My little E is not fussy. She's a good baby. She only cries when she's hungry. She doesn't even cry when she has poop in her nappy. Most of the time she's asleep so we're always excited when she's awake. The first four days at the hospital was a challenge. We were still adjusting with the change. The lack of sleep affected my blood pressure which gave me migraines in the day. When we were finally able to come home, I was determined to establish a routine that could give us all time to rest.
We hired a nanny for her because there was no way I could do this alone. I know there are thousands of moms out there who do and I salute you all, but I know my limits. My husband is at work most of the day and I was still recovering from my C-section. I really thank God that He gave me such wonderful doctors because I was already walking quite normally on the fifth day with very little, if any, pain. My mom keeps reminding me to rest well and I agree with her. My whole pregnancy was stressful, my delivery was also eventful so I was feeling tired.
To save my sanity, I initially made this schedule -
8:00AM to 11:30PM: E stays with me while the nanny sleeps and does some light chores for the baby
11:30PM to 8:00AM: E stays with the nanny in her room
We did this for a few days but my lower back started to act up again - both my right and left pelvis are twisted and I can't have them adjusted yet. I also realized that the nanny was downstairs watching TV while I was struggling to feed and change E AND trying to work at the same time. My mom, seeing how difficult it was for me to balance everything, told me that the nanny should make my life easier and not the other way around.
After giving it some thought, I made a more specific schedule for the nanny -
7:00AM to 7:30AM: Bring E to our bedroom for sunlight
7:30AM to 8:00AM: Bathe and feed E
8:00AM to 8:30AM: Wash the bottles and sterilize (just leave inside the UV sterilizer/dryer and come back to get them in the afternoon, usually she washes around 6-7 bottles)
8:30AM to 9:30AM: Eat breakfast and do what she likes
9:30AM to 1:30PM: SLEEP
1:30PM to 5:00PM: Take care of E while I do some work
5:00PM to 6:00PM: Iron E's clothes
6:00PM to 10:30PM: Personal time and dinner, SLEEP
10:30PM to 7:00AM: Take care of E
Now we encourage her to sleep at night while E's asleep so she can rest. However, based on our baby video monitor, which I check almost every hour at night, she seldom does. She uses her mobile phone or reads books, this is why I always tell her to sleep in the morning before doing anything else.
At around 9:30PM, my husband and I feed and change E in her room. We turn on the night light and ask Alexa to play baby lullabies. We then read her a bedtime story. The past week has all been from her Peter Rabbit Collection. I am hoping to start sleep training in a few weeks/months when my little girl ready. Right now, I am still trying to keep my emotions at bay when I leave her with the nanny. 😅
Comments
Post a Comment