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Schedules

As my friends & family know, we are all about schedules around here. Click here to see what we were up to last December.

We've gone through several big transitions the last few months. At 11-1/2 months we started to transition from formula to whole milk, and we began the process of breaking up with the bottle. That proved to be rougher than we anticipated, but by 12 months all the bottles were gone and they were drinking straight whole milk. Bottles ruled our lives for an entire year and we were pretty darn happy to be done with them!

The second transition we've been working on is related to nap schedules. Sometime over the summer S&Z dropped their late afternoon catnap and were taking 2 consistent naps per day. One happened around 9am and the other happened in the early afternoon. They have been showing signs that they were ready to consolidate into one nap per day, and we test drove that schedule in November when my dad & Mary were visiting. The experiment ended in failure for 2 of the 3 test days, and we went back to 2 naps in defeat. Their morning nap was always solid, but the afternoon nap got shakier and shakier. Over the last 2 weeks at least 50% of the days they ended up playing and talking in their cribs and not sleeping for Julia at all. One day Silas would want to sleep but not Zoe, and the next day the reverse would be true. Two exhausted babies and one tired working mommy makes for a very miserable end of the day! Around here it's all or nothing, and the change can't happen until they're both ready.

On Thursday, one month after the failed experiment, we decided to try again. This time I am happy to report that I think we've been successful! We've had 4 days of one nap and all in all, it's working quite well!

Here's the new schedule:
5:45am Monday-Thursday Mommy's alarm goes off. Coffee, shower, get ready for work, empty dishwasher which ran overnight, and make S&Z's breakfast
6:30-7am S&Z wake-up
7:15 breakfast
8am Daddy gets home from work, and Monday-Thursday Mommy leaves for work
Morning playtime!
9am snack
More playing!
11am lunch
11:30 bath
Noon naptime
2pm Monday-Thursday Julia arrives, Derek goes to bed
2-2:30 S&Z wake-up
Afternoon snack, playtime, walk or some other outing
5pm dinner
6pm Monday-Thursday Mommy gets home from work
Post-dinner skype dates or playtime
PJ's and books
7-7:30 bedtime
Post-baby bedtime routine includes some much-needed quiet time for Mommy, toys get cleaned up, load the dishwasher of the day's sippy cups, catch up on e-mail or the blog, and make dinner.
9pm Derek's alarm goes off
9:30 we eat dinner together
10:00pm I go to bed and Derek gets ready for work.

I have learned that schedules help us maintain sanity, and we need all the sanity we can get around here! Someone at work recently told me that I'm "predictable", and I've decided that is not necessarily a bad thing. Proof is in these smiling faces :)

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