A Day in the Life

When my friend Ashley had her first baby, she blogged about what a day was like with her son. I thought it was fascinating because I had obviously never spent that much time with a baby and had no clue what a day was like! I love reading about other people's routines because A) I'm nosey, B) it gives me ideas on how to plan our day and C) it reminds me that I am not alone! So, I wanted to do a quick little post about what a day is like in Maleah's life for your sake and for my memory's sake. I am going to elaborate on just about everything because many of the schedules I have read on parenting websites are VERY vague and leave me with more questions than answers! So, hopefully the thorough explanation will help some mom out there!!!

Here's a typical day for us and our little kiddo:

5:45 am-6:15 am	Blake and I start to wake up and get ourselves ready for the day
6:45-7:15 am	Maleah wakes up, we change her diaper. Sometimes she wakes on her own, other times we wake her up by 7:15 if she doesn’t wake up. One of us feeds her at 7:15 (3-4 oz, depending on what time she ate at night) am while the other packs her bag and our lunches. After she eats, she gets another diaper change and we get her ready for the day (change clothes, brush hair, etc.).
8:00 am	Blake takes her to school
8:00 am – 5:00 pm	At Daycare: She eats 4.5-5 oz around every 3 hours (ideally 10/1/4). From what I understand, she stays awake for a while after her bottles and then cat-naps until her next feeding. Usually, her sheet will say her naps went something like this: 11-11:40; 12:10-12:50 or 1:45-2:15; 3:30-4:15. So, they aren’t super consistent but she does sleep and they say she’s happy, so I don’t really mind! At Home: She eats 4.5-5 oz around every 3 hours (ideally 10/1/4). She stays awake now around 1.5 hours after the start of her feeding. We watch for her sleep cues, so as soon as she starts rubbing her eyes or gets that glazed-over look, we go lay her down. Naps usually last 1-1.5 hours. She almost always wakes up within 30-45 minutes of every nap. We just go in, give her the pacifier and she goes back to sleep.
5:00 pm	I pick her up from daycare and we head home! If the weather is good, we walk to the mail box. We entertain her for a while as we piddle around the house and start to make dinner. Sometimes she gets sleepy around this time, other times she seems wide awake.
6:00 pm	If she hasn’t already gone down for a nap, we put her in the crib. She almost always takes a good 45 min – 1 hr nap at this time even if she hasn’t acted tired. I just think she’s happy to see us and wants to stay awake, but she needs a quick cat nap at this time to make it through dinner! Blake & I try to eat dinner and clean up dinner during this time!
7:15 pm	Dinner time for Maleah! Then a little play time.
7:45 pm	Bath time! We bathe her every night during the week except Wednesdays (when we have church) and we usually skip the bath one night during the weekend. After the bath, she gets an overnight diaper and lots of diaper cream, hydro-cortisone cream on legs, arms, and back of neck, nose suctioning (and currently also a little Vick’s Baby Rub on her chest!), PJ’s, and hair brushing! She has a love/hate relationship with this process!
8:00 pm	After bath, we read a book or two and then I swaddle her and rock her to sleep.
10/10:30 pm	Dream feed. She usually takes 2-3 oz.
5/6 am	She wakes to eat. Since “breakfast” is at 7:15am, we only give her 2-3 oz at this time. Usually once she takes in 3oz, she drifts to sleep and will take her pacifier and go back to sleep until 7. We think she is starting to push towards being able to sleep 10-12 hours, so hopefully we are in the last stages of night-waking. It’s kind-of hard to do the breakfast thing at 7:15 when she has eaten at 6, but we’re just rolling with it until she starts sleeping until 7am!

Some other notes:

Naps/Sleep: Even though I rock Maleah to sleep for bedtime, I do not rock her to sleep for naps. We just watch for her sleep cues and then go lay her down. She usually goes right to sleep. We don't let her sleep longer than 2 hours for naps so that she will sleep well at night. She is always in a good mood when she wakes up! She sleeps with a pacifier. Usually she spits it out at some point. Still sleeps on tummy for naps and back for night time sleep.

