Routine

I'm mostly a creature of habit.  And I'm ok with that.  I like things to stay the same for the most part and having a schedule or an idea of what's coming next is calming to me.  Before Karlyn was born, I read "Babywise" and loved it!  Ok, honestly I don't remember every part of, and I mainly focused on the "setting up your routine" chapter.  At first, it stressed me out in those early days and weeks because gosh-darn-it, my 6 day old infant wasn't on a schedule already! :-0

Maybe it was my mother (I think it was) who then told me I should see it more as a routine that I was trying to come up with rather than a strict schedule.  The part that I loved and totally used from Babywise was the:

FEED TIME. WAKE TIME. SLEEP TIME.  repeat.

Baby eats.  Then she plays.  Then she sleeps.  It's so good for the baby too to know what's coming and kind-of get into a little routine.  I knew that if I had just fed her, and she'd had a full feeding *another Babywise emphasis* that if she cried 30 minutes later (and we weren't going through a growth spurt =) the odds of her being hungry were low!  When she got tired after playing, I put her down and she learned to go to sleep on her own, without being rocked or me pacing the halls with her. 

Not that this all happened overnight, oh no.  But we had our little "schedule" and yes, it was adjusted from time to time.  That was the cool thing, I learned how to be flexible within our routine, something I didn't think I would ever master.  That came with her getting older too though...

These days, at 9.5 months old, we have a different routine and it seems to flow pretty well most days.  I thought I would capture it in writing so that I can look back and remember how our days went at this point in our journey :)

 This is pretty much what happens every day~

We Ivey's wake up, sometimes begrudgingly.  Ryan and I both get ready for work and sometime around 7:00 Karlyn wakes up.  I go get my sweetie out of bed, change her, get her dressed, and bring her in our room if we're not done getting ready.  Once I'm satisfied that I look semi-ready to enter the real world, I take her in the kitchen to eat some puffs in her high chair while I eat breakfast and pack her b-fast/my lunch if I haven't already.  I should have already!

We're usually running late at this point.  We tell Ryan bye, race out the door, and I drop Karlyn off at our sitter's and head to work.  Work goes by fast if I'm busy...I'm always excited to pick her up and hear how her morning went though :>

At home, I fix Karlyn some lunch around 1:00 and might snack on something myself if I've already eaten at work.  We play after that.  I might clean the kitchen and tidy up the livingroom.  As soon as she seems tired, she goes down for a nap and I use that time to either blog or REST.  Sometimes both.  Even if I don't sleep, just letting my head hit the pillow for 20 minutes is often enough to re-charge me for the rest of the day.

Karlyn gets up from her nap in the afternoon and has a bottle and then we play again!  We go on walks, or start dinner, or run an errand maybe.

Ryan gets home eventually and I try to have dinner ready.  We'll eat, Karlyn eats, and then Ryan relaxes with some tv while Karlyn plays some more.  I might get on the computer some, watch tv, or get things ready for the next day.  Around 7:30, I do Karlyn's bath, she gets a bottle, and then goes to sleep.  Unless something's up with her, she goes down perfectly with no fuss.  I'm just waiting for those new teeth to come in though!!

I then get a couple of free hours and will mess around on the computer or watch tv.  I love a hot bath before bed so that's usually a given and helps me sleep.  I have sleep issues!  I like to read too...

So that's it!  Pretty hum-drum but of course, other things go on in there too and days don't always stick to that schedule.  I enjoy it though and love getting to be home with my baby girl.  I wouldn't trade it!