Please excuse what will probably be a stream of consciousness rather than any kind of rational post but I am at the end of my tether and feel like I can't take any more.
Last few months with DD have not been the easiest with various admissions to hospital with breathing problems. She has put on very little weight since Christmas (more or less when the problems started) and I am getting rather worried as she has dropped from 50th to 25th centile. I want to make sure she eats plenty to start putting on some weight but this is proving difficult. As I have posted on other threads she refuses lumpy food (eg cottage pie, a chicken stew type thing, meat in sauces seem to be a particular problem) and will only eat mashed veg/fruit and pureed meat if I spoon feed her. If I finger feed she will try a variety of things but in fact very little actually goes in. She is at nursery a few days a week and eats well there but they spoon feed her and the food is still quite smooth I think although I have asked them to start making the textures more lumpy.
DD's behavious has been atypically difficult over the past few days, screaming and refusing to lie down to have her nappy changed, complete screaming hysteria when we try to bath her, more screaming when I wouldn't let her take the phone off me when I was in the middle of a call. The final straw came when I gave her lunch just now and she started screaming when I tried to put her in the high chair (although she was ok once in) and yet more problems getting her to eat. She only had a small amount of her main course and refused the rest, making up for it with loads of fruit puree and soya yogurt as a pudding. I'm afraid I ended up shouting at her very loudly and we both ended up in tears. I don't want food to be a battleground but I am told her speech development will suffer if she won't eat lumpy food and I want her to eat to get strong and healthy again like she was before all her illness started.
I am at my wits end, I try to be kind and calm with her but she just doesn't seem to respond to nice at the moment, she rejects me in favour of her father whenever he walks through the front door and cries when he hands her to me, and I just lost it earlier. She saw me crying earlier and laughed at me.
I feel like my daughter doesn't like me and just doesn't want Mummy at all. She was a surprise baby and I found it difficult to adjust motherhood at first although I love her very much. I wonder if this behaviour stems from the fact that I found it all rather overwhelming at first. At nursery she is fine and very rarely cries, she seems to prefer being there to being with me.
I fel like I must be a crap mother not to be able to deal with her tantrums and get the food thing sorted out, I work hard to provide for us (DP's business is not doing well at the moment so my salary pays for everything) and am always thinking of her, and planning stuff for her from food to doctors visits to trips to the swings, I do it all. DP helps as much as poss but in the main it is me.
I just want to walk out of the house and leave it all only I couldn't bear to be without her, but I find it so very hard to be with her when she is like this. I do everything I can for her and feel so upset that she is rejecting me and even more upset with myself for shouting at her because why would she want to be with a mummy who shouts?
My mother is turning up this afternoon for a few days so I will have to put a lid on all this, I can't talk to her about how things are as she is very anti nurseries and will just blame the nursery for everything and won't be sympathetic. So any thoughts/words appreciated, I just feel like I can't do this any more and don't understand what I have done for DD to reject me like this.