I know lots of people have more serious problems but....
I am feeling completely drained from spending hours every evening battling to get 5 month old to bed. He won't take a dummy (I've tried) so I either breastfeed to sleep or sometimes can rock him to sleep but it takes a lot of attempts to get him into his cot asleep. He's not had a bottle so doubt he'd take one now. I am going to try him with formula in a sippy cup.
He's really heavy now so if I rock him for long I get backache and also I think he's teething and is using me as a teether/dummy long after his actual feed so he's making me sore if I keep reattaching him to feed him to sleep.
I've tried the 'Pantley pull off' which seemed to be working for a bit but now he just seems to be really wary of me trying to detach him and so wakes up the minute I try to loosen him unless he's completely fast asleep.
I also have a nearly 4 year old whose behaviour can be challenging so after a whole day of managing him I really really do not have the energy for a long battle with the baby at bedtime.
They're both quite good sleepers overall but I normally get woken up by one or both of them at night.
This weekend was particularly rubbish because I had a horrible cold and so really needed my sleep/rest. I did get a sort of 'lie in' on Saturday in that I went back to bed after the first feed but that still meant feeding baby at 6am then again at 8am.
After 5 months I really need some me time (which would help me deal with 4 year old strops etc more calmly) but can't see how to achieve it until baby goes to sleep more easily/predictably.
There's a limit to how much husband can help because of the breastfeeding.
Argh....
On the positive side preschool is back this week so hopefully I will feel a bit saner by the end of the week - the Christmas holidays just seemed to go on forever...