Schedule: We don't live by the clock... except for first & last feeding of the day. Those times are sacred, so to speak! If we start messing with "breakfast" and "dinner," it seems to throw off the whole day. So, we try to be "on time" with those two feedings and then give everything in between a 30 minute window (15 minutes before or after). So, we may feed her at 10:10 am one day instead of 10. No biggie. But, if we do adjust the time of one feeding, we leave subsequent "scheduled" feedings at the same time. So, if we fed her at 10:10 instead of 10, we still plan on feeding her at 1. Does that make sense?

Dream feed: Honestly, I wasn't even sure this was working for a while! She has rarely taken a full bottle (the same ounces she takes during the rest of the day), but we realized that's just her. It stressed me out for a long time until I just let it go. Even now, she might only take 2 oz. I can't force her to eat; if she's full at 2 oz, so be it! It doesn't seem to change the duration of her sleep anymore. For a while, it did, which is why I was stressed. From what I have read, we'll continue doing the dream feed for several more weeks. It will still be a while before she can eat at 7pm and not again until 7am.

Sleeping Through the Night: If you consider sleeping 6+ hours without eating "sleeping through the night," then Maleah didn't consistently start doing this until right around 11 weeks. She had done it a few times before then, but not every night. She ate at 10pm and not until 4am for a week or two and then got seriously congested! The congestion had her waking at 1am, 3am, 3:30am, 5am... all sorts of crazy times. Lol. That was rough. Now she's back to sleeping through the night and can often go until 5:30-6am before she wakes to eat! According to BabyWise, most babies who are on this plan sleep around 10 hours by 10 weeks. Since Maleah is on the small side, we think she just wasn't capable at that time. Now that she's a little bigger, she can eat more during the day and less at night.

Being Out in Public: I feel really confident when we take Maleah out and about. I was a nervous wreck anytime we went anywhere for quite some time! I wasn't sure how she would adapt to new situations. But now we know - she's a super easy-going baby. For real. She seems to just go with the flow. We are very thankful of that!!! She is starting to figure out what's going on around her so she doesn't sleep as well when we go out, but just like at daycare - she does sleep... even in some seriously noisy places!!

Swaddling: I posted on facebook last week a question about how long to swaddle the baby. We have some larger size swaddle blankets on loan from friends and are in testing mode to see what works for her. Well, we definitely found out last night that she isn't ready for her arms to be free! She woke herself up around 2am with arms just a goin'. She had wiggled out of the sleep sack. I will definitely swaddle her more tightly tonight. :)

Activities: Maleah can hold up her head with moderate control and she can turn from her stomach to back but refuses to do it on command! She did it 7 times in one week, then one random time over the weekend in her crib. We give her lots of tummy time and she is trying, but she just doesn't seem to totally have it mastered. She is also trying really hard to turn from her back to her tummy. She can get all the way up to her side but can't seem to figure out how to get her arm out from underneath. She plays with her hands a lot and grasps onto things, but doesn't purposefully reach out for anything just yet. But, chances are if she catches hold of something, it will end up near her mouth or on her face. :)

Stats: She weighs right around 12 pounds and, I assume, is maybe around 22-23 inches long? Not really sure on the length. She still wears 0-3 month outfits (bloomers, in particular, seem to still be big on her waist) but she has also worn some 3-6 month outfits. We moved her up to 3-6 month PJ's & onesies. She wears a size 2 diaper. She uses a size 2 nipple on Avent bottles and still uses a size 1 on Tommee Tippee (we use those for dream feed & night b/c they are for gassy tummies). She still uses Similac Sensitive formula.

Well, that's about it for week 14. The best part of writing this - knowing that, with the upcoming introduction of solid foods, it's all about to change! :)