The biggest thing that I have had to adapt to since become a mother is that my life is now dictated by two-hour increments. Once I came to accept this, I found it much easier to accomplish things.
Here is a sample of a typical day for me:
5:00am: Earlier morning feeding. Back to bed for both me and Jack. Daniel leaves for work about 5:45am.
7:00am: Another feeding. If I am lucky, we go back to sleep for another hour or two.
8:00-9:00am: Get up sometime during this hour. Feed and let Sophie out. Get Jack dressed for the day. Eat breakfast. Load the dishwasher. If Jack isn't too fussy, throw on a load of laundry.
9:00am: Play with Jack. This includes letting him have tummy time or lay on his playmat. We also read books and sing lots of songs. When he gets fussy, time for morning nap #1.
10:00am: While Jack naps, I get that load of laundry started (if I didn't have time earlier). I drink my coffee and check email, Facebook and my favorite blogs. If I have a freelance project, I get to work on it.
11:00am: Jack wakes up. He nurses. We play. I take a shower. We play some more. He gets fussy. And we are ready for...
1:00pm: Nap #2. While Jack takes this nap, I eat lunch. Do more freelance work. More laundry – it never ends. Maybe some light house cleaning. My floors are never really clean, but I do try to get the bathrooms clean every other week.
2:00pm: Jack wakes up. He nurses. We play. He gets fussy. And he is ready for his afternoon nap. Thankfully this one lasts closer to two hours. During this time I do more freelance work/internet surfing/reading or housework.
4:00pm: Jack wakes up. He nurses. We play. Daniel comes home about 4:45pm and I hand Jack off to him so they can have some quality time together. We catch up on Daniel's day. Sophie gets played with.
5:30-6:30pm: I start cooking dinner.
7:00pm: We try to eat before 7:00pm, it is highly dependent on Jack. He goes down for the evening around 7:00pm or 7:30pm. If it is bath night, we do that first, then we read to him, sing some songs and it is back to bed. Daniel and I watch TV or read or just hang out together for the evening. I also use this time period to wrap up freelance projects and Daniel often does research on upcoming home improvement projects.
10:00pm: Around 10:00pm, we try to go to bed. Jack sometimes will wake up and have a late night feeding, sometimes he doesn't.
3:00-4:00am: Jack might wake up hungry, it really depends on whether or not he got the 10pm feeding.
And that is my day. There are variations of course. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to kickboxing, we just adapt our schedule as much as possible. On Mondays I try to go grocery shopping before his afternoon nap. Some Mon/Wed/Fri we go to the high school when Daniel gets home from work to go running. Jack will nap in the stroller part of the time. And on Wednesdays, I try to devote the afternoon nap time to doing crafts.
Flexibility is a big part of our lives. We have structure, but we try to adapt to each new day. This is working for us right now. In those snippets of time while my boy sleeps, thankfully I can get quite a bit done. I don't know how things will work once he starts sleeping less...
It's 10:48am and my boy just woke up... gotta run!
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