so incredibly tired

[diobolic_derbygirl]

My daughter is now 10 months old. She's healthy and a great breastfeeder. BUT, I am getting frustrated with breastfeeding and now need to turn elsewhere for some advice.

This is my partner's first and only child. This is my third, I've been to this rodeo before and nursed my other children as well. My partner is super awesome with our daughter, but isn't as involved as I would like him to be. He's not as take charge with her as I am. He has trouble saying no to her, gives up holding her and passes her back quickly if she even budges towards me, and has no clue how to help me in the day to day clingy-ness of her. She is constantly wanting me to hold her.....CONSTANTLY. I cannot put her down without her crying or screaming and then when I pick her up, I have to nurse her to settle her down.

Now, I sling her, I breastfeed on demand, I hold her as much as I can (in fact, she's asleep on my shoulder right now as I type this), but I am WORN OUT!!! I have to do dishes, I work outside the home (which I take her with me to do) and clean houses for other people. I have a hard time putting her down when I work and many times, I have to try and do things with either one arm or sling her until she just passes out and then kill my neck and back hauling laundry and cleaning for people.

I get home, I'm tired, sore and have two other kids to tend to. My daughter doesn't care. And my partner tries to hold her, tries to feed her solid food, but he gives up the minute she throws a fit or gives him grief.

Now....toss in this fact and you'll see why i'm ready to stop breastfeeding altogether. She bites me and only me. And she bites me HARD! I'm talking she'll bite me anywhere and when she really decides to do it, I'll have bruises on my nipples (or breast area), shoulders, the insides of my upper arm, sometimes even my face!!!

I have found myself recently losing my cool with everyone because of dealing with this. I want to be a good mom, I love breastfeeding and the connection it brings to a mom and baby, but I'm not getting that anymore. I cringe at the thought of putting a piece of my flesh into her mouth for fear she decides to bite me. "No" doesn't work. Sure, it makes her cry and droop her bottom lip, but she does it again and again.

I have been wanting to begin the process of weaning, so I finally got her used to a bottle (she hadn't used anything artificial for the first 8 months) and have been giving her feedings with that during the day (notice I said I'M doing this, partner tries but gives up), but she still relies on me for sleep times.

I'm done with this. I'm so ready to stop fighting this battle alone. I am tired and cranky and sore as hell! I need support in all this, but he doesn't know what to do and I'm too short fused to tell him. So....I resign to parking my sorry toosh on the couch and just doing things myself.

any support or advice out there would be super. I need to hear I'm not alone.

[AngelaM]

No advice on the breastfeeding (my disastrous situation is not one to emulate), but just wanted to give you a . It's really hard trying to get stuff done when you don't have a DP who helps out *at least* 50%. If he really can't deal with calming her, could he at least pick up some of the slack with the household chores? You know what they say- if you really love someone, wash their dishes...

[diobolic_derbygirl]

thanks for the support Angela. he does do a lot of the household stuff and does TRY in other areas. I just wish there was more help with the actual baby. I need some free arm time and toss in the horrible extreme biting from her....I'm not sure what to do.

I'm guessing there's not a lot to be done here. Thanks for reading, I'm gonna go look at the weaning advice now.

[AlicesMama]

Oh it sounds so tough. I have a 10 month old too who sounds exactly like yours. From what I hear from other people - hopefully it's a phase and will pass. So another month or so and hopefully (knock on wood) DD will be less dependent, less clingy if you can get through it...

Regarding the biting - that sounds like something has got to give. If she would stop biting I think you could have your nursing relationship back. I would call a LLL counsellor if you can to get some one-to-one advice if you can. Someone on here can help with contact details for your area.

I had problems with biting when DD's teeth first started coming through. It sounds like she is using you as a teether too!!

What I did was when she bit me, I took her off and gave her a tap on the head with one finger. Now some people might think that's completely wrong, but she didn't understand no and she also just stuck out her bottom lip and cried. It was only she understood that if she bit she suddenly got a bit of a jab on the head, she knew not to do it anymore.

If I hadn't found this way of stopping her, I would too, have had to give up nursing.

Other info: when I was a bit older, as a baby, I used to bite bite bite everyone, everything. I was older than 10 months. I used to take chunks out of my brother's arm etc. My Mum said it was awful and a real problem. In the end she bit me back, hard enough that it hurt. She said I burst into tears, but I never did it again.

I'm not sure I can recommend this for your DD, she is still so young. But anyway, maybe you have some ideas for the future and can call LLL.

Good luck!

[kindchen]

Ali, I just wanted to offer some support and BTDT. My older daughter sounds very similar in terms of needing so much holding and attention. She also did a lot of biting, scratching, flailing while nursing. It was totally exhausting, and I wasn't even trying to keep my own house clean, let alone doing heavy cleaning for others. That sounds overwhelming.

I just wanted to point out that most of the issues you seem most bothered by in your original post will not be solved by weaning. If your partner does not give a bottle now, weaning surely won't have an effect on that. Weaning will not make him better at soothing her, or make her less clingy. In fact, it could make her *more* clingy, or make it much harder to comfort her when she gets upset.

I was wondering: do you ever leave her with your partner? I know my husband was kind of intimidated by the close relationship I had with our DD1 at that age, and I think I sometimes made the situation worse by seeming to disapprove of his way of doing things. Add to that the fact that I was the one with the almighty breast, and he was kind of hard put to compete with that. I could imagine that your partner might even be more intimidated, given that you've done this twice before.

What worked for us was for me to leave DD with him regularly, and just go out to recharge a bit. Or he would take her to the park or something. That way, he could take care of her without having the option of giving up, and without feeling observed by me. Also, she knew that I wasn't there, and that made things easier too. They ended up having a wonderful time and building a closer relationship, and I got a much-needed break.

It sounds like you need a break more than you need a weaned baby.

[kindchen]

I just wanted to add that I *did* wean my first daughter at 7 months because of biting, pinching, etc. It happened gradually. First I gave pumped bottles because I couldn't handle the irritation of being bitten. Pumping got tiresome, so we started giving some formula bottles. Gradually nursed less and less. Looking back, I really regret having allowed that to happen. Now she is 20 months old, I have a four-month-old, and I really wish I had made it past that biting stage.