5:30am - Abby wakes up for her early morning feeding. We nurse, do a diaper change, and then I reswaddle and rock her for a bit before putting her back down to sleep for *hopefully* another hour and a half or so. I go lay in bed for a few minutes and check email and Facebook while I wait for Dave to finish up in the shower. We only have one full bathroom and even though showering really could wait, if I don't take one early in the morning before Abby gets up then who knows when my next chance will be! Once he's out, I take the monitor with me and hop in the shower, then it's time to make coffee, have some breakfast, and catch a little news. I unload the dishwasher now too if it needs to be done.
7:30am - Abigail is up for the day! I nurse her and then give her some play time in her crib for a little bit while I pick out an outfit for her. If she's happy in her crib, I'll get laundry together at this point and run down to the basement to get a load started. Then it's back upstairs to change her and get her dressed for the day. We spend a little time snuggling on the couch early in the mornings.
8:30am - Nurse Abby again. She eats frequently in the morning to compensate for sleeping during the night.
9am - Abby is getting fussy and ready to take a little cat nap. Usually this happens either in my arms on the couch, in her swing (although lately she hasn't really liked that!) or in the boppy pillow on a fluffy blanket (supervised, of course). If I can get her to nap out of my arms, I take this time to run upstairs and do my hair, put a little makeup on, and get dressed. If we're not in a hurry to go out anywhere, then once she wakes up (usually after 30-45 minutes), I will drag her bouncy seat up to the bathroom and she watches me get ready. Abby nurses again after waking up.
10am - Sometimes we go out to run an errand at this time. Today we ran to the mall so I could look for jeans (mission: FAIL). Other times we just play at home. I read books to Abby, sing her songs, she lays on her play mat and "talks" to her friends Mr. Owl and Mr. Lamb, does tummy time, etc. If she's fussy, this is also the time when I wear her in one of the carriers I have. Today while we were out and about, she took a little nap in the stroller. At home, she'll nap either in the carrier, or sometimes, depending on her level of crankiness, I'll put her down up in her nursery for about an hour nap after play time.
11:00am - Nurse again. I *try* to follow an eat-play-sleep schedule. Note that I said try! Abby eats pretty much every 1.5-2 hours throughout the day, with the exception of a longer afternoon nap. Hopefully as she gets older she will be able to go a bit longer! Today, this meant that I nursed her in a dressing room at JC Penny!
12:30pm - Abby is showing signs of extreme tiredness and is ready for a solid nap. We nurse, and then she gets swaddled and goes down for her afternoon nap. If she took a morning nap up in her nursery, then her afternoon nap would be pushed back to later in the day. Since she only snoozed here and there at the mall this morning, she was fading fast and in desperate need of a solid nap!
1pm - Abby goes down for a nap. I spend this time doing more laundry, prepping dinner for tonight and also for tomorrow's crockpot meal, and sweeping the floors. Then I'm able to sit with my iPad and catch up on my favorite blogs, write this post(!), have another cup of coffee, etc. My goal is to eventually be able to workout during this time, but right now we don't really have a set schedule and Abby isn't a consistent napper yet. Once she is I know I should be able to get a workout in along with the other things I want to get done around the house!
Sometime between 2-4pm - Some days Abby takes a great nap, and other days it's much shorter. It really depends on what the morning looked like. There are also days where she won't go down for her afternoon nap until 3 or 4 instead...I'm trying to work on getting a schedule down but it's so hard! Someday though! After Abby gets up, I nurse and change her, and then we have more play time or snuggle time. We're working on getting Abby to take a bottle, so I may give her a bottle instead of nurse her when she wakes up, and then I pump once Dave gets home from work. Often he gives her the bottle while I'm pumping too, it just depends.
4:30pm - Dave's home! Yay! He either feeds Abby her bottle if it's time or plays with her while I grab the last of the laundry and/or get dinner started. We eat pretty early around here!
5:30pm - Dinner is ready and Abby is ready for another little catnap. Hopefully we can get her down in her swing for about 45 minutes so we can eat dinner. We usually watch a show while eating too. Someday, once Abby is older and eating with us, we'll cut out the "tv during dinner" habit, but for now it's a good way for both of us to decompress a little!
5:30pm - 7:30pm - Abby can get really fussy during this time. After we've eaten dinner we both take turns holding her and keeping her happy, and I let her nurse as often as she wants during this time. She'll usually eat two or three times during the two hours before she goes to bed. I believe the cluster feeding is what helps her sleep for longer stretches at night.
7:30pm - Bath time! Dave takes Abby to get undressed while I run a bath for her. She loves bath time and is so peaceful and happy laying in the warm water. Bath time is only about ten minutes (sometimes less), but it's a great way for her to end the day! After her bath, Abby gets a new diaper and a quick lotion massage, then it's into jammies. She nurses and then gets swaddled and goes to sleep in her rock n' play with white noise in the background. She usually goes down very easily and only needs soothed once or maybe twice if her binky falls out! We always put Abby in her bed while she's still awake to try to encourage good sleeping habits. So far it's worked very well!
8pm - 10pm - Adult time! Dave and I will either watch some more shows together, or go off and do our own thing. Last night I worked out while he took baby monitor duty and spent some time on his computer. It's really nice to have a few hours to ourselves at the end of the day.
10pm - Dave and I head to bed.
2am - Sometime usually between 2am and 3am Abby wakes up for her first nighttime feeding. She's very quick about things and after nursing and changing her she is usually back in bed asleep within a half hour. I try to get back to sleep as quickly as possible too but some nights it takes me a while!
5:30am - Abby wakes up again and we start the whole process over again!
So, that's what a day looks like, more or less! Right now at 7 weeks old Abby can't really stay awake longer than an hour to two at a time, so she takes a lot of naps here and there during the day. My plan is to get her napping in her crib soon so that she can get used to it...wish me luck! It will be interesting to see how a typical day changes from month to month as Abby is able to stay awake for longer periods and her sleep patterns become more consistent. Right now I'm just learning to try to go with the flow! I think the most important thing that I'm still learning is to watch for tired cues and encourage her to sleep before she gets overtired. When she is overtired she is super fussy and hard to calm down. When she's well rested she's a very happy baby! She's smiling at us more and more and I'm hoping that first little laugh is just around the corner!
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