Day in the Life

It's been a long time since I've done a day-in-the-life post. That's probably because once we got into a good routine with Ada, we were on that same schedule for, like, years. When Eloise came into the picture, we had a rocky time getting used to the newborn craziness. It had been so long since we didn't know what to expect . . . and no two days were the same.

Now that Eloise is three months old, her schedule has ironed itself out on its own. I remember this happening with Ada. It's not like I have delusions that each and every day will be this way, but things have generally been taking the following pattern (on weekdays, at least):

6:00 AM: If Eloise hasn't woken on her own, I pull her in bed to feed her. She typically wakes naturally sometime between 6-6:30 and goes back down very easily -- knock on wood.

6:30 AM: By waking her, that means I can get up and out to go running before Stephen leaves for work shortly after 7. I can usually fit in a 3-5 mile run, which I do three times during the work week. The other two days, I use this early morning time to check emails and do a little freelance work.

7:15 AM: I get Ada up and start getting her ready for school. We do bath/shower routines at night, so it's just getting an outfit, doing her hair, eating breakfast, and getting in a little snuggle time.

8:00 AM: We go outside to wait for the bus. Then she's off until almost 4PM.

8:10 AM: Eloise usually sleeps again until around 8:15-8:30, so I use the time between the bus and then to read online or eat breakfast.

8:30 AM: Nurse Eloise again, get her dressed for the day, play just a bit, and then I take a short shower. By the time all of that is done, she's getting a bit cranky again.

9:30 AM: Eloise goes down for her morning nap. So far, it's been around 1-2 hours long. She's sleeping in her swing in the nursery with a video monitor trained on her every move (because I don't love that she's in the swing. We'll need to break this sooner rather than later. She's in her Rock 'n Play at night.).

9:30-11:30 AM: I usually use the majority of this time to do freelance and blog work. The last half hour, I like to see if I can sneak in some kind of mini-workout, like 20-30 minutes of Barre, yoga, kettlebells, or whatever else doesn't drench me in sweat (and that's another reason I love wearing leggings everyday, btw). If for some reason I missed my morning run, I'll do the treadmill.

11:30 AM: Eloise wakes again to nurse. I take her around the house with me and tidy up a bit. I'm not in a good housekeeping or cooking rhythm yet . . . but we do a bit of laundry, tidying up, and I may start making something for dinner.

1:00 PM: I've been trying to go out for the mid-day nap lately. It usually only last around an hour. So, I'll run things to the post office, get groceries, etc. I'll wear Eloise so she can snooze on the go. She fights sleeping while we're out. For a while, I felt really self-conscious when she would start crying, but she seems to settle after 10 minutes of general fuss. I think it's important to not have all her naps in her room in the dark.

2-3:00 PM: Depending on what happened that day (if we went out/not, how long the nap was, etc.), Eloise will either nurse two or three hours after her last feed. I'll try to watch her for signs of being hungry. Sometimes I really can't tell, so I just make sure it's within a 3-hour window.

3:45 PM: Eloise may be going down for another nap at this point or not quite yet. Either way, I need to wait for Ada to get home on the bus. So, sometimes I wear her while we wait. Sometimes, she's up for a nap.

4:00 PM: When Ada gets home, I really try to get Eloise down for that nap because it's my big chunk of time with my big girl. I know we won't always have uninterrupted hours -- but it's been important to me to try and spend some undivided attention time with Ada each day. We'll usually play outdoors with chalk or on the swing set. We'll go through her backpack and look at the stuff she did at school that day. We'll read books, etc. This is Ada-hour, basically.

5:00 PM: I'm usually nursing again sometime between 5:00-5:30, but I also try to get stuff ready for dinner while Ada watches a show on the iPad.

5:45 PM: Stephen gets home from work/coaching and we eat family dinner.

7:00 PM: Lately, we've been taking a short 15-20 minute drive each night as a way to decompress as a family. Eloise should be taking some sort of catnap in the evenings, but she can't seem to do it unless we're in the car. (So, otherwise, she's crying at the house.) We drive up near a few farms to let Ada check out the animals, admire the sunset, and sometimes we'll even get ice cream.

7:30 PM: Bath/shower time for both girls. Stephen usually gives Eloise the bath (Ada and I both help at the start because Ada loves helping.) I get Ada all ready, Stephen gets Eloise all ready . . . and then we switch off. I nurse Eloise usually sometime around 7:45 -- she takes her time with this feed, so I don't get downstairs until like 8:20-8:30.

8:30 - 10:30 PM: Thankfully, this has mostly been adult time lately. Obviously, sleep changes as the stages go, so I hope I'm not jinxing myself . . . but we can usually get in a couple hours of time to decompress. We mostly watch TV these days because we're tired from starting this new routine versus the summer. Eventually, I'd like to be doing sometime like cross-stitching or knitting. And I also use this time as work-overflow if I have pressing deadlines.

12:00 AM - 4:00 AM: At some point during the night in this window of time, Eloise will nurse again. She had been going all the way to 4AM most days . . . but lately, it's been at midnight or 1AM. I feel fortunate it's only been once a night, but I know the 4-month sleep regression is coming!

* As you might notice, there's not a lot of work time in my days. For the most part, I'm trying to shift my assignments to weekends. I didn't work when Ada was an infant until she was closer to 7 months old. But this is a whole different post for another day.

HAPPY FRIDAY!