u/ThrowRaCookieMonst1

my 9 month old baby girl has developed a STRONG preference to breast feeding over bottles. i exclusively nursed for the first 6 months and began incorporating formula due to putting her in daycare, which she took to very well. last week she developed HFMD (yay lol) and is doing better now but during her sick period she absolutely refused to take a bottle. i thought it was maybe due to the pain of sucking and that she’d be fine once she felt better, but nope! now anytime i offer a bottle she pushes it out of the way and tries to pull my shirt up. she won’t let my husband give her one either. BUT she takes them at daycare no problem. nursing is her comfort for EVERYTHING. food, nursing to sleep for every sleep, etc. i’m a ftm so i thought boobs were the problem solver for everything, but i now realize i may have shot myself in the foot doing so. sometimes she just likes to lay there with my boob in her mouth just because! my nipples have become extremely sensitive and cracked and are bleeding, so i know something’s gotta change. i’m in so much pain and can’t keep doing this. i need advice!! i already feel so defeated because my goal was to make it to her first birthday before i even thought about weaning

my baby is 6 months old. she co-sleeps, contact naps, nurses to sleep, comfort nurses, all of the above. i’ve had about two failed attempts at sleep training when she was around four months, but i’m ready to go all in, because right now she has no ability to self soothe and i know that won’t help her later on. we’ve started integrating formula into her diet to get her accustomed to not needing the boob to fall asleep. i’ve successfully bottle fed > rocked to sleep > transferred maybe twice since, but when she wakes up not where she fell asleep obviously she has a melt down. putting her down awake is an immediate scream fest. in previous attempts, staying in the room has only made her more upset, so i’m thinking ferber may be my last hope. i’m ready to have some autonomy back. so any parents who have had similar babies/success stories/tips and tricks, im all ears! wish me luck.

i’ve been blessed with the happiest, healthiest four month old, but i’m really struggling with sleep. since she was about a month old, she began to only tolerate contact naps as well as nursing to sleep (she’s ebf). we started with a bedside bassinet but eventually transitioned to co-sleeping simply because she wouldn’t tolerate being put down (even with warming the bassinet prior, swaddling, tortoise slow transfer, you name it). she began to have the occasional night where she’d sleep through the night, but i think we’ve hit the four month regression due to increased night wakes. she can ONLY close her eyes if she’s nursing. i decided to give sleep training a shot, using a combination and probably a million different methods with the exception of CIO. i bumped up feedings in her routine to help break the association, but ever since i started sleep training, bed time has become a nightmare because it seems like she knows i’m switching up her routine so it’s just a scream fest until she nurses. i can finally get her in the crib once she’s fallen asleep, but once she wakes again the cycle repeats. i can’t get her to settle in the crib. holding/rocking doesn’t help. just nursing. i KNOW she’s just a baby and one day ill miss the closeness this brings us, but im averaging about 1 hour of uninterrupted sleep a night, maybe 3 hours total sleep. my husband works offshore so additional hands are only available when he’s home. i’m open to suggestions, but please be kind, she and i are both learning.