In The Darkness of the Living Room

In two days Bea will be 20 months old

bea star

She has slept every single night of her life with me

I cannot imagine things having been any other way

But we need to find a way to stop

The darkest part of my days

Is the hour I sit in a pitch black room

Willing a giant baby Bea to fall asleep

In my arms

On my lap

I am still feeding her to sleep

Because physically and emotionally I don’t know how to stop

Yet physically and emotionally this is what I need the most

Feeding Bea to sleep

Sitting motionless on the sofa with her

From 6pm everyday

Is crippling me

Literally crippling me

For the past three days I have been in excruciating pain

In my lower back

All round my hips

Down my thighs and in the back of my knees

I can tell from where it hurts most

That is linked to how I sit while feeding Bea

It is not good for my mental wellbeing either

The darkness of the living room

I get sad and cross and frustrated

The longer it takes Bea to fall asleep

The worse I feel

We do not end our days together well

I want my evenings back

I want my body back

I just wish I knew how

She has never slept in a cot

I do not really mind her being in bed with me

It is the sofa in the evening that is hard

It feels like a huge roadblock

Stopping me

Us

From moving forward

I could spend my evenings doing jobs around the house

Setting up learning and play for the next day

Anything other than feeling totally trapped

Under Bea

I am beginning to really resent the time

Dread the time

It is not good for our relationship

It is not the bonding experience it once was when she was new born

I want us to move to the next stage together

I want to straighten out the kinks

Most notably in my spine!

I dread the darkness falling

I hate our living room

Can anyone please tell me what I should do?

8 thoughts on “In The Darkness of the Living Room

  1. I’ve been here too and I totally understands how frustrating it is. This is what we did with Luka, bella and Elsie. We created a completely new bedtime routine. So instead of being in ten living room on my own with the babies everyone came down for stories. Then each went up for bedtime and were tucked in, rocked, sung to- whatever they needed to settle to sleep. With Luka it took longer but that was his personality i think. Paul did this part at first because they just wanted to feed with me. So we used to stay until they were asleep. We would hold then, lay then then, shh then and lie then down, each time they cried we would do the same. Sometimes they were too upset so we brought them down for more stories and started again. It took a while but eventually they understood the new routine and I think it was harder for me than for them as i felt a little useless sitting downstairs while Paul took over. Now bella and Elsie share so we all go down for stories, then I take Elsie up for milk by herself and she goes to bed awake while the others are downstairs. Then bella goes up when Elsie is asleep. She’s doesn’t stay asleep all night so ends up with us but at least I have an evening now. I think you need to find a new routine that involves all of them so bea can feel like she is let missing out, but joining in with her siblings instead. A new routine that works for you all, including you xxx

  2. Jennie, it’s such a tough situation. I fed my dd to sleep until she was well over 4 years old and I was 13 weeks pregnant with my ds! I had left it far too long to stop until she was ready. I deliberately only fed her on one side to dry the other one up and eventually the pregnancy hormones dried the other side too. I wasn’t sad in the slightest. I don’t have a magic solution for you, but just wanted to let you know that someone else has been there too. Fwiw, my now 5 year old is still in bed with me… My poor son is getting no such luxuries!

  3. I was still feeding my dd at Bea’s age. We moved on to the next stage by Daddy taking over the last bit… I would feed her but when I had finished, he took her into her room to settle. It didn’t take long for her not to need to be fed to sleep.

    I think you can also skip the cot stage. My dd NEVER settled in her cot, we always lay wither until she slept and then transferred her. At 22 months we took the side off of her cot and she just loved climbing in and out by herself. Within 3 weeks we were able to give her a kiss goodnight and leave her to go to sleep on her own.

    Good luck x

  4. Hi Jennie

    I fed my daughter to sleep until she was 24months old. She would go to sleep during the day in the buggy but never went down in her cot at night awake. We have an Ikea chair and footstool in her room and I used to sit in that for hours waiting for her to go to sleep. (And again in the night when she woke up). I’m a teacher too so I used to find it hard in the evenings sometimes. By the time she was nearly 2 – September 2013 – I felt she was old enough for us to reason with her and she was talking pretty well too at that point so I would feed her in our room and then pretend I had to go to work and my husband would sit next to her with lullaby music until she went to sleep. She did cry a bit at first but nothing hysterical or traumatic. I did actually go out for the first few evenings! If she woke up in the night my husband would go to her and she didn’t miss the feeds at all, she would lie back down for him. I continued to feed her myself occasionally during the day and each evening. I was sort of trying to wean her but always gave in if she was tired or poorly. We eventually stopped feeding when she was two and a half. One of us still sits by her bed every night until she falls asleep. We also have a video monitor so that I can see her from my bed and can hear her breathing in the night. She’ll be five in September but I can’t imagine stopping using it!

    Maybe Bea could go straight into a bed in a few months time? You could get one with a pull out bed underneath and lie next to her then gradually move to a chair? I can completely understand the exhaustion but it’s so worth it. You’ll never regret that cuddle time.

    Lots of love

    xx

  5. I BF my first for 18months, by then I was pregnant again. I definitely think it was harder for me than her, there are loads of techniques online, what worked for us was going cold turkey, giving her a warm bottle of her dairy free oatly milk and also the fact I had a scald on my tummy – kids apparently relate to Mummy having an ouchy, some say saying you have ouchy boobies work, but she seemed very sympathetic to not lying across my to feed because of my ouchy:) If you do not have it I recommend the Anglecare sensor mat and video monitor for peace of mind – I still use mine in my 3yr old as prefer to have the peace of mind that all is OK, just ensure the cables are covered as advised.

  6. I’ve never commented here before but I wanted to let you know that I empathise! My little girl was 10 weeks premature and by the time we got home from NICU I was so petrified of letting her out of my sight and so desperate to make up for everything she’d been through and missed out on that I established the same routine you describe – feeding her on to sleep the sofa and then holding her for the rest of the evening until we both went to bed in my bedroom. She is now 22 months corrected and I’ve just started to try and break the habit but it’s hard. Now my partner bathes her and does stories in our bedroom whilst I deal with our older child then I feed my little girl to sleep on the bed and put her into a travel cot next to our bed to sleep. With an Angel alarm on I feel ok about leaving her up there to sleep whilst I come downstairs, do jobs, eat dinner with two hands or watch TV with the volume on. It took a while for her to accept it but it’s working ok now. We still have a way to go – I’m still feeding her to sleep and still breastfeeding her several times during the night and I haven’t even thought about how weaning will work but it’s progress. Maybe it would help you to make gradual changes one at a time rather than trying to alter it all in one go? As I said above, I’ve found it hard with my experience so I can’t imagine what it must be like for you after the horrific loss of baby Matilda and the trauma of going through that.

    Sending you peace and many good wishes x

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