Have I created a monster?

[Chloephilips]

DD is 13 months old and extremely clingy and her sleep is terrible. She never took a bottle or dummy and is still BF. She is constantly clinging onto me when we go anywhere and even at home. She won't let anyone hold her (even her dad if im in the room) she wants to be BF to sleep or rocked and is up every hour at night often needing held for a long time as she just cries if we try to put her in her cot. My mental health is really suffering and I feel by breastfeeding her ive created this situation. I wish i had bottle fed her from the start. I love her but sometimes I wish I hadn't had her as shes really making both mine and my partner's lives really difficult. We have an older child who took a bottle and dummy who we were able to sleep train from 6 months so we weren't expecting her to be this difficult. Any advice on how we make her less clingy and improve sleep. Looking at sleep consultants but they are so expensive

No you haven't created a monster but you'll need to ween her off breastfeeding during the night.
It's often a bumpy ride and dad can help a lot taking the nights offering her water from a cup. She'll get mad but she will settle down.

If you could sleep out a night or two and leave them to it you might also get some rest and recover. You have done a great job for 13 months. Now it's dad's go.

My youngest child was like this - they weren't BF at 13 months though so it may not just be that at play here. He was terribly terribly clingy from around 15 months to 2 years and then gradually has improved. His sleep is still awful though

That's not a bf thing, so you haven't caused this by making that choice. Both mine were bf and didn't do this. More likely it's a personality thing and she'll gradually mature and things will get better!
Some weaning tips would be useful, but don't beat yourself up, it's just the luck of the draw, you haven't caused this!

It’s not the bf. Make sure they eat enough and get plenty of fresh air in the day, if they’re still not sleeping it’s the child. It is also peak age for clingyness
Im still feeding me 3 year old, usually gets herself off the sleep on her own, only wakes me in the night if she’s ill and always been a good sleeper. My six year however, still is bad sleeper and needs me in the night and has been a bad sleeper

Ween her off the breast.
Would you consider sending her to a childminder once a week, so she could get used to leaving you and making friends and you can get some much needed rest and do something for yourself and concentrate on you, I think it would improve your mental health no end.

Breastfeeding has not caused this issue. I'd not be breastfeeding in the night at 13 months though. If your DC has a breastfeed at 10 pm I'd not offer the breast again until 7am. If a baby wakes at night during those hours simply offer water from a tippy cup. Get DH to do it as she'll be worse for you. I'd try to get the baby to eat more solid food during the day. My HV told me my DD wasn't a good solid food eater because I was breastfeeding her too much. I was told after a year to offer bf early morning 7am, after lunch at about 12.30, after dinner at 6pm and a bedtime feed at 10 pm. Previous to this I had been bf 6 or 7 times a day but my DD was still not eating much solid food.

You have created a beautiful girl with an amazing attachment to you. The attachment to other people will come.

At 10 months my daughter was switched to formula as I was in hospital for severe pnd. She was still just a clingy. I couldn't walk to the bin 3 paces away. She spent 1 night a week with dad and he had to learn to cope but once we came home at 13 months she quite soon went back to mummy only. I can't remember when it improved but probably some time after Christmas so she would have been 18 months ish daddy was more acceptable. He had always took her Saturday and Sunday mornings so I could catch up sleep because I was up frequently with her (formula made no difference to this!) and it was around then that I think she started to enjoy his company more and she was brought back to me less often.

One thing we have learnt is we have to initiate more involvement of dad. She's 3.5 now and until Christmas she had both of us putting her to bed or just me. We started to initiate daddy doing it on his own one day a week. We started when I needed to work late one day so would get home halfway through bed time. She cried a lot but settled to bed in a normalish time and satisfied. 3 months later she accepted us alternating as long as I have a good excuse (working or cleaning - not having a bath!). If she is ill she will still want me. It's taken a long road to get her but I would just start small with something that will give you a bit of respite. Around the time of going into hospital I started having a bath once a week. This worked for us as dad was more accessible and capable of tackling the normal stuff but if something kicked off I could be accessible in an instant.....just don't do a face mask seeing that upset her a lot!

Thank you for all your lovely responses, it's hard not to compare her to our older child or my friends babies who sleep through and are all bottle fed. She's the loveliest little girl and so affectionate and playful just hard as she's so attached to me. DH is very good at trying to take her but think we'll start a set routine for more 1 on 1 time for them. Definitely trying to cut down the BF but so hard when its the only thing that will settle her during the night.

Right now it's the only thing that settles her in the night. It's your game to change. She won't do it. It's hard but you can do it.