HELP - am I too attached to 4 year old?

[constanceschofield]

I've been struggling to find some balance with almost 4-yr-old DS2 for some time now.

We family bed, and DS2 is still nursing for naps and nighttime. DH travels quite a bit for work, so he is gone a lot overnight, leaving me with both boys - my oldest is 16, and honestly he is just as challenging as my toddler!!

I am having a very hard time lately (now 9 weeks pregnant) finding balance in my own life. I never - I mean NEVER - have time to myself. DS2 nurses to sleep, always has, and no one else can put him to bed except me, not even DH. He won't even think of going to bed until it begins to get dark, and we've always worked on that schedule; the problem is, where I am it doesn't get dark until very late (currently 9:30p). Which means I am completely exhausted by the time I finally nurse him down. He also won't stay in bed if I leave the bed at night; he can tell, even if he is out cold. I haven't been back up after he goes down literally for years, actually. During the day, DS2 is exceptionally clingy, wants to be held, played with etc constantly. There is no such thing as a break for me. He even follows me into the bathroom! This is becoming infinitely harder with morning sickness and fatigue. I am worried about how I will handle it after the baby is born... what this means is that I never get alone time with DH, never get alone time with myself except during daytime naps in which I am scrambling to catch up on housework, bills, school stuff etc. Since DH is gone more often than not, I handle virtually everything related to running the household so there is a lot of responsibility. Thankfully I am a SAHM, but there is never enough time, my house is always a mess, and I am an emotional wreck right now (I'm sure a lot of it is pregnancy hormones too...) I also have zero support system as we moved across country recently and have no family and no friends (yet).

DH is sooooo sick of it, he tries to be supportive but he was raised as a military kid and doesn't really believe in much of the attachment style (very evident in the way he treats our teen - army hard-knocks style, totally opposite of AP, which is extremely hard on me, but that's another story.) Because of his travel schedule, he has never really been involved in nighttime parenting. He's given up and sleeps in the other room now, even though we have a king-size bed. I rarely see him and when we do it's almost like we are roommates, there is no intimate connection. Now he is demanding that I wean before the new baby comes because our lives are clearly suffering. I don't know what to do

[sweetbirdie]

Just my opinion...but I'd try to wean him. It sounds like this is having a negative impact on your marriage and that needs to take priority right now. I don't have experience with attachment parenting so I don't really know where to tell you to start but finding a group online of attachment parents may help. Good luck and congrats on the pregnancy!