one nap schedule

I am a very firm believer that schedules and routines are important for young children. You can read from others who agree with me here, here and here. Basically, “When a child knows what to expect, their world is more comfortable, it makes sense.” I’m sure there are others who say routines and schedules aren’t important and don’t matter, but that goes against everything I’ve learned prior to becoming a parent and everything that has been reinforced in my short time being a parent.  I’m not saying things don’t come up and you have to fly by the seat of your pants, of course that happens. But, in general and for the most part, having a plan of action for your (and your child’s) day is important.

Let’s face it, as adults we have schedules too, we wake at the same time, eat at the same times, go to work at the same time and go to sleep at the same time. You know, for the most part. For me, when my “schedule” is messed up I can be…less than pleasant. I had a job once where they scheduled my lunch at 10:30am…wtf? I just ate breakfast at 8:00am. But I digress…

Mile’s “schedule” has changed several times now (obviously). I implemented his first schedule around four months when he began solids. It looked something like this (I think):

7:00 AM Wake up and Bottle (4 ounces Breast Milk)

9:00 AM Puree

10:00 AM Bottle and nap (4 ounces Breast Milk)

12:00 PM Bottle (4 ounces Breast Milk)

1:00 PM Puree

2:00 PM Nap

3:00 PM Bottle (4 ounces Breast Milk)

4:00 PM Nap

5:00 PM Bottle (4 ounces Breast Milk)

6:00 PM Puree

8:00 PM Bottle and Bedtime (4 ounces Breast Milk)

           

Around eight months his schedule looked like this:

7:00 AM  – 8:00 AM Wake up and Bottle (6 ounces Breast Milk)

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM Breakfast

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM Bottle and Nap (6 ounces Breast Milk)

12:30 PM Lunch

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM Bottle and Nap (6 ounces Breast Milk)

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM Dinner

8:00 PM Bottle and Bedtime (6 ounces Breast Milk)

His schedule has stayed about the same for a while now. Although we dropped from four to three bottles a day, and then down to just two bottles (morning and night). I really wanted to separate milk from naps. I did not want that association to stay for an extended period of time.

Within the last two weeks he has decided that two naps are for…well…babies. The transition to one nap wasn’t what I expected. I assumed he would naturally start to get tired later in the morning and sleep longer and then just not be tired in the afternoon. WRONG. He still was falling asleep around the same time 10-10:30am and then just straight up refusing the afternoon nap, even though he was clearly tired. Clearly.

I started asking around and looking online to see what other “one nap” schedules were like for other parents and I decided on this generic schedule. Yes, times are listed. No, they are not definite. Especially not right now with this new transition. As you can see we also have moved the last bottle away from the bedtime routine and are attempting to move his morning milk to coincide with breakfast. Both of those choices are presenting their own challenges.

Last night was the second evening where we gave Miles his milk downstairs. We then went upstairs, took a bath, brushed teeth, changed into PJs and then attempted to snuggle in the rocker. Miles…wasn’t having it. He wanted to run around and get into everything in his room. I decided to opt out of snuggles and put him in his crib. He snuggled in and fell asleep fairly quickly. In the past we would go from PJs to the chair with milk, snuggles and then bed. He rarely would squirm away and want to explore. We just have to focus now on altering his expectations to the new routine. I’m sure it may take some time, but we are sticking with this new change.

Here is the new rundown of Miles’s day:

I print these out and hang them on the fridge. Why? I’m glad you ask. Yes, we have a nanny and she should be fairly aware of Miles’s schedule and what to do and when. However, this week she has a family emergency and Miles is going to have a different “caregiver” each day. Monday – nanny, Tuesday – backup sitter  (in our home), Wednesday, backup sitter 1 (in her home), Thursday – Daddy, and Friday – Mommy. I find that having a schedule printed and in an obvious spot eliminates the “what time should Miles nap/eat/have milk” texts and phone calls during the day from anyone who is watching him, especially if there is a last minute change. The times are generic and listed on the hour where they “should” occur based on what I have learned and picked up from Miles. If these times don’t work, we will adapt and on the spot or day if need be. The schedule is flexible in the sense that these events occur in this order but obviously I’m not going to force him to noon for a nap if he’s clearly exhausted at 10:30 in the morning and if he doesn’t want lunch before a nap then he can have it when he wakes up.

