Friday, February 8, 2013

3 Month and 4 Month Schedule

Recently, I was cleaning out the notes section on my phone - which I use as a to do list, journal, grocery list, meal planning and brainstorm section - and came across notes where I had written out Bo's schedule at 3 and 4 months.

Just the idea of it makes me giggle a little now. Hindsight is, of course, 20/20 and I'm sure in another 6 months, I'll be giggling at things I wrote about today.

In those notes, I can see how badly I wanted life to be predictable again. Someone had told me to accept that first 12 weeks would be chaos, and I did. I accepted it and went along for the ride. However, when I hit the 12 week mark, I thought life would magically get more organized, predictable and consistent. I even wrote a blog post about it here. 

Of course, life did not get more predictable and somehow over the course of the last two months, I've been able to let go of the overwhelming need to know what each day will hold. I won't ever know. I can't ever know. I can guess - our daily routine is definitely shaking out more into a schedule than before. But, I have finally come to accept this stunningly simple and amazing fact: babies are unpredictable.

Shocking, right? Totally.

In the midst of my "must. plan. life" phase, I constantly googled to see what other people's babies schedules were like to see if Bo was "normal." It turns out there were about eleventy million variations of normal schedules for a 3-4 month old.

Shocking, right?

But, it was still helpful to me - usually in the middle of the night - to come across a life that sounded like mine. So I'm posting mine here, in case someone else reads it in the middle of the night, and takes some some relief in seeing their life mirrored in it. Also, since this is all the baby book my little bugger is going to get, here you go, kid. A snapshot of your life, recorded for posterity.

Oh, and since we're here, I'll throw in a photo dump for good measure. A few pictures from a walk on a chilly day - I think it's probably a good thing Bo is a southern boy. He doesn't seem to be thrilled with being bundled up.

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Bo's 3 Month Schedule
3:30 - eat
4:00-6:45 - sleep
7:00 - eat
7:15-8:00 Activity mat / tummy time
8:00 - 9:00 nap #1
9:00-10:00 play downstairs 
10:00 - eat
10:30 - 1:00 nap #2
1:00 - eat
2:00 - 4:00 errands / car seat nap #3
4:00 - eat
5:00-6:00 catnap #4
6:00-7:00 walk
7:00 - eat
7:30 - bath, books, prayers
8:00 - lights out! 
Bo's 4 Month Schedule
5:30 am - wake, 6 oz
Sleeps 6:00-7:30
7:30 am - 4 oz + 1/2 Tbsp cereal 
Wiggle time/tummy time
Naps crib 8:30-9:30
10:30 - 6 oz
Naps swing 11:00-1:00/1:30
1:30 - 6 oz + 1/2 Tbsp cereal 
{Run errands - car seat naps}
4:30 - 6 oz
Attempt swing nap 5:00-6:00
6:00ish - walk, bath, fussyface
6:30-7:00ish - 4 oz 
7:00 - bed 

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2 comments:

Allison the Meep said...

I'm just impressed that you even made a schedule. I think I was pretty much on the floor, crying "UNCLE!!!" at that point with both kids.

k. said...

Eleventy million! Exactly. Really, it all still sort of makes my brain hurt. The only progress I've made with #2 is relaxing a teensy bit & understanding that what is normal on week #12 will not be normal in a few weeks, so may as well just roll with it.

Seriously though. Naps / eating/ sleeping /blah / blah / blah. Who knew it could be so stressful / time consuming?

(My favorite phase - once they are down to two SOLID naps, & then just one - it's a beautiful thing.)