We used to have to wake Josie up each morning around 7am to get her ready and off to daycare during the week, but the last few weeks she's been waking up for the day usually between 5-6:30am. When that happens, if it's well before 6:30am, I usually end up bringing her downstairs so she can play and I can pretend that laying on the living room floor is as restful as still being asleep. If it's right around 6:30am, then Ryan normally will take her on his morning walk so I can get ready in the meantime. And if it's after 6:30am and Ryan's already gone on his walk, I stick her in her playard with some toys to hopefully keep her occupied while I get ready. Only on the rare occasion now does she actually stay asleep all the way through to when we go in to wake her at 7am, so if I ended up keeping her in bed after her overnight feeding, then I keep the bathroom door open a bit as I get ready so I can make sure she hasn't woken up and attempted escape from the pillow fortress.
Once she's up, Ryan takes care of baby cleaning time while I usually try to pull together her daycare bag (with some diapers, wet bag, a container of fruits/vegetables for snacks, and her milk). Then I go back upstairs to collect her and we say hello to Mirror Baby on the way out of the bathroom.
I get her dressed and attempt to do her hair (even though she's back to pulling any barrette or hair tie out of it again), in between all the kicking she needs to get out of her system in the mornings.
Then we head downstairs for her pre-daycare bottle of milk, which she usually barely touches but I still offer anyway, since I'd feel weird sending her off for the day without feeding her (even though she eats breakfast almost immediately after arriving at daycare... oh well). Once Ryan's ready, he grabs Josie and their various bags of stuff, I attempt to elicit good-bye kisses from them (Ryan usually cooperates more than she does!), and then Ryan takes her off to daycare.
Once they're out the door, I gather the rest of the things I need for work (pump and bottle stuff, food for the day), then head back upstairs to finish getting ready before grabbing my own various bags of stuff and going to work.
[So many bags]
After work, I pick up Josie from daycare and head home, attempting to sing children's songs to her the whole way, but usually forgetting the words and making up my own midway through or switching over to Christmas music ;) Once we're home, I usually sit down to take my shoes off and she used to do adorable things like cling onto my legs. However, now that she can climb up the stairs, she usually just bypasses me and tries to make a break for the upstairs.
Ryan usually gets home a few minutes after Josie and me, so then he takes over baby duty while I eat dinner. They'll normally do a few walking circuits around the living room and dining room and a few trips up and down the stairs, and then Josie comes in to eat her dinner with me too - usually consisting of some liver pate, yogurt, and/or some fruits and vegetables (especially her current favorites: watermelon, blueberries, cherries, and grapes).
After Josie is done with dinner, Ryan then takes her upstairs to do her baby massage and get her ready for bed. Up until last week, I would then either nurse her down to sleep in bed, read for about 15 minutes after she falls asleep, and then move her to her crib, or nurse her until she flails around enough that it's clear she's done eating, then put her in her crib and wait about 15 minutes for her to settle down and fall asleep. Now that I'm no longer nursing her at bedtime, though, Ryan is giving her a bottle and then putting her to sleep in her crib, which seems to be going well so far.
While one of us is upstairs with Josie, the other one is downstairs washing all the pump parts and bottles from the day and prepping food for Josie and me. We got a bit smarter over the last few months (and by "we" I mean Ryan), and ended up getting multiple containers for my breakfasts and lunches so we can prep food for more than one day at a time now.
[Josie's various fruits and my breakfast / lunch containers]
Josie normally falls asleep by 7:30pm, so then Ryan and I get a couple of hours together to relax.... nope, just kidding :) Instead, he'll normally be doing some cooking or house or computer stuff or going on his evening walk, while I always seem to be doing laundry, although I sometimes have a half hour or so of free time to blog or work on other computer stuff.
[Surrounded by baby stuff - baby laundry, diapers, and a kid on the monitor]
Josie normally sleeps pretty well at the beginning of the night now and she'll stay asleep until sometime after midnight, or, if she does wake up before that, she can usually get herself back to sleep on her own (unless she woke because she banged her head on the crib - if that's the case, she usually needs a bit more help getting back to sleep). So I go to bed around 9:30pm and can get a few hours of sleep in before she wakes to nurse, which is usually sometime between 2 and 5am. If she's awake afterwards, then I'll put her back in her crib where she'll normally fall back asleep (eventually). But if she falls asleep after feeding, I'll leave her in bed until she wakes up for the day - 1) because I really don't want to risk waking her up by moving her, but also 2) because I still like her there, even if she does wake me by kicking me or ominously giggling just before trying to eat my nose :)
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