How can I control my anger? :(

Hi
So I have a 16 month old son and im also currently 6 months pregnant.
I cosleep, breastfeed still and try to do attachment parenting. My son doesn't sleep through, is very clingy to me (or maybe attached is a better word?). We're togther all day everyday and all night and I love that but sometimes I get soo overwhelmed.
And I get angry over stupid things that are not important but even though I know there not important I STILL get angry.
The things that anger me are when:
My son is hard to settle to sleep even though he is tired. Or he wont stop crying during the night because I wont let him twiddle my nipple or nurse him when my breasts are hurting.
Or when Im trying to clean/cook/eat and he wants to be held and I cant get anything done.
When im changing his nappy and his cnstantly kicking off me whole time and rolling around and crying.
When he throws his bowl of food all over the place.

I get REALLY frustrated. I become someone who I am normally not and it scares me. I am worried that one day I will hurt him out of my anger and I dont know what to do.

I wish I could not care about the housework, or I was more relaxed about his sleeping habbits at night. I dont want to be the type of mother who puts housework before children. I worry that hes becoming more clingy because of the times when I have refused to pick him up and I've not been a loving mum to him. I know whilst im angry that its wrong but It soo hard for me to just relax :s

I know that he is doing anything wrong, its ME that has the problems.

Ok, that all sounds really bad. This doesn't happen often, but I really want it to stop. I wish i could just sit down with him all day and make the most of him being soo young whilst I can.

Does anybody know what to I can do? xxx

I could have written that myself!" sounds v familiar.

The idea of attachment is that at first babies need to be physically close to you. They learn that you will be there when they need you and that you provide for them emotionally as well as physically, but a secure attachement allows that to have this knowledge inside of them and there fore slowly gain more confidence being away from you. Only in little ways like being able to move away from you in a playgroup or similar and then return to you after a moment or two, and obviously as they get older and more confident taht they know they can reach you they will go further for longer. They have the trust that you wont just leave them when they are not looking. It sounds that by never leaving each others side, your baby doesnt have the chance to build uup that confidence and so of course he feels that he needs to always be with you. There has to be a time when they move out of your bed, and perhaps now is that time. I expect it will be hard work, particularly because you are expecting and he will worry that his place will be taken by the new one. He'll need loads of reassurance and buckets of love shown to him! By giving yourself some space you will be able to recoporate and feel more like being with him in the day! That awful mummy guilt does get to us when we feel we'd rather be doing the washing up that playing shop for the 50th time that week! Its ok, we all need a break from our children!

Im not sure about the theroetical basis of 'attchement parenting'. I think it can be misonstruded to make parents think that they have to be with their child ALL the time. Attachement theory does not say this at all, its about building a close trusting relationship with your child.

Give yourself some time and space and the rest will follow, its not a huge issue at all, but it will take lots of time and patience, I hope your partner can help you with it xx

You really sound stressed out to me, I agree with ems101 about attachment parenting not meaning 24 hours a day but it does often seem to end up that way for me too. I don't read your post as really being about anger management, I read it as you being stressed, full of pregnancy hormones and I'm really sorry to say this to someone I don't know, but it reads as someone who is finding it hard to cope right now.

Can your OH help at all? You are growing a whole new person and still providing milk for another one, and still need something of your body and mind to be left for you. So without knowing any of your circumstances at all, if it were me I would ask him to help with the daily household chores, even a bit. This might give you a bit of breathing room to relax and enjoy your son during the day a bit?

Don't beat yourself up for being human. It will get better, just give yourself a break and tbh, maybe let things slide for a week and spend more time cuddling or tickling ds - whatever he likes best other than bf - and have easy teas.

And according to the physio at my ante-natal classes, you shouldn't be doing the vacuuming or changing beds or cleaning the bath at the moment anyway as she said that type of movement can encourage separation of the abdominal muscles. So your OH can really help you out a lot doing those jobs when he's around, and during the day it means tidying/dusting etc which is easier to fit around a toddlers play. DS could follow you round and you can break the jobs up a bit easier? I try to cook tea when my son is having snack in his high chair or taking his time finishing lunch. We eat together but then if he wants a play with bits and pieces at the end then I'll crack on with kitchen stuff then. It doesn't always happen but is great when it does!

I really hope you feel more on top of things soon, and get some rest.

