depressed last week

Last week I took baby Doodle to his nine-month appointment with the pediatrician. I really like our doctor. She takes a real interest in BD, seems to ask a lot of questions, checks him out pretty thoroughly, and encourages breastfeeding to all mothers. Though she is not an alarmist, she recommended we get an EKG to check baby Doodle's heart after he had that fainting spell. She didn't think it was a big deal when baby Doodle went on a hunger strike (refusing solid food, not breast milk -- never breast milk). She was reassuring when he fell out of the kitchen chair onto the hard tile floor.

After checking in and getting weighed and measured BD's doctor came in the exam room. She asked what he was eating, how often I'm nursing him, what his sleeping schedule is like, etc . . . I told her that BD still wakes up around 3:00 a.m. to nurse and then goes back to sleep in his crib. Her response was, "he doesn't need to be eating in the middle of the night any more, nutrition wise." In other words, he's waking up to be cuddled and get some comfort from nursing, but doesn't need the calories at night any more like he used to when he was an infant. I was kind of glad to hear this news because it meant, theoretically, that I could stop waking up at night to feed BD.

That night Mr. Doodlebug and I decided to give it a try. Baby Doodle predictably woke up at 3:00 a.m. to eat. Mr. D went downstairs and tried to comfort BD. He wanted no part of being comforted while still lying by himself in his crib. Mr. D took him out of the crib and rocked him back to sleep. Forty minutes later he put BD back in his crib and as soon as his head hit the mattress he was up again. Mr. D tried again. No luck. I got up, fed BD, put him back in the crib and we all went back to sleep, around 4:30 a.m. The next day I was exhausted. I knew BD would be too, so I lied down with him on the guest bed and thought he would fall asleep without a problem since I was lying next to him and he was super tired. He fought it for about a half hour, then I gave up. It was an extremely frustrating and depressing day for both of us.

Since then I have given up on trying to cut out the night time feeding. It's a schedule that works for us, and though it would be nice to not have to get up every night, it's a lot nicer to only be up for a half hour instead of an hour and a half. BD is asleep in his crib right now. It's only the third nap he's ever taken in his crib -- in nine months. That is another thing I get depressed about.

I feel like I have messed up as a mother. I never made him nap in his crib and so he doesn't want to now. He would rather sleep in my arms after I've fed him or next to me on an adult bed. This morning I fed him in the rocking chair and then after he fell asleep I moved him to his crib, where he staid asleep, which almost never happens. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a phase where BD will actually sleep in his crib in the middle of the day.

I don't know how people with more than one kid do it. Kudos to you.