Hi Layla
I empathise with you so much as I have a 12 week old baby and a 3-year old in the house and it has been really tough. I have a snacker also and think this is because she has to be so flexible to fit around my toddler's routine - it's just not been possible to implement any kind of routine with her. It makes you tear your hair out every day when you envisage finally getting into a routine and then it all goes t**s up when she pulls off 3 minutes into the first feed and then takes a 20-minute nap!
Sometimes when it gets so overwhelming which it so understandably does, I try to tackle everything all at once and get even more overwhelmed. The best advice that I've had is to "cope with what you can cope with" - and so I list everything that's challenging me and prioritise them in terms of what I'd really like to get cracked first. Then I make a plan to tackle just the first thing and not to put a time limit on it. In the meantime, I try to accept that everything else will need to run as is, i.e. snacking, cat-napping, house getting wrecked etc, but at least part of it will get better as I work on it. The first thing that I decided to tackle was my toddler and not the baby as we had a sleep problem and the reason she was behaving the way she was was because a. she was tired and b. she saw me sloping off with dd throughout the day, and she was vying for attention. By sorting out her sleep problem, and making sure I got quality time with her too, her behaviour has really changed, and has given me the chance to even start thinking about cracking the dd challenges. But I must stress I did all of this with dh and it wouldn't have worked without him, and I don't know how exactly I'm going to fix dd's routine!
I also keep reminding myself [because we have been through this before!] that this stage is one stage that won't last forever - pretty soon, we'll be onto solids [not just milk-feeds], napping and sleeping better, rolling about, sitting up and crawling and this painful stage will be past. Until then I take a day at a time, otherwise I'll go mad. And if this means that a switch to bottle-feeding is what I think will help [because like you, I'm considering this for exactly the same reasons], I'll do it because it's really for such a short spell and it's not just dds happiness that counts, but mine and the rest of the family too. But I'm putting this off at the moment, because as someone else has said, I'm not sure this will solve the problem of snacking or distraction from the breast [and I'm not sure I can be bothered getting up in the night to heat the bottles!].
I have given you some of the things that I have tried below to help me get through the hard times. I hope this in some way helps.
Finally, I have the number of a really good "baby whisperer" [not really but best description I can give] in the UK that may be able to help you should you think you need some help getting through this - I used her for my toddler and it started to turn things around in days. She really helped me both prioritise and put things into perspective, and because dh was involved, it opened his eyes too! Please let me know if you think this would help or maybe someone could recommend one in your neck of the woods.
All the very very best and good luck
Christie
Ideas:
Night times are difficult because even though you may get enough sleep in hours etc, it is broken and it's a killer. It's even worse when it's being broken by 2 or even 3 people. What I've done to cope with this is to move to another room with dd for a few nights/weeks at a time. I tell you, it's much more relaxing because no one can disturb you [except dd!] and you are not so afraid that you're going to wake everyone up. If this an option, even move to the sitting room and see how it goes. Or even better, ask dh to move somewhere for a night or two now and again.
With daytime feeds, having a quiet activity to do with my toddler whilst I am feeding has been useful so that I can supervise and comment without necessarily joining in - actually, I get a good couple of hours out of play dough and puzzles without her getting too boisterous [books etc were useless - she was more interested in wrecking the joint before my eyes!]. I have also invested in baby dolls that my toddler can feed at the same time as I do which causes me great mirth. In addition, I will ask her to cook me something nice or make me a cup of tea, which I try to string out for as long as possible to give me peace to feed. The last resort for me but by far the most useful is TV just to sit and get some "quiet" time. It really helps, especially if you can talk with her whilst it's on. Finally, when everything really gets too much, I just have to get them and me out of the house, even for the whole day to distract them. It seems to keep me sane!
As for the eating and drinking thing, I was worried about this too and things that have helped have been taking a glass of water every hour. Something that I think has helped my supply [which seems to get really low when I am low] is a big glass of milk at the beginning and end of the day [it also helps me sleep]. I also find it hard to get round to meals so I snack on things like cooked meat for protein that I can just grab quickly from the fridge when I'm hard pushed.
I feel like I've just rambled and you've probably thought about all of these things already but I hope this all helps somehow. x
