Is breastfeeding causing all my problems?
My son is 8 weeks old. I only nursed my first son for a few days and gave up because i was unaware how hard it actually was to nurse a baby. When i got pregnant with my second, I did alot more research to feel prepared and we’re going 8 weeks strong. Here’s the issue.. I can almost never get my baby to sleep without nursing & even then, it’s quite the fight and often ends in tears from me because it takes 2 hours to get him asleep. Once he’s asleep if his face isn’t touching my nipple he wakes up. Night time sleep is also rough. He will sleep in the bassinet for about 30 minutes (after fighting him for an hour or more) and then i have to nurse him and rock him for an hour. He will then typically sleep for 2 hours. After that, he’s awake every hour or less. My husband can almost never get him asleep because he doesn’t have magic boobs. I go back to work in 3 weeks and I’m starting to get worried about how the sitter will get him asleep as she has other kids as well. He will not nap independently at all and i’m struggling. I know some of it is his age and i’m not expecting a miracle, but i’m wondering if breastfeeding is causing this much of an issue for me. I genuinely feel like my whole day is just fighting him to take a nap. He is not the type of baby that will “fall asleep if he’s tired enough”. My other issue: if he’s awake he’s mad unless he’s on the boob and even then that doesn’t always work. I’m not kidding when i say there has been maybe a handful of times where he’s has been content enough for me to set him on his playmat or in his bouncer. He’s typically screaming to be held and again, seven if i pick him up he isn’t always happy. I’m feeling really defeated. He has laryngomalacia and struggles more on bottles so we’re typically are always directly breastfeeding. We have introduced a bottle a day and plan to increase that so he is ready for the sitter. I don’t know what i’m doing wrong, but no matter what i do i have an angry baby.