**This was a draft post that I found on my dashboard. I guess I had forgotten all about it, but since it's so detailed I guess I will go ahead and post it for my own memory.**
Since I don't have much time to blog I thought I would outline what we do on an average day at two months old so that I can look back and remember.
Right now, each daytime for us is defined as the hours between 9am - 8:59pm and the nightime is 9pm - 8:59am. This is just what works for us right now and I'm sure it will evolve as Bowen and Faith grow and learn to eat more and sleep longer.
I really wish I could have documented one of our earlier days, but thinking back on it there really wasn't much of a schedule. We just fed around the clock and tried to figure out how to keep our sanity! Faith couldn't take full feedings and until we got her on Zantac she would eat small meals all the time and do a good bit of fussing/crying between feedings.
Now, the Zantac helps so much and because Brad has been home most days this summer, we've been able to keep them on an almost identical routine since they turned about six weeks old. It just sort of clicked one day, and since then, we've realized that our schedule is MAJOR.
No matter what times either baby wakes up during the night we wake them both to eat at 9am. This time basically came about because they were always on the 3,6, 9, 12 schedule and with so little sleep it was always easier for us to officially wake ourselves up at 9am instead of 6am. Even if they eat at 7:30am we still wake them up for an official breakfast at 9am and that keeps them on the same routine for the whole day. If they aren't on the same eat/sleep schedule through the day then we are, excuse my words, screwed. You might as well not take a shower and not even change out of your pajamas. So, no matter what, their routine has to be identical in order for us to do anything - including basic things like eat or go to the bathroom ourselves.
During the nightime hours we let them sleep as long as they can. They both usually drink a bottle that is a little bit bigger at 9pm and from that moment on we let them wake up on their own. Brad and I each take a baby for the night and usually we sleep in different rooms so one baby doesn't wake the other up (or us!). Bowen usually does a little bit better during the night because he weighs a little more, but he also has nights where he is extremely fussy and cries for about an hour after a feeding. He only has those fits ever so often so when it is a "Bowen night" that person usually has a little bit more pep in their step that day.
Faith is actually getting much better about her nightime routine, but for the most part her body is like clockwork and she wakes up every three hours on the dot. She has had a few nights where she went five hours from the start of one feeding to the start of another and those nights Brad and I basically do a happy dance in the dark kitchen as we pass each other in the night. It literally makes us SO happy when she gets more than an hour and half of continuous sleep because she so rarely does.
During the daytime routine, we wake them every three hours to eat and usually they are both waking up for these feedings without our prompting. The sleep patterns during the day are still varied and it's rare that both babies sleep for the entire time between two feedings. Either Brad or I will have to sit with them for almost the entire day because someone is either awake/fussy/crying at some point during the day. They are however, starting to get better about sitting awake by themselves without being held and that does help a lot.
While one person is with the babies the other person is usually scrambling around like a crazy person fixing bottles, washing bottles, washing clothes, folding/putting away clothes, cooking, cleaning or some other baby-related task.
During the day, if we want to get out of the house it requires the intricate planning and organization similar to what I imagine goes on before President Obama takes a step outside the White House. We have to plan down to the exact minute when we will leave, where we will go, where we will be able to stop in case of emergency and so on. Even before we leave we usually need at least three to four hours to make sure all of us are bathed, fed and clothed appropriately to go out in public. We also have to decide beforehand if we will all go inside wherever we are going versus an adult sitting in the car with the babies. If we are all going inside then we have to decide whether or not to take our enormous stroller or how to carry them both and all the bags we have.
Most days, we don't go anywhere, or if we do, it's just to get out of the house for a quick trip between feedings. Going out for more than an hour and a half at a time is very difficult right now and we've only done this probably three or four times since they've been home.
We call this look "bib swag" because no matter how you put them down with a bib on it always ends up to the side.
We've learned that if we keep the babies awake between the 6pm and 9pm feedings then the babies usually fall right to sleep after their 9pm bottle and we follow as well by 10pm. There is no time to waste at all by staying up late! If we do get caught up in something and stay up late it usually ends up being the night that the assigned baby will sleep until 3am and then you just about want to kill yourself for wasting so much potential sleep time by staying up to do whatever it was that seemed important at the time - haha!
The days go by so quickly that I often have a hard time knowing what day it is. I try to take in as much as I can each day and enjoy the time with my babies but sometimes it seems as if I blink and it's already 3pm. At that time my mind is already racing with all the things I have to do before the 9pm feeding so that I can go to bed as soon as I'm done with my last feeding/pumping session.
Edit: Now at three months I can already see much improvement in their schedule than this. At two months old, it would have been very difficult for me to care for them alone for an extended period of time, but now I can actually care for them all on my own all day (and good thing since Brad has already gone back to work). Faith still wakes up a good bit at night but if she does it is usually a quick feed and back down to sleep. I don't usually wake them up at 9am anymore just because I'm by myself so whenever one wakes up between 7-10am I usually start the day then by feeding the first one and then waking the second one up as well. I don't mind as much when they eat as long as they do it one right after the other. I also still feed them about every 3-3.5 hours during the day and usually one of them is waking up and by the time I feed that one the other is ready as well. The big change is actually that we all sleep in our bedroom now, with a baby in a rock-n-play on each side of the bed. I usually get up with whoever wakes up first and then Brad will usually do a shift in the early morning. For about a week now Bowen has slept until at least 7am or even 9am and that is just amazing. So our next step is to get them to sleep in their own room and that will be happening very soon!!
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