Help! Toddler nursing way too often and will not stop despite trying everything.
I’m currently 12 weeks pregnant and still nursing my 15 month old. She nurses maybe 10 times during the day or more and multiple times overnight. I don’t offer and I often try to refuse, offering comfort in other ways plus food or liquids, but my refusal often escalates into a tantrum that will last as long as I or my husband can possibly take; up to 3 hours of screaming like her legs are being pulled off.
On top of that, while she’s nursing she likes to twiddle my other nipple and pinch my skin HARD and is extremely resistant to stopping. I’ve tried a nursing necklace, holding her hand, providing other stimulation like squeezing her arms or legs, or just restraining her free arm. She also likes to latch on tight and try to do an alligator roll, or stand up and do some sort of contortionist movements, and I have to readjust her into a non-painful position multiple times a feeding.
We cosleep because she absolutely will not sleep alone. She nurses to sleep and often times needs to stay latched for her entire time sleeping or napping. If I try to unlatch her with my finger, she often wakes and starts screaming. Thusly, It’s hard to accomplish anything because she needs constant supervision when awake.
She‘s too young to understand logic, explaining, stories, etc.
Because I’m pregnant, nursing now hurts. BAD. Like shards of glass coming out instead of milk. I’m also developing an aversion to it all. Not every time, but sometimes I just need it to end and find myself getting extremely annoyed or angry. I’ve yelled STOP at her several times during the twiddling or twisting, and she will start whining or crying and I just feel horrible and like a terrible person and mother. Sometimes I start crying. I worry that it has damaged our relationship. A few times during some longer tantrums I’ve had to leave the room and take some deep breaths, or scream into a pillow, and she just screams even louder like she’s dying.
Before pregnancy, the pain and nursing aversion, I could manage all of this okay but I’m starting to break down and feel depressed and exhausted. The past couple of weeks I became so absolutely sleep deprived that I couldn’t function at all and now my husband takes her at 2 or 3 am into the nursery to a floor bed and sleeps with her there until morning so I have at least that small block of sleep. He’s also taken her after work to the nursery a few times to play for the whole evening so I can take a shower or get a break but he also needs time to get stuff done and we can’t do that every day.
I’ve read a million threads and every article out there on how to night wean or lowering nursing session. Nothing seems to address a situation of this severity. I would maybe completely wean but she doesn't eat very much solids, won’t take a bottle, and will not drink very much from a cup or straw or sippy cup. Dehydration and nutrition are a concern in addition to the tantrums. I just want to lower the nursing to a more manageable amount. 3 or 4 times a day, 2 times a night or something (like a normal amount for even a 3 month old) I also only have so much help because my husband works a lot and we can’t afford outside childcare or consultation.
I never post on social media and am going way outside of my comfort zone asking for help or commiseration here but I really, really need help. This isn’t sustainable anymore. Sorry for such a long post but I think all the context is important. Anyone have ideas of what to do?
TLDR; Pregnant and boob obsessed 15 month old driving me insane and need help after trying everything to lower amount of feeds.