Over the past couple weeks I've been looking for a "routine" in Ellie's days. Many people have asked expectantly me if Ellie has a routine yet. Others tell me it's crazy to expect a baby to be on any sort of schedule at this point.
I'm definitely a planner at heart. Plus, with all of my stress over returning to work it would help to feel like I can take care of the things I need to with Ellie before leaving her. So I've been hoping to find a routine for Ellie. And I've seen some promising signs.
She is developing a pattern of taking a longish nap in the morning and another in the afternoon. These usually hit anywhere between 9:30-11 a.m. and between 1-3:30 p.m. (Then again, yesterday she didn't fall asleep until after 3 p.m. and then woke up at 4:45 p.m.) But there seems to be more method to madness of her days now :)
Brian and I have been enjoying her better nighttime sleep patterns. For several weeks now Ellie has slept for a solid 4-4.5 hours from when we get her down and then for another 3-ish hours after a mid-night feeding. This week she started sleeping for 6 hours on that first stretch! And I think Brian and I got too excited about it.
But last night crazy mom decided to try and shake things up a bit. I realized that Ellie had been waking up after 7 a.m. for a few days. It sounds great in theory, but won't work if I'm going to spend almost an hour nursing her in the morning before going to work. My schedule is fairly flexible, but many days I will need to be in between 8-8:30 a.m. So I tried an experiment of putting her to bed an hour earlier than usual... closer to 8 p.m., instead of between 9:30-10 p.m.
The result was a fair amount of crying from Ellie at the outset. I did get her to sleep at 8:45 p.m.... and then again at 9:15 p.m. (after a bit more crying). But she only stayed asleep until 1 a.m. Then she woke up again at 5 a.m. Not the outcome I was hoping for. She only went to sleep an hour early, but she woke up 2.5-3 hours before she usually does at night.
Throughout this experiment Brian was looking at me like I'm crazy for messing with a baby who'd slept, well, like a baby the previous couple nights. But I need to get Ellie into a routine of waking up around 6/6:15 a.m., if that's possible. If she wakes up at 5 a.m., I will be very tired for work.... but if she sleeps until 7 a.m., I will be late!
I really want to continue breastfeeding after I return to work. But I'm definitely stressed about how it will fit into my days. Being home with Ellie has allowed us to spend hours each day on the process. Ellie is used to nursing 3-4 hours during the time that I will soon be away from her each day. I'm going to try to visit the daycare center most of my lunch hours to nurse her, but I'll have to find time to pump at other times of the day. I just hope Ellie will help me out by nursing well at the times I need her to.
Maybe if I explain the whole process to her again... Any other suggestions out there?
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