an evening pretty much immediately. It meant she would take a bottle and could be taken away from me by her Dad/my parents/anyone else. Would you be up for trying some formula? And if he takes it okay then at the weekends or whenever you can give him to your husband for the night and get a full nights sleep. Everything seems better with a full nights sleep.

I'm so embarrassed- I've clearly done this so wrong. OP, you’ve done nothing wrong. First babies are often like this in mine and my friends experiences!

Try a vibrating bouncer. Worked a charm to settle my very awkward nephew who just wanted to be held!

At 9 months DD hadn't slept more than a hour or so at night and I was still bfeeding. She refused a bottle. I was so so broken (had a toddler too) and after nearly crashing the car through sleep deprivation decided things needed to change.
We tried yet another fancy bottle and I left her with DH for half a day. She bottle refused but three days later we tried again and she finally took some ebm from it..... We then managed to transfer a 11pm ISH feed to bottle (formula). A few weeks later we decided to night wean her. DH took over nights for a week and cuddled and soothed her every time she woke, but no boob or bottle. And I ......slept . Eventually towards the end the week the frequency of waking and legnth of soothing dropped. It also meant going forward both of us could see to her in the night.

'Earth mother in the Himalayas' made me laugh.

So he has had reflux meds. Made no difference. Nappies were green and mucousy. I gave up dairy for 6 weeks. Bit better but not wholly. NHS could only give me a paediatrician appointment for 4 months time. He was screaming at night. We went private. He said nappies were mild diarrhoea so something definitely not right. Told me to start weaning and give up gluten and egg. Overnight the nappies went to yellow, thick and seedy. Screaming stopped. Started weaning him, stillavoiding egg and gluten. Nappies went green again. One day he did 12. I got an NHs paed appt. She told me green nappies are normal. 12 a day are normal. He isnt screaming in pain at night. Hes just screaming. She told me to go back to dairy free - she said there is no way gluten and egg would that make much difference.

So I have no idea where I stand, in summary.

In terms of waking up - in the last few nights it been about every half an hr until I go to bed with him. I did get a 3 hr chunk last night.

I could have written this post when my daughter was anywhere between 0 and 12 months old. I was having no sleep, mine was a Velcro baby (still is at 22 months!) and I was on a restricted diet due to allergies.

How long have you been on a restricted diet? I would say it’s highly unlikely that your baby is intolerant to eggs or gluten. It’s incredibly rare. Dairy allergies however are relatively common (that’s what my daughter had). If you’ve cut these things from your diet for about 8 weeks and it’s made no difference then I would reintroduce them. Restricted diets make an already difficult and exhausting life so much worse and should be avoided at all costs.

The lopsided boobs problem is annoying but you can pas your bra so it’s not obvious to other people. I had a couple of friends who had babies who only fed from one side. Often it was because they co-slept and tended to lie on one side which was the side they ended up feeding from overnight. I can totally understand that it’s annoying and/or embarrassing to be lopsided but having come out of the other side of sleep deprivation I can also see that these things are all a million times worse when you’re exhausted.

My daughter eventually started sleeping better when we might weaned at 13 months. That might seem like a long way off when your baby is only 7 months old but when you look back it will seem like the blink of an eye. Just do the bare minimum to preserve your strength and sanity in the meantime - leave housework to your partner, stick Netflix on and ride it out.

I know in your original post you said you’re sick of people saying you might have PND but it really is a possibility. I look back at the first 12 months of my daughter’s life and I’m now certain in had PND. At the time I was in total denial and pissed of when family suggested it. My response was that I was just exhausted because I never slept. I would suggest you go and have a frank conversation with you GP. It really can’t hurt. If I have another baby I feel like I would approach things so differently and I would be far more open to seeking help.

Finally, breastfeeding is the most difficult job in the world. It’s physically and emotionally draining and you feel like a single parent because you’re the only one who can feed the baby and often the only one who can get them to sleep. Make sure you are looking after yourself and eating and drinking well. And if you need to start giving your baby formula or cows milk you shouldn’t feel any guilt. You’ve already breastfed for over 6 months which is brilliant and the most important stretch for the baby. I set ridiculously high standards for myself when it came to breastfeeding and I shot anyone down who suggested I gave my daughter a bottle. For the sake of my mental health I won’t do this again next time.

Good luck. It will get better. You’re doing an amazing job.

Another vote for trying bottles, in the night at least - if DH can give a bottle it might encourage DC to settle on someone other than you!