I’m not sure what I’m looking for by writing this post. Maybe some comfort from parents in a similar situation… maybe validation that my parenting isn’t completely awful… or maybe to just unburden my heart which feels like it’s carrying this huge heavy weight right now.
My little boy is nearly 10 months old. I’ve elected to spend the first year of his life on maternity leave, mainly because I want to breastfeed him, but also because I can’t imagine sending him off to a stranger or nursery school at such a young age. I realise that many mums don’t have a choice in this and have to go back to work so I’m really grateful I get to spend this time with him. From the very beginning we have struggled with his sleeping and getting him down at night or for a nap. I think I spent most of his early days in a fugue state just trying to survive because he would wake me up every 45mins to an hour to be fed or comforted. Out of desperation, I very quickly settled into a pattern of feeding him to sleep and contact napping with him. The length of his sleep windows has improved and he now only wakes me up every 3-4hrs for a feed. At night he sleeps in his cot just fine but daytime naps are impossible.
He will not take a nap during the day unless it’s on me and he will fuss and whine until I give him the breast to comfort him and help him to sleep. My husband thinks I’m spoiling him but I honestly struggle so much to get him to sleep in his cot during the day. We’ve recently been using a sleep consultant and it’s really helped with his night sleep. However, I’ve reached a point with the sleep consultant where I’m finding it difficult to move forward. She wants me to wean him off night feeds completely (cold turkey) which seems extreme to me. She also feels that I need to cut out contact napping completely and feeding him to sleep to sort out his day naps. I’m secretly very reluctant to cut out contact napping and it’s creating a lot of anxiety for me because I feel guilty for feeling this way.
In many ways I like nothing more than to cuddle with my baby in bed and it’s often the only way I get some rest. It’s easier than putting him in the cot and listening to him cry while waiting for him to go to sleep (something which can easily take 30mins or longer). I hate listening to him cry and it stresses me out so I’d rather default to a less stressful option and contact nap. He sleeps longer and better that way and I don’t have to listen to him cry. I also feel guilty for refusing him the comfort of my breast when he needs it. I feel awful because he’s going to go to a child minder next year and my husband says I’m making it so much harder for my baby in the long run because he won’t be able to nap without me and it will cause more stress in the long run. I just feel like such an awful mom because I’m picking the easy way out for myself by contact napping with him and comfort feeding him. I can’t admit how I feel to the sleep consultant or my husband because I know what they’ll say, that I’m making it worse and I just need to bite the bullet and force him to start sleeping in his cot and stop comfort feeding him.
It feels like my mama’s heart is being wrenched in two directions. On the one hand, I want to give us both the comfort of the contact naps and the feeding. On the other, I feel like I should be making the harder but more responsible choice that will benefit him in the long run. I hope that the moms reading this post will be gentle with me and maybe help me figure out what to do. I don’t have any family I can fall back on to help me here and often feel very isolated and alone. I’d really appreciate any kind advice or even just some empathy if there I’d anyone else experiencing something similar.