Please help - am begining to despise my 9 month old ds2!

[wediblino]

My 9 month old ds2 is a very demanding baby and his behaviour is impacting on every aspect of our family life. My husband and I have not slept in the same bed for over 6 months and my ds1 (6 years old) is becoming resentful of his brother and the amount of time his brother sucks out of our family life. DS2 has never slept through the night and will only sleep if he is on top of me (he is a breastfed baby). The sleeping on top of me is true of day time naps as well as night time sleeping. If I put DS2 to sleep in his cot at 7 he will wake every 15 minutes until I finally concede defeat and go to bed at 9.30 to spend the entire evening pinned down by a wriggly baby. He will accept no other comfort and will not settle for my husband. He also wants to be on me or in extremally close proximity to me all day - if I leave his eye sight for a second he disolves into fits of distraught sobbing! He screams and shouts for attention all day and I am finding his demands intolerable. He seems so unhappy and anxious all the time and this is making me feel guilty as I can't stand to see him this way. I am verging on going insane - I want some space!! I want to be able to spend time with other people without this little tyrant demanding 100% attention all the time! Just feel like a failure! Please, any help with what to do with regards to super clingy, no sleeping monster of a ds2 wil be SO welcome!

Snechie - ds2 has allready had his first session with the cranial oeteopath and although she felt that she could help there hasn't been the miracle breakthrough that I was naively hoping for after 1 session (!!) Last night he didn't sleep at all hardly and even when I was holding him really tightly he wouldn't settle
You have my sympathies about having to go back to work - I'm going back in 2 months as well and know from experience that ds2 will be left to cry as they do not have the staff ratios to hold a clingy baby all day...however, I do believe it will help our clingy babies in the long run. DS1 is testament to being in a creche environment. At 6 he is a happy, popular child with loads of confidence and school was never an issue for him as he was used to being with other children and sharing etc. Let me know how your cranial goes. x

may i suggest a childminder? the one we looked at for ds to go to only has one other mindee so it means he will get lots more attention than in an ursery.

hi again,
my once clutchpig baby is learning to walk, and he too is getting more clingy again. he likes being walked in my arms the best (why do they like being up high!?!) but he's enormous and i cant do that anymore.
however, i swear by the fact we have a routine. not like a gina ford, by the clock type one, but a rhythm to the day, he knows what will occur every day. as ive said before, i read Tracey Hoggs babywhisperer stuff with utter scepticism, but it really helped us, and although we dont do EASY to the book (eat. activity, sleep, Youtime) we more or less fall into this now and it really, really makes life much better.
better for him too.

nappyaddict, what would you do with yourself . Can't believe you are asking . Hey, have a bath, read a paper, what did you do pre-ds?

Yes, I do work but after I get home, I generally have an hour or 2 before I pick them up from nursery. Sad to say, I use that time to do cook, do chores, admin and mn!