Thoughts? Am I alone in the crazy routine/schedule? Hit me up in the comments.

tips for air travel with toddlers

Ok, so it’s been a while since I post. So sue me. We recently traveled by plane to Ohio from Houston. Which lead me to the idea for this post. Real travel tips for travelling with toddlers. First I’m going to give you the run down of how our two travel days went and then my tips.

Our flight out of Houston was on a Friday morning at 7:20am. We were planning on leaving the house around 5:30am so we could be at the airport by 6:00am, approximately one hour before boarding began. Miles went to sleep at his regular time the night before and I waited until 5:00am to get him from his crib, which was only two hours before his regular wake up time. I fed Miles his morning milk before we left for the airport and I packed several snacks for him including applesauce pouches and Nutrigrain bars. I did not take extra milk because Miles doesn’t typically drink another bottle until 2:00pm and I figured we would be home by then or somewhere we could buy milk (like Starbucks).

This trip we decided to not take our stroller, not even the umbrella stroller. Instead I had purchased Miles this cute backpack that also had a leash. It wasn’t a horrible experience without the stroller, but we did end up holding and carrying him a lot, especially through security. Once we made it to the gate my husband decided to forage for food (and coffee), which meant Miles and I were at the gate by ourselves and all he wanted to do was RUN. The leash made for an interesting experience and some interesting disapproving looks.

Once we got on the plane Miles was pretty good because we lucked into getting a seat for him since the two seats next to use were empty. We started watching Despicable Me once we took off and within thirty minutes Miles was sleeping on me.  

I think he slept for an hour and then spent the majority of the flight in his own chair constantly opening his seatbelt. We watched some more of the movie and ate some snacks.

Before I knew it we were told we were going to be landing soon. Sweet! We took our time getting off the plane and Miles was able to walk off the plane himself. Too cute.  A quick trip to the restroom and then to baggage claim and home.

Needless to say our return flight to Houston did not go like this…at all. We flew out of Cleveland on New Year’s Day. No big deal right? Well our flight was at 5:50…am. It should have started boarding at 5:15am, which meant we needed to be at the airport around 4:45am. We needed to leave the house around 3:45am…on New Year’s Day. Needless to say I got about two hours of sleep and I think my husband stayed up all night. My dad, who drove us to the airport, didn’t sleep either. Miles ended up waking up on his own around 3:30am because of all the noise we were making going up and down the stairs (my dad’s stairs are REALLY loud). I was hoping to take Miles from his crib to the car and have him stay asleep. Ha. He was more awake than the four adults in the car. I held off on his milk until we got to the airport and our gate.

Before we went to bed for the night we knew that the flight had been pushed back an hour to 6:45am, but you never know what is going to happen so we still got to the airport in time for the original flight time. Getting through security was rather comical. We had so much stuff. My husband travels with two lap tops, so that’s two bins, plus one for our coats, and one for Miles’ bag and applesauce pouches and milk. We also had my diaper bag, my husbands book bag, and two carry on bags. Whew. Two people cut in front of me as I was pushing all of our crap through the x-ray thing. One was a pilot and one was an airport worker. Uh…kiss my ass.   

Since it was so early and therefore empty at the airport I let Miles run around for a bit after he finished his milk. The wait at the gate didn’t seem horribly long and they were able to move us up to 6:30am. We boarded the plane and did not luck out into getting an empty seat for Miles. This plane was jam-packed. We tried watching another movie (Horton Hears a Who) but Miles wasn’t really into it. Then we played musical parents. Miles kept going from me and my husband until I was finally able to get him to take a nap (so I could also take a nap). My husband thinks we napped for an hour but it only felt like 5 minutes. After his nap it was back to musical parents and trying to watch a movie. Miles later found the window and played with the shade for a while. We ate a bunch of snacks and then still had like an hour left. This was the longest flight of my life. As we were approaching Houston Miles was starting to get tired again but would NOT fall asleep.

