A day during the week in our life right now looks something like this...
7:00 a.m. (give or take a half hour) - Ari wakes up. He is such a happy baby come sunrise. He is pretty content for the first 5-10 minutes of being awake and will hang out in his bassinet and squirm about, stretch, and kick his legs up and down. After about 10 minutes of that, he whines a bit to let me know that he is ready to start the day. I then pick him up and lay him in bed in between my husband and I. We both turn to our sides to face him and just stare at him in awe, feeling so blessed that he is really ours. This lasts for about another 10 minutes until Ari realizes that he is hungry.
During the day, I feed Ari every 2 hours. He is exclusively breastfed and a typical feeding from start to finish takes us about 15 minutes.
So when he is done feeding, he spends about an hour being awake and alert, which I call his "play time". He will sit in my lap and play with one of his toys. Playing at this point is staring at the toy with bug eyes, grasping the toy, and bringing the toy up to his mouth. He also gets a session in of tummy time on his play mat, which he does not like one bit. After tummy time, he spends a good 15 minutes nice and content cooing and batting his arms at the mobiles hanging from his play mat. After play time, he is pretty tuckered out and will start giving me an ornery whine, which I know means he needs a nap.
Play time
I cuddle him up with me on the nursing chair or couch and he sleeps until it's time to feed again and then we start the routine all over again. I'll be honest, most of the time when he is napping I just hold him. I may be spoiling him and pay later, but I really enjoy our cuddle time. If I have something pressing around the house that I absolutely need to get done, I will put him in his swing for one of his naps. As he gets a little older, I guess I need to start laying him in his crib for naps so he acclimates to that before starting daycare.
Once Daddy gets home from work around 4:00, he hangs out with Ari in between feedings and this is when I get things done around the house like laundry, dishes, cleaning, walking/playing with Buckwheat, etc. When those things are finished, I take Ari and Daddy takes care of making dinner. :)
Yay! Daddy's home from work.
More Daddy time
Ari's last feeding is around 10:30 p.m. After this feeding Daddy changes him, swaddles him, and lays him in his bassinet for bedtime. Some nights, Ari will instantly fall asleep. Other nights, he will whine and squirm for about 10 minutes before dozing off. I'm really proud of him that he is able to fall asleep on his own so nicely. Then, he sleeps through the night! This started around 3 1/2 weeks and everyone told us, "Enjoy it while it lasts, but be prepared that it probably won't". Well, so far it has still lasted. We are completely aware that this could change at any time, but so happy with the amount of sleep we have all been getting.
I titled this post Ari's Flexible Schedule, because I don't walk around with a watch and time everything out perfectly. If we don't start feeding til 2 hours and 15 minutes after the last feeding, that is okay. Or maybe we had a really messy diaper, so we might have a bath during "play time". Some days we pack up in the stroller and go for a walk with Buckwheat in between feedings. If he seems a little fussy before 2 hours hits, I might feed him earlier. Ari is a really easy baby to read. I can tell easily by his whines or the tone of his cries what he needs. Once his needs are met, he is calm, cool, collected and content. He really is a happy baby...I feel so blessed!
The weekends are when we do most of our errands and visits with the family, but we definitely adhere to our feedings every 2 hours...although sometimes we stretch it to 3 when we are out of the house.
Happy boy!
We love you too Ari! More than you could ever even imagine!
Oh and I'm addicted to Instagram. If you are too...please comment and leave me your username so I can follow you! :)
7 comments:
Ari is too cute! He's 2 weeks old than my little man so I love reading your blog to find out what we have to look forward to! My instagram is jmarionsmith, I'd love to follow you,as well. What is your username?
He sounds like such a great little baby!! Alidia was very similar in many ways with sleeping and the schedule in general... and don't listen to everyone who says it won't last because Alidia still sleeps through the night and has ever since she was a few weeks old also. We're lucky I guess!! :) Love all the photos. He is so adorable!
Ari is so cute!! You are so unbelievably lucky. My little one is five months and has never - not once - slept through the night. I can't imagine how nice it must be to feel rested every morning!
You are blessed with an easy baby! Enjoy it indeed! I've got the exact opposite baby, fussy, doesn't sleep etc etc. I hope the good baby continues for you because the opposite is no fun at all =(
He is a total cutie pie!! I love seeing his pictures :) Yay for him sleeping through the night. That's wonderful. My Instagram is megandiblasi.
Gosh, he just takes my breath away! He's so cute! Isn't having a little boy just the greatest? And I adore that last onesie, where did you get it??
I LOVE instagram! My user name is probably sarramaria if you want to follow me there. I'll def. follow you back!
He sounds just like Avery! I love seeing all his pictures on Instagram. And everyone told us the same exact thing when she started sleeping through the night at 3 weeks and she's been an all nighter since 4 weeks without waking in the middle once. She'll be 10 weeks on Friday. We did try her in her crib and she did good the first night but not too hot the few after. She'll still sleep through the night but instead of going down at 9:30-10:00 she didn't until 11:30-12, therefore she's back in our room in her sleeper and we will try again next month. Sleep is more important for all three of us at this point!
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