Have you thought about using a sling? You can shove baby on your back and get on with things. I have a 21m old and when he goes through growth spurts, he can get very clingy, and i find he gets over the clingyness quicker if i reasure him that he can be as clingy as he wants cos im not going anywhere (even tho I just want to scream get off me get off me!) I shove him on my back, he watches me cook over my shoulder, and ust gets the closeness that he needs

Thankyou all for the replies i feel much better today. My oh is great and he has aa day off from work on wednesdays so its been nice. I only really get stressed when he is at work. Today i have done alot of thinking and i do think it is to do with stress. I also havnt been going out much lately so i really think that has made things worse. My son is usually fine when he goes to playygroups and peoples houses that hes familiar with its just often when im at home and want to do anything, he gets super clingy. We did have an ergo but i had to sell that last week. It was easier to just use that....much easier as that way, we would both be happier. Im going to get another sling next week when we have some money. I also think i need to be more organised in making sure he has his naps and ive set up the dining room so we can eat our meals in there so things will be abit more structured. Its like i know how to make things better but i get soo overwhelmed at the time that it all just gets too much. For instance i know that if im organised and go out often that im happier and things are easier but ive just been really unmotivated lately as it has been soo cold outside the sleep thing really gets to me though. Im soo tired all of the time. I dont even know how to improve my sons sleep in a gentle way. He only wants me at night and its just soo hard

I'm really glad you're feeling better today! I can tell you how I weaned my ds (who sounds so similar,definitely the night feeds and clingyness!), if it would help at all? Fingers crossed you get a good sleep tonight!

I would love to know?

Sleep was better last night, he still woke up lots but didn't cry this time and I just pulled my top off and let him feed whenever.
xxx

I would love to know?

Sleep was better last night, he still woke up lots but didn't cry this time and I just pulled my top off and let him feed whenever.
xxx

Sleep makes such a difference! Night time feeding kept my sanity!

Um, my 'weaning story' is quite long and I really hope it's useful somehow... For me, I struggled with a clingy and endlessly feeding boy (he was still feeding every couple of hours on average till after 12 months) and a couple of months ago when we both had a vomiting bug he went back to feeding every 2 hours, all day all night and I was gutted. I had been saying 'later', for daytime feeds apart from before naps and bedtime. I did that for months and he would often eat something instead if I caught him in time. Nights were killing me (and as my pregnancy went on it got more and more sore to feed) so I decided when I wanted to sleep and wouldn't feed him at the other times... He would be in bed with us already and so from 5am I wouldn't feed. So I'd offer water or food and tbh he'd nearly always say yes to weetabix. So for maybe a week I was up every night or so anytime from 330am feeding ds something or other. It seems to have stopped (fingers crossed) and he tends to sleep 1 or 3ish till 630ish now.

I fully stopped feeding when he started jumping off my lap after pre-nap milk and running off very happy... it was so sore to feed him that I just thought I'm done, I don't want to feed you anymore. So that night I told DH that I was finished feeding him and that he'd need to do most of the evenings for a few days. We'd already spent time trying to get ds to settle with dh and he would settle with books and cows milk every now and again. So DH would read to him, we'd offer him a cup of warm cows milk (which he often doesn't drink). For 3 nights he was cross and grumpy and confused why his routine was changed, and would call for me but he used the same type of voice as he does during the day when he's not getting his own way. So for the first time I could hear him call for me and not know he *needed* me, it was weird! When I'd bring him through to our bed overnight (getting him to sleep through in his own room is the next stage for us) he'd ask for milk and pull at my clothes for milk but only for 5 seconds or so before falling asleep. Then he didn't even do that and he just falls asleep next to us (which is lovely!). I really feel he was ready to move on as weaning seems to have coincided with him having more independence - he's happy to be more independent at playgroups etc now and we went to a new group kast week and after a minute standing in the door he ran off to play. It could be coincidence but for him and me I think it was the right time.

It was a very hard journey for me until just at the end when it seemed effortless.I hope that you find the way that's best for you and your son. Whatever way you do it will be right for you and IMO if that means keeping only day feeds / night feeds / all feeds / stopping instantly that's all ok so long as it's what you want to do.

Sorry for writing so much, I hope it helps somehow to see what I did but I'm not sure how much was just timing with my ds just being ready (for him, 19 months).

let me know how you get on, and really don't beat yourself up about any of the stuff you've said. You can be whatever kind of Mum you want to be, just so long as you look after yourself too.

At night when N was about 20 months I started saying it was too early for booby between midnight and 5. He whinged a bit but usually took water and went back to sleep. When we tried it a few months earlier we just got total hysterical screaming so gave up for a while and fed as and when for a few more months.