Sorry for the essay but I have no one to talk to
My daughter is 13 months old and was always exclusively breastfed. She has always been quite demanding. She still has 3 feeds a day 7am, 2pm and 7pm and these are to get her to sleep (she was having another one at 9:30am but I now have to drive her around everyday at this time to get her to have that nap as I couldn’t bare it any longer, now I am resenting having to drive for up to an hour every morning just to keep her asleep - she is so ratty if she doesn’t have it and I am so exhausted and down with everything right now that I have no fight in me)
My mum has tried to get her to sleep for me with only very few successes over the whole year and she just won’t settle for long. She screams so severely it upsets everyone and becomes very stressful as she starts to choke and gag once she realises someone is trying to get her down for a nap.
She is such hard work when she doesn’t get these feeds and even her dad can’t settle her or get her to sleep. I don’t get a break at all and have not had a night out since she was born. Since she was about 10 months I have hated breastfeeding (prior to this I enjoyed it and didn’t want to stop, I don’t know what changed but i could feel me wanting our BF journey to come to an end as she approached 1 year). It makes me angry and causes me to feel really low when I’m doing it and this upsets me even more. I don’t have much support in terms of trying to get her to sleep other ways as her dad although a brilliant dad can be a bit slack with this in particular (frustrating as this is my only complaint) and has said he will take over and try and get her to take a bottle of warm milk but has never actually acted on this. My mum is very particular about when she can help and will only do it on her terms at her own times which is no use to me anymore. (She doesn’t work but she can be very stubborn)
I’m not sure why I’m writing this but I just need somewhere to vent. I feel so low and trapped and constantly pissed off and overstimulated. My partner is great but I’m not sure he fully understands why it makes me feel this way and my mum usually meets me with tough love “all mums have to do it, you just have to get on with it, it’s called being a mum I’m afraid” which I’m sick of hearing because I know I’m a mum and I’m a really good one at that, but this is really affecting me now.
I will just leave this post here and hope to read some advice or encouragement in reply.