I’ve tried everything, and my 11 week old baby won’t sleep unless I co-sleep with her with my boob in her mouth. I’m overstimulated, my back hurts, I don’t sleep well but it’s the only way she would sleep. I’m crying all day from the soreness and overstimulation. It was either that or the scream crying. I feel so defeated.
Breastfeeding has been a roller coaster ride for me. I started off rough and baby wouldn’t take my breast. I felt rejected and cried for days. I worked really hard and combi-fed. I don’t know how but along the way I started exclusively breastfeeding because baby wouldn’t take a bottle. But lately she’s inconsolable unless she’s on my boob. She was sleeping fine until one day she just doesn’t. And no matter what I did she’d be inconsolable. We ended up trying to put her to bed for 7hours with no success. I gave in and co slept with her, offering boob in her mouth. Now she wouldn’t even nap without the boob. She’s on my 24/7 and it’s overstimulating and overwhelming. I’ve been crying all day. My nipples are sore, I’m getting no sleep, I’m just so overwhelmed
They don’t call it breastfeeding journey for nothing, but I feel like mine has been a roller coaster ride. I didn’t really care about BF or formula or combi fed before baby was here. It’s not like I didn’t think about it, I did, and thought each of the methods have their own pros and cons and I was ok with it because I know how stressful it’ll be to force yourself into something.
Welp. Baby came. I went into a care center where they took care of me and baby, so they’ll bottle feed her whenever I want to rest. My baby began to prefer the bottles and rejected breast and I cried so hard for days. I thought I didn’t care, but it felt like she was rejecting me and I was worried that she wouldn’t bond with me. So I tried very hard and triple fed for awhile.
I was happy with her just taking the breast eventually, didn’t matter how much she took. But slowly, I started getting sad whenever she would fuss for more and I needed to top her up with formula. She eventually ended up taking less and less of the bottle, and I was proud of myself. I thought giving her a bottle or two a day was a good balance.
Then it slowly turned into popping her on the boob for everything, crying? Boob. Can’t put her down to sleep? Boob. I was pretty happy that we found a sure way to calm her down.
But now, it’s starting to wear me down. She’s crying at the bottle now and wouldn’t take it. Her dad can’t seem to put her down for bed or calm her down in anyways. Only boob works now and I’m exhausted. I feel like I fucked up somewhere and don’t know what to do.