I really don’t know how all of you moms and dads do it. It’s currently 2am and I am sitting here on my 4th hour straight of rocking my 18 month old son to sleep. I am so frustrated to the point of tears. All I want to do is throw my hands up, say screw it and put him in his crib to cry. But then comes the mom guilt. He is fighting his sleep SO bad. Every time he gets comfortable and is starting to drift off to sleep he forces himself awake by moving around and trying to get down. This has been going on for weeks. When I do get him to sleep, he wakes up through the night crying and needing to be rocked again. It’s never ending. It’s utterly exhausting and I just feel like giving up.

To make matters worse, I am 22 weeks pregnant. I have severe back pain since I gave birth to my son. Rocking him to sleep for hours leaves my back in so much pain that I end up crying on the floor waiting for the pain to go away. I don’t know what else to do! I’ve tried everything. I tried talking to him and explaining why he needs to go to sleep. I’ve tried putting him down after a while and telling him that he needs to have quiet time in his crib until he’s ready to sleep. I’ve tried staying in the room with him while he is in his crib. I’ve tried co sleeping, but that’s not a habit I want to get into right now because I can’t be cosleeping with him when the baby is born. We have a full sized bed and when the baby is here, he will be waking up every 2 hours and that will disrupt my sons sleep even more. I’ve tried changing his routine, changing his nap time, changing his bedtime, full meal before bed, I’ve tried cry it out and he’ll scream for hours and it makes me feel so guilty and like a shitty mother... everything. I’ve tried EVERYTHING. And nothing is working. I don’t know what to do. I have no help. I’m struggling.

This is just a vent post. I know no one really cares. I just had to get that off my chest.