Toddler won’t fall sleep with mom anymore

I feel very defeated. My two year-old has not fallen asleep with me normally for over three months now. At first, it was just naps where she wouldn’t go down with me, but she would go down with her dad or babysitter or Nanny. Now it is happening with bedtime too.

I am still breast-feeding and she used to nurse to sleep so well and so quickly. Now at best it takes me two hours of us rolling around together before she’ll actually fall asleep. Around the same time, she also started twiddling the other breast, and sometimes the pinching and scratching of that nipple drives me so crazy that I want to scream. Most of the time I powered through that feeling though and I know that she doesn’t have any idea what I’m going through. A few times I’ve tried to get her to stop and she cried the most sad rejected cry I have ever seen. Like it really seemed like I hurt her feelings.

Maybe about once a week I actually manage to get her down normally and I can’t figure out any difference between those times and the times where it takes forever or I have to give up and hand her over to Dad.

I really wouldn’t mind still breast-feeding if she actually fell asleep with it and I’m just realizing I don’t know how to get her to sleep without it. Really hurts that everyone else can get her to calm down and relax, but I can’t. Now I guess it’s just time to wean her and maybe that’s for the best because I do start my second year of grad school in three weeks and I don’t think that I can handle going through this frustration with her every night while being in school.

I really miss being able to put my baby to sleep. ☹️