We finally landed and then sat on the tarmac for a bit waiting for an open gate. Again we were the last ones off the plane. Another trip to the bathroom and baggage claim and then we were on our way home.

So now for the tips:

1. Do not book a stupid early flight. Recipe for disaster.

2. Stroller or leash. Both have pros and cons, but I don’t think Miles would have enjoyed being stuck in the stroller anyways and that would have been one more thing to deal with.

3. Snacks, snacks, and more snacks.

4. Something to watch movies or TV shows on.
5. Just stay home.

What are your tips for traveling with little ones?

five useless things we say as parents

1. Careful. CAREFUL. CARE. FUL. [winces] Are you okay?
2. Give that back.
3. Not in your mouth. No. Not in your mouth. GOD DAMN IT [insert child’s name] NOT IN YOUR MOUTH! Did you swallow it?
4. Don’t touch that.
5. Sit down please. Please sit down.  SIT. DOWN. [insert child’s name] butt on the [insert location butt should be (couch, seat, floor, etc.)]. [child falls] Why do you think I told you to sit?

how to save a life: my experience donating human breast milk

Maybe I’m telling this story a bit backwards. I had a horrendous difficult time with Miles and nursing, so I decided to exclusively pump my breast milk. How hard could that be? I’ll be writing about that here in the next few weeks. But I digress. 

When Miles was 3 months old I started producing an abundance of milk, so I started freezing my extra milk. By the time he was 4 or 5 months old I had almost 900 ounces of milk in our freezer.

At this time I was going to a Mommy and Me group at the local hospital and saw a poster for Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin (www.milkbank.org). I started to investigate the option of donating my extra milk. My original goal with pumping was to go for nine months and have enough in reserve to get me to Miles’ birthday, but then I found out about fragile infants and the demand for human donor breast milk.

Here are some things I learned in my search:

There are approximately 500,000 babies born preterm every year. Another way to think of that is one in eight infants. (Source:http://www.cdc.gov/re…/maternalinfanthealth/pretermbirth.htm)

The number two leading cause of deaths in premature infants is necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). (Source:http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf)

“Feeding preterm infants human milk is associated with a significant reduction (58%) in the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).” (Source:http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/conte…/129/3/e827.full)

Babies die every year, hell maybe even every day, because their mother’s are unable to produce enough or any milk for them. Hospitals give preterm fragile infants formula when there is no other option. Sometimes this option directly leads to that fragile infants death. I had to do SOMETHING.

To date I have donated over 700 ounces of breast milk to Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin. My original goal was 1000 ounces. I did not meet that goal. 

I have no idea how many infants I have helped. But this may put things in perspective.

· A baby weighing 2 pounds takes up to 5.5 ounces of milk per day

· A baby weighing 4.5 pounds takes up to 12 ounces of milk per day 
· A baby weighing 6.5 pounds takes up to 18 ounces of milk per day 
(http://www.milkbank.org/donate-milk/milk-donor-faqs)

There is a huge need for human breast milk for fragile infants; far more babies need human milk than will receive it. Maybe you’re thinking, “I can’t help, I’m not a new mom with extra breast milk to share.” Well, you are wrong. Milk banks exist all over the country and they don’t run on hopes and dreams, they too need money and volunteers to process breast milk. Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin also has a Charitable Care Program to help families afford donor human breast milk. There is a cost to families receiving donor human milk, a processing fee, and as you can imagine, not everyone can afford this.

Please consider donating time or money to one of the many milk banks in the county and sharing your excess breast milk if you are able or passing along this amazing opportunity to breastfeeding mothers that you may know. Donating my extra breast milk has been one of the most positive, uplifting, self-less acts I have ever done. I wish I could have kept going and I can’t wait to be able to donate more milk in the future.

To find a milk bank hear you head over to www.hmbana.org.