Hello
About 6 weeks ago I posted in absolute desperation. My then 6 month old would only settle for me, was feeding throughout every night, was clingy in the day and would only nap in the car or sling. And I was spending ages getting him to sleep on a fucking yoga ball. There were also question marks over whether he had a food allergy.
First of all if you posted on that thread - THANK YOU..You absolutely kept me sane when I thought I was losing it.
Three things have happened since that thread:
- We went on holiday
- We hired a sleep consultant
- DS decided to settle for DH.
Things are not perfect, we are still napping in the bloody car and nights are still broken. But he has now night weaned and sleeping in his own cot. And he has managed stretches of 7 hours - last night we got a 5 hr and a 6 hr stretch. The yoga ball is in the loft. I am still BF like I wanted to, there are no allergies and we have followed a genuinely no cry sleep programme so I dont feel (too) guilty.
I still feel quite anxious about sleep and naps but the schedule the consultant has given me has made life more predictable. My challenge now is to try and drown out the multitude of opinions - on one hand the attachment parenting 'baby should nap on you and feed whenever they like and you should love it because it wont last forever and if you dont do it you are not meeting the needs of your baby' and on the other the Gina Ford 'you should have had him in a routine from day one and if you didnt it's your fault he doesn't sleep and clearly you have failed at parenting because your baby wont be developing properly'
I have had both of these things said to me on MN. Verbatim. But I've also had hundreds of very supportive posts and I just wanted to say thank you if you were one of them. You said it would get better. It hasn't happened by itself but it has got better.
And if you have found this thread because you are on that place too, I hope it gets better for you soon.
Love,
Miss (and mini Miss, who now might not be sold on Etsy).