Baby routine at 8 months

Alright, quickly I just want to write down the routine I’m having with Elijah at 8 months so I can refer to it next time ( maybe if I have a second child? ). Like I said, we went through some rubbish nights for about 6-8 weeks. He was fine throughout the day or so I thought, but after bedtime he woke up many times. As many as every hour on some nights and cries out for a short while then puts himself back to sleep. At times he can’t and needed physical intervening. I felt so sad for him. It was still alright for me to wake up every hour when he woke up, but for him it meant he was not well rested at all. So I decided to look at his entire day and reexamine what was the matter. I reread my “Baby Whisperer” book.  I think I kept him up way too long causing him to be too overstimulated. I also thought he was moving to one nap.. but he was only 8 months! ( Although some babies do well )

So a reminder to myself is to go back to the drawing board when things just go awry.

Wakeup + breasfeed : 6:45am (Activity time 3h 5min – 3h 15min)

Breakfast – 8:00am -ish

Nap : 9:50am -ish (45mins-1 hour)

Wakeup : 10:50am (Activity time 3h 25min – 3 h 30min)

Bottlefeed – 11:00am -ish, Lunch – 12:30 pm-ish,  1st half of split breastfeed 1:45pm-ish

Nap : 2:15am ( usually 2 hrs, sometimes 1h 30mins)

Wakeup : 4:00pm

2nd half of split breastfeed 4:00pm, Dinner 4:45pm-ish, last bottlefeed before bedtime

Bedtime : 7:00pm

Dreamfeed : 9:30pm.. working towards eliminating

This gives a 11hr 45min night and a 12 hr 15min day. A far less cranky baby by day and few nightwakings with this. If any most times puts himself back to sleep after 2-3mins. Yay!

A few Elijah moments

Every night after Elijah goes to bed, I finally find myself some time. Somehow though, that time goes too quickly and I am tired by 9pm and I feel I just need to shut down and retire for the night. I have so many things I want to write about but it’s either I get distracted or I find that there are better things to do. I find I am unable to do any writing in the day whilst taking care of him – I have not learnt to art of putting myself in my own space for just a little while. I think I will need to find a solution to “tune-out”.

Alright, I think I’ll start now. Joel’s asleep now – he has been since 7:10pm. I bet this is because I handed Elijah to him for half a day !

So where am I right now? I’ve been a mummy now for 8 months. You know what, this parenting thing is has its Elijah moments. Like more recently we went through a period of rubbish nights ( from sleeping through!! ). Oh boy was it a torture. Thankfully, that’s turned around quite a bit .. but now he’s decided to practice rolling over in bed , wakes himself up and has to call out to us. If we don’t turn him back he will fall asleep again but wake in his next sleep cycle again.  On one hand it’s fustrating that it happens at night , on the other hand at least he can now roll over ( only tummy to back though! ) and amuse himself a little more. There’s also the time he sat independantly. Brilliant moment for me. Why? I don’t have to sit with him anymore when he has his own play time! More recently I discovered he is actually amused when I use the little nose “sucker”. Whenever I insert it into his nostril and suck out, he laughs. Hehe, who knew that would make him laugh. He is also SO amused by Toby our dog. Just today, Joel sat him on the Bumbo seat on the floor so he could look at Toby walking and sniffing around.. he was delighted and very distracted that I think he just didn’t feel tired at his usual nap time it seemed as though he would not want to sleep. However when I took him to the room he was fussy and knocked out quickly. There’s also him pulling a face with new foods. Bananas, apples, chicken, oats. But gets used to them fairly quickly and doesn’t reject them. I haven’t given him any ready made bottle food, so I don’t know how he’ll do with them. He’s vocal repertoire has expanded he also practices them just before going to bed.

There are so many Elijah moments I wish I could collect them, keep them in a jar to be opened again later.

* Yay! I just did my “tune-out” session. Well, kinda – I was  a bit distracted with his stirring in bed just a while ago. *

Until the next time.