Yesterday was Cate’s one-month birthday, and today was her one-month doctor’s appointment. She now weighs 8 pounds, 8 1/2 ounces. That’s almost three pounds in a month! I knew she had gained quite a bit, because she has a little bit of a tummy, and she’s starting to get some adorable little fat rolls on her thighs. I think she now looks more like a normal, healthy baby, as opposed to the frighteningly tiny creature that I gave birth to last month. She’s also a couple of inches taller. At her one week appointment, she was in the 5th-10th percentile for height and weight, and now she’s in the 25th-50th percentile for both. Which is just about perfect, if you ask me.

The rest of the visit was all good: she has excellent muscle tone, reflexes, she’s just generally fantastic. As for getting her to sleep longer, the pediatrician nixed the rice cereal idea, which didn’t surprise me. She said what some of y’all said, that it’s an old wives’ tale. She gave me a couple of ideas of things to try, like more white noise – we leave the fan in the bathroom running, and the Pack n’ Play is right outside our bathroom door, but that may not be enough. She also said that there’s nothing wrong with letting her fall asleep in the swing at this point (although after she’s two months old, we’ll need to rethink that). She also suggested giving her more formula at bedtime; as long as she doesn’t spit up, we don’t need to worry that we’re over-feeding her.

But for the most part, it sounds like this lack of sleep is just something I’m going to have to suffer through for the next couple of months, which sucks. I know everyone means well when they tell me that Cate will sleep through the night eventually, but it makes me crazy. Of course I know that she will, but that doesn’t help me right now. For the past week or so, I really have felt like I’m losing my mind. I cry over nothing, and I seem to have this little Black Cloud of Doom hanging over my head all the time. I honestly have no idea if it’s solely sleep deprivation or if maybe I’m developing some degree of post-partum depression, so I don’t know how to deal with it. Do I see a doctor about it now, or wait until I’m a little more rested to see if I feel more like my old self again? I can’t figure it out.

Oh, and I’m officially done with breastfeeding. I was starting to hate it – Cate was barely getting anything from me, and it felt like a waste of time. I’d nurse her whenever she seemed hungry (every 3 hours, usually), and by the time we finished, she’d be starving and screaming her head off. I talked about it with the pediatrician, who’s as much an advocate of breastfeeding as anyone, and even she agreed that it was probably time for me to stop. If my milk supply was ever going to increase, it would’ve happened weeks ago. I gave it my best shot for a month, and that’s got to be enough. I don’t feel guilty and sad about it like I did last time, so I think I’ve made my peace with the whole thing. I’m actually kind of proud of myself for hanging in there as long as I did. 

I’ve been trying to think of something to write here for the past few days, but I’m drawing a blank, probably due to sleep deprivation. Here are some random bits:

* Cate is four weeks old today. Her one month checkup is next Wednesday, and I’m trying to remember to write down everything that I want to ask the pediatrician, because otherwise I think I’ll probably be so tired that I’ll just walk in and be all “errr… duh?”

* I met up with my friend Janet for lunch yesterday, just to get out of the house for a couple of hours. (Cabin fever is starting to get to me.) I took Cate along with me, and she was absolutely delightful. She didn’t fuss in her car seat, she slept while I ate lunch (imagine! A whole meal! With no interruptions!), and she cooed and was generally adorable afterward. Janet is 36 weeks pregnant, and I think the exposure to my completely charming baby girl made her feel a little less nervous about her own impending motherhood.

* Janet also recently took a class based on the book “The Happiest Baby on the Block.” She got the DVD with the class, and burned a copy of it for me. (Cat, I know you said you were going to mail it to me, but now you’re off the hook.) I didn’t think that very much of the DVD would apply to us, since Cate isn’t the type of baby to cry for no reason. I guess we’ve been blessed with an incredibly mellow child. But the author does promote the idea that his little techniques can help babies sleep longer, which sounded awesome. Cate wakes up hungry every three hours, and I’m so exhausted from the constant sleep interruptions that I feel like I’m losing my mind.

Well, I watched the DVD, and now I can say with absolute authority: suck it, Dr. Karp. I did all of his little techniques to get Cate to sleep longer, and she still woke up hungry every three hours. Hmph.

One of my cousins (on my dad’s side – no relation to anyone who reads this site) suggested that I slip a little rice cereal in with Cate’s formula in her nighttime bottle to get her to sleep longer. For any of you moms who bottle-fed your babies: is that normal? It’s not something I had ever heard of. But I’m going to ask the pediatrician if that’s something we can try, because the idea of getting a solid four or five stretch of sleep sounds like absolute heaven.

* Back to that whole cabin fever thing: remember that I joined a book club a few months ago? Even though I haven’t read a single book or been to any of the meetings yet? Well, they’re meeting tonight, and I don’t even know what this month’s book selection is, but I think I might go anyway, just to get out for a little while. Besides, they’re meeting at Whole Foods, and picking up some organic mac n’ cheese while I’m there sounds pretty good.

I haven’t mentioned anything about this for fear of jinxing it, but it’s been a couple of weeks now, so I think it’s safe to talk about it. Here’s my big confession: we’ve given breastfeeding another shot.

After I had that little meltdown a couple of weeks ago, I took a couple of days off, and I announced to Dave, my mom, the Internet and anyone else who would listen that I was Not Going to Do This Anymore. Then the next day, for reasons that I still can’t explain, I stuck Cate on the boob again. I guess I felt like I had officially given up, so I had nothing to lose.

Aaaand, we’ve been doing it pretty consistently ever since then. I nurse her an average of five or six times a day – and despite what all of the breastfeeding experts say, the frequency and duration has not made my milk supply increase at all. Each time she nurses, I only hear her swallow a few times, and she’s still ravenous for a bottle afterward. And I keep having to increase the amount of formula she gets, so obviously my milk supply isn’t keeping up with her appetite. So I don’t know how much benefit (if any) she’s getting from it. I rationalize it by thinking that some breastmilk must be better than none, so we’re hanging in there.

I honestly don’t know how long we’ll keep it up. I’m thinking in short-term goals. We’re about to reach the one month point, and it’s not so bad, so I’ve started thinking that maybe I’ll try to keep breastfeeding until she’s six weeks old. Maybe, just maybe, I might make it to two months. But I’m not holding my breath on that one. We’re working the “one day at a time” plan here.

And I still don’t get the whole crazy-love-bonding thing from it. I’m constantly trying to make sure she’s latched on right, counting the number of times I hear her swallow, and watching the clock to see how long she’s been nursing. It’s not this Sweet Hallmark Moment that people make it sound like. It feels like Work – something you do out of some sense of obligation, not because you like it.

In contrast, this morning, Cate and I lay on the couch together and did nothing but stare at each other for a half hour. That was an awesome little Mommy & Baby Hallmark Moment. The nursing thing? Eh, not so much. And that’s ok, I just don’t know how long I can keep myself motivated to keep it up. But we’re doing alright for now.