I can't cope anymore!

[my2centsis]

on phone so please bear with me.

I have a 4yo dd and a nearly 6mo old ds.

Ds is soo hard! I feel like he's getting harder by the day and just can't cope anymore.

Ds wil only go to sleep on the boob, he will only have 10min naps during the day on the boob. The minute i put him in bed he wakes and scream. The later the day gets the more tierd he gets. He will get to te point of he won't feed. Won't cuddle, Doesnt want to play, just yells and grumps because he's so tierd.

At about 4mo he used to sleep 7hours straight so day time didn't seem too bad but now nights are getting worse. For example lastnight we did the routine of both kids in pjs laying in dds bed, reading bed times stories. We sing twinkle twinkle then I take him to my room in the dark/quiet feed him then attemp to get him to sleep.

Sometimes he will fight it for hours.

Lastnight for example went like this.
Pjs 7.30. Stories etc. Feed and was asleep 8.30 i gently put him in bed he opens his eyes starts flapping his arms and crys. I get him up. Feed etc all over again. Walk out of there at 9pm
He wakes up at 10.15 I do it all over again. 3rd time i put him back down he stays asleep at 11.20.
He's awake again at 12pm put back down at 11.45 awake at 12.30. down at 1.15 awake at 3.30 down at 4.20. 4.2 earthquakes wakes the house at 5am (I live in chch new Zealand) dd awake and crying. Get her back to sleep at 5.30 and ds awake at 6.

I'm just so tierd. If he wakes up when I'm
Trying to put him in bed he screams but if he wakes up on his own after a sleep he's more then happy to play/talk in his bed so I dont think he's scared of his bed or anything.

I just feel myself getting angrier everytime I put him down and his eyes ping back open. I cry during the night alot. Grump at dh for no reason and have a short fuse with dd. I feel like such a shit mum.

I love him so much. What have I don't wrong?

OK, I'm not sure what the general view on MN is on this but at the risk of getting totally shouted at - what are your thoughts on controlled crying? We had DD (6mo) and DS 2.5 years and for the sake of us all, I sent DS to my parents and did 3 nights of CC with DD and whilst I can't say she's been perfect ever since, she's been better (although to be fair since she started sleeping through the night she's been a chronic early waker!).

They also say that you should try and break the association between feeding and sleep so put him down whilst he's awake. He will cry, he will because it's a different way of doing things but he'll get used to it.

If you want a no-crying version then you could always try the babywhisperer technique of pick-up put-down (google it if not sure or go to the bw forum website - the ladies on there are very helpful). Also, you said yourself he is very overtired which will make his sleep worse at night. Can you get him to sleep for a long time in the buggy or the car? It might be worth doing that for a few days if poss just to get him through the overtired business.

Anyway, good luck - it's hideous being so utterly knackered.

Have you read the no cry sleep solution? I got good tips to stop feeding ds to sleep. He got the message quite quickly at first. Now he feeds to sleep occasionally but not very often.....and even if he does he sleeps really well. Good luck.

I feel for you as I am trying to wean DD2 off feeding to sleep, we have done two nights of firm tummy stroking and singing, it took a long time though, and aim is to try and do a gradual retreat process (google it, have seen stuff on the web) Early days though!
PU/PD baby whisperer is also supposed to be good.

Good luck!

At 5.5 months I did gradual withdrawal. Read the start of the thread "what worked for us", we did a slightly cut down version.. I wasn't feeding to sleep but we had been rocking for up to an hour. It only took a few days sitting next to her in silence with no touching before she'd fall asleep with minimal fuss, and then we moved out of the room and she started falling asleep on her own. Nights improved immeasurably after that.

Good luck, you sound shattered!
.

At the risk of being hollered at by anti CC members, we did it and it worked.
Night one: 5 minutes/ 10 minutes/ 4 minutes/ sleep
Night two: 7 minutes/ 6 minutes/ sleep
Night three: 3 minutes. Awoke in night, fussed a bit and went back to sleep
Every night since: 2 minutes - sleep for 12 1/2 hours with a dreamfeed thrown in
We've got twins. CC isn't nice and you'll hate yourself. But it works. And it works damn fast.
It did help that every morning after our two woke up smiling and it hasn't affected them too much.
Good luck x

There is also Spaced Soothing that Jo Tantum advocates, which is like a CC lite!! Her website is quite useful