Discipline of the Boobie Variety

[Pooka]

Ok Cellar mamas and papas… those of you who are or have breastfed your little munchkins… hopefully you can help. And I need help soon or it will be the professional variety I’ll be seeking.

I need our 14 month old to do the following:
Sleep through the night in his own bed in the kid’s room (Morgi our 2 year old and Flintsy share a room at present)
Eat people food and drink people drinks… ween from the boob ASAP
Be ok shopping and staying seated in the cart regardless who is pushing
Be happy to be held by others even if I’m in the room
Quit being such a damn winy butt head. (He literally butts his head against me wining to get his way)


Flintsy, our son, is a boobie baby through and through. His love affair with the boobie began early on… he would never take a bottle even with breast milk. This as you can imagine, made it impossible for me to leave him with people. Fortunately, he is beginning to take a few sips here and there from sippy cups, but not really drinking much. He won’t accept a sippy cup if he is really thirsty… only boobie. If he is hurt or upset… only boobie fixes it. I’m a damn human pacifier. I realize that is in so many ways my fault and I’m not looking for finger pointing, just solutions going forward.

Flintsy has never really eaten food despite many daily attempts from the time he was about 6 months old. He never would eat baby food… not homemade or store bought. Around 10 months he began to accept some finger foods if you allowed him to self feed, but even to this day at 14 months he only snacks... he won't eat enough to "fill up". It is as though he is “saving room” for boobie. He literally chases me around demanding milk.

He screams as if he is being murdered if I'm around and someone else is holding him and he can see me or if we are shopping and he is in the cart instead of my arms... and he practically leaps out of their lap or the cart twisting out of the lap belt and tries to scratch my shirt off to get at the boob.

At night he wakes every 1-2 hours and screams so loud he can be heard from the front yard. He won't settle back to sleep without being nursed. No matter what I've tried. And I’ve tried:
Rocking him,
just putting him back in the bed over and over with no attention,
giving him a sippy cup,
a lovie,
giving him teething tablets and Tylenol... benadryl actually hypes him up,
on weekends my husband (FLINT) has tried responding to him but the anger just escalates,
we’ve tried driving around (which clearly I'm not going to do every hour)

Keep in mind... he sleeps in the same room as Morgi, so I really can't (and wouldn't even if he wasn't sharing with sister) be able to let him cry it out... even with me trying to sooth him without nursing he just screams endlessly until I give him the boob. One night our joint effort to get him back to bed without nursing literally went on 6 hours. Papa Flint has to be up at 5 am and drives an hour with non stop driving at about 80 miles an hour to be at his work by 7:30 am and as a result needs to sleep and needs our son to be quieted by me... there is nowhere to go in the house where the screaming can't be heard. I can't ask Flint to sleep somewhere else and I can't ask for his help at night. So the catch is… I need to be able to resolve this myself without help from others. The only thing that keeps him some what satisfied would be to let him sleep with us and nurse when he wants, but even then he screams in his sleep sometimes and pushes us out of bed because he is hot.

I am at my wits end… and need suggestions (NOT JUDGEMENT… I am perfectly capable of beating myself up over all this and believe me I do constantly) on what I could try to get him to sleep through the night in his own bed and ween him. I’ve considered building a rabbit hutch in the back yard, but apparently the authorities frown on that… I’m kidding, but seriously you can no doubt feel my level of aggrivation. HE is literally driving me insane. As sweet as the night time snuggling is I'm developing a love hate relationship and that just makes my heart hurt. I find myself snapping and yelling at everyone more and more because I’m so frustrated, sleep deprived and sore. Surely running away or taking a bottle of sleeping pills isn’t the only solution (again… I’m kidding, but…). He is a super cute, funny little guy and has been my favorite person in the world these 14 months, but for his sake and my sake and well... the whole family's sake ... his dietary requirements, night time rituals and discipline needs to be handled more effectively than I’ve handled him to date apparently.