Over the summer, when the babies were fresh & new & I was living the life of a Walking Dead zombie {oh we love that show!}, I did a post on ‘a day in the life’. I’m so glad I did so that I can remember those crazy days.
I’ve seen others recently posting their schedule with their children. And then this morning, the five of us that share my work’s pumping room were talking about our wake up times. I think it’s so interesting how everyone does it differently & yet it works for them. All these conversations recently have made me think how our schedule has changed & settled down now that we have established a bit of a routine since working & daycare. I thought I’d share a typical weekday. Let’s start at midnight.
Midnight-2ish: All asleep in our own beds.
Somewhere between 230-330: Zach wakes up for night nursing. Bless him for nursing speedily & easily going back to sleep in his crib on his tummy with his faithful wubba close by.
230-430: Lucy might wake up during this time. Or she might continue to sleep. I never really know so I’ve stopped pumping after my Zach feed. If they’re both going to wake up, I like it best when they do it together so I can tandem feed & we can all go back to sleep within a relatively short amount of time.
430-7: Hopefully babies are sleeping & if so, so are we. If they do sleep through those early am wake ups, they’ll awake between 5-630. Sometimes Lucy or Zach won’t go back to sleep alone if they wake up closer to 4 to nurse. That’s when I nudge Jason to take over on the couch with the awake baby so sleeping kiddo & I can keep sleeping. We’ve also pulled awake baby into bed next to me a few times. Although this just leads to no one really getting additional sleep.
7: I’m up & showering & dressing. Make up doesn’t get done anymore {sorry coworkers}.
730: Babies are either waking up or we’re waking them up. I’ve been packing my lunch, making my breakfast & finalizing packing the bottles/diapers for daycare while holding one while Jason grabs whoever was the late sleeper. Typically I’m throwing food down my throat & holding Zach. Jason will dress Lucy, hand her to me to nurse {she eats longer so we start her first}, take Zach & dress him before handing him to me to join Sister on the boobs.
8ish: Burp babies, put on light jackets or blankets & get them into their car seats. Jason takes the diaper bag to his car. I grab my stuff & a baby. He comes back for the other baby & we load them in his car before we all leave at the same time. I head to work {hopefully almost on time} while he drops them off at daycare.
815: I’m supposed to be at work.
830: Babies arrive at daycare.
9-10: Jason’s back home, gets ready & leaves for work by 930 to be at his desk by 10.
1030-11: I’m pumping. The babies have usually gotten or are getting their first bottles by this time.
11-1: Babies taking naps at daycare. Zach is an awesome daycare napper. Lucy is afraid she gonna miss something {I think she’ll be our party girl}, so she takes cat naps.
1ish: Babies are getting second bottles.
245-310: I’m pumping again. Hoping to {& usually} getting around 10 oz each session since I need 24-28 oz for their 6 daycare bottles. Husband goes to lunch around this time.
4ish: Babies getting their third bottle. I like it when last bottle is gotten around 4 but sometimes it’s a little later if they’ve taken good afternoon naps.
5: I leave work & head up to daycare.
520-535: I’ve arrived at daycare. It typically takes me a few minutes to hug on the babies, chat with their teachers, pack up their stuff, load them into their car seats. One of the teachers or directors helps me take the babies to the van.
550-6: Arrive at home. Neighbors are either laughing or admiring the fact that I carry two car seats into the house at once. Then I rush back out to grab my purse, lunch bag, pump bag, diaper bag along with bottle bags & dirty wet bags attached.
6-630: If they’ve fallen asleep in the car & stayed asleep in the house, I’m running around: unloading bottles into dish water, unloading my pumped milk into the fridge, starting cloth diaper laundry. If they’re both awake, we play on the floor. A mix of boppies, tummy time, rolling, toys, rotating sitting in my lap & standing holding my hands.
630-7: Start the night routine. Diapers get changed & I typically tandem nurse them. Now that we’ve started solids, I’ll put them in bumbo seats after they nurse for their rice cereal. They still dislike it immensely, so more ends up on their bibs & outfits than their tummies. Depending on what they did at daycare that day {they get quite crafty} &/or how dirty they got eating, we do baths {typically every other night}. We bathe them separately with the one not being washed playing in the exersaucer.
730: Jason arrives home & jumps in to help. Either helping finish up baths, dressing the clean baby in pjs & night-time diaper, or starting our dinner.
8: I typically end up topping off one or both babies with a little more nursing. Jason usually puts Lucy to sleep in the nursery by rocking her in our big brown chair. Zach tends to hang out with me for a book reading before I put him in his crib.
830-9: Babies are {fingers & toes crossed} asleep. Now the real fun begins.
9: Hopefully we’re eating dinner by now. Usually sometime easy & quick to cook & we eat super fast.
915-11: Jason’s washing that day’s bottles while I’m preparing the next day’s bottles. We’re switching washed diapers into the dryer, folding clothes washed the night before, then folding & stuffing diapers for the next day. We also try to watch at least one TV show during this time so our DVR doesn’t blow up. Oh & I pump {while eating dessert} during the last 30 minutes of the show.
1115-1130: The household is hopefully quiet & we’re all in bed asleep.
The evenings flow a little more smoothly when I have a helper stop by {typically my aunt comes once or twice a week}. It’s fun {but a little crazy} when we have something to do after daycare pick up like our grocery store run Monday night or book club this Wednesday.
