If You Don't Like the Schedule, Wait a Minute

I think it was Mark Twain who first said about New England, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” I am discovering that New England weather is not the only thing about which this is true. Babies' nap schedules fall smack dab in the middle of that category.

Just when Ryan had fallen into a neat (and predictable) pattern of napping from 10am until 11:30am or noon and again from 2:30 or 3pm until 4pm, he started working his way into a one-nap-a-day schedule. His morning nap lengthened itself to two hours or more and if he managed an afternoon nap at all, it was a 45-minute or hour-long catnap around dinnertime. And once I started getting used to that schedule, he started getting all over the map in terms of morning nap length – everything from a 45-minute power nap to three hours at a stretch! Sometimes he’d be ready to go down at 9:30am, sometimes not till 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Eventually he got into a semi-predictable pattern of one nap a day from 10:30 or 11am until 1 or 2pm. When we were in Iowa last week, he didn’t want to miss anything so he got by for four days in a row with no more than a couple of 45-minute power naps a day (usually in the car). And then yesterday, he took a three-hour nap in the morning and another hour-long nap in the afternoon! But today he had a single 45-minute catnap in the car and that was it. The real miracle is that even with his wildly varying naptimes, he’s still been very consistent about bedtime and wake time.

I guess this is God’s way of keeping moms on their toes. I can’t plan on having two hours of “free” time every morning any more. I can’t even plan on having two hours of “free” time in bits and pieces throughout the day! It definitely has created a need for a bit more organization and pre-planning on my part, but also a lot of spontaneity. No more waiting till naptime for a shower, or I might not get one at all. And if he’s contented in the playpen, I have to take advantage of that time for blogging or dinner prep instead of hoping he’ll nap at a more convenient time. I need to know exactly what I need to get done without a baby underfoot each day and be able to work those activities in at a moment’s notice when he’s either napping or happily playing alone. And of course, both nap time and happy alone playtime can expire without notice, so being able to stop any activity midstream is a necessity as well.

But the delightful flip side of the schedule unpredictability is the unpredictability of Ryan discovering new “tricks”. In the past week alone he’s waved, clapped, and given a kiss all on his own. (The clapping we can get him to repeat at will, the waving is pretty hard to reproduce, and the kiss may have been either a fluke or a badly aimed nibble.) So I’m more than willing to be flexible if it means that when I go to get him from the crib after an unexpectedly short nap I might see him standing unsupported in his crib for a few seconds, or that he’ll reach out to me for a hug when I come in his room, or even that I’ll get a big laugh and some applause when he sees me.

Besides, even if his schedule is too difficult to cope with for a few days, I know all I have to do is wait a minute.

What DO I Do All Day?

My cousin Jenn recently sent me an interesting article about stay-at-home moms. Someone had written a letter to the author that went something like this: “I don’t have children, but I have a good friend who does. Ever since she had children, she claims to have no time to spend with me, even though she doesn’t have an actual job. I find it hard to believe that she can’t even spare a few minutes to call me on the phone every couple of days. I just can’t comprehend what she could possibly do all day. I mean, sure she does laundry and makes dinner and cleans the house, but so do I, on top of having a 9-5 job. So what exactly do stay-at-home-moms DO all day?”

The article made me wonder if any of my friends wonder what the heck I do all day. So I thought I’d give you all a little run-down of my typical day.

6:30am – Wake to the sound of child laughing, cooing, and rattling the bars of his crib. Stay half-awake waiting for inevitable loud thud followed by wail of distress.

7:30am – Realize no thud/wail combination has been forthcoming; tiptoe into nursery to confirm that child is still breathing. Realize he has fallen back to sleep. Go back to bed.

8:30am – More laughing and cooing, followed by loud wail as child realizes he’s starving to death. Haul heavy, squirming child out of crib. Wrestle on changing table to change diaper and outfit.

8:50am – Strap child into high chair; provide with spoon, pot lid, or other obnoxious noise-making instrument. Prepare child's breakfast. Feed child.

9:30am – Complete feeding of child; hose off child, high chair, self, and entire kitchen. Move child to basement for playtime. Place in playpen and start up stairs to prepare own breakfast.

9:33am – Return to playpen, confirm that child is wailing due to frustration rather than injury. Distract child with toy, head back to kitchen for breakfast.

9:34am, 9:36am, 9:39am, 9:42am, 9:47am – Repeat previous step.

10:00am – Finish own breakfast. Clean up kitchen. Return downstairs to entertain child. Remove child from playpen. Follow child around downstairs, cleaning up messes left in wake (restacking plastic dishes, restacking pile of juiceboxes, returning books and CDs to shelves, etc.) and preventing various assorted tragedies (closing drawers, pulling child away from sharp table edges, fans, lamp cords, electrical plugs, etc.).

11:00am – Start to heat microwaveable heating pad for back, which will no longer straighten completely after an hour of helping child “walk”. Notice the time; heat bottle for hungry child instead.

11:15am – Feed child bottle on couch, repeatedly moving remote control, books, pillows, one’s own hair, and other objects from child’s reach.

11:30am – Wrestling match to change diaper again. Place yawning but protesting child in crib. Observe on monitor.

12:00pm – Screeching ceases; child is asleep. Shower, dress, brush teeth. Blog. Have lunch. Start laundry/move laundry to dryer/fold laundry/start dishwasher/unload dishwasher.

2:00pm – Screeching resumes. Rescue child from crib. Feed child lunch. Hose off child, high chair, self, kitchen.

3:00pm – Wrestling match to change child’s diaper and food-drenched outfit. Place child in car. Realize that diaper bag is missing crucial components (e.g., diapers). Repack and return to car. Realize child is hungry again. Make bottle. Return to car. Go grocery shopping. For each item placed in cart by mother, remove two items knocked into cart by child. Retrieve shopping list from child’s mouth. Stop so child can be admired by passing shoppers. Retrieve shopping list from child’s mouth. Get in checkout lane. Retrieve shopping list from child’s mouth. Retrieve credit card from child’s mouth. Retrieve keys from child’s mouth. Return several packs of gum pilfered by child to shelf. Stop so child can be admired by bagger. Retrieve shopping list from child’s mouth. Leave store.

4:30pm – Place child in kitchen. Remove groceries from car. Retrieve child from underneath kitchen table. Begin to unpack groceries. Retrieve child from underneath kitchen table. Finish unpacking groceries. Retrieve child from underneath kitchen table. Begin to prepare dinner. Begin to retrieve child from underneath kitchen table, think better of it, and continue preparing dinner.

5:30pm – Interrupt dinner preparation to feed child. Hose off child, high chair, self, kitchen.

6:00pm - Daddy arrives! Hand off child to Daddy. Collapse.

And that is what I do all day.