However, today is Thursday as we sit in the Starbucks. I had my last day of "work" last Wednesday. It never really felt like work to me because I loved doing it. And I still plan on doing a lot of the things I did at Journey as a volunteer.
My mom might lose it if I kept Graeme (and eventually Maisy) with me every day now that I'm not working, so the plan is for him to spend Thursdays with Mimi and Grandy. This will allow me to have a day to get housework, laundry, shopping, and other things done that are easier to do when I don't have a toddler tagalong. It works out for all.
And Aaron and I still get our weekly morning coffee date, which we love and look forward to. Right now, I am writing this and he is reading. So we aren't talking much or anything. But just sitting here with each other is a really perfect date sometimes.
Anyway.
Our due date is less than two months away now! We are getting excited about our baby shower in a couple of weeks. Maisy's room is coming together and my goal is to have pretty much everything in order for her arrival by the time Thanksgiving gets here. I want to be able to focus on enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas with Graeme, as it will be the last time when he is our only little one!
Aaron and I were able to sneak away last weekend for a last getaway before we have two children. It happened to fall on the weekend that I had scheduled Graeme's flu shot AND the time change. He stayed with my parents, and I apologized for leaving them with two "inconveniences." Ha. There's not much I could do about the flu shot. He needs it and it takes two seconds and then he's fine anyway. But, I did try to help out with the time change.
I'm sure you've heard that when you have kids, young ones especially, the "extra hour" we get in the fall is a big joke. Example being: Graeme goes to bed at 7:00pm and sleeps until 6:00-6:30am. So, when the clock shifts back an hour in the middle of the night, his little internal clock does not. And he therefore wakes up at 5:00am. If you're thinking, Just put him to bed an hour later that night and then he'll sleep an hour later in the morning, you would be mistaken. At least for my child. Typically, the later he goes to bed, the earlier he wakes up.
I realized this dilemma last year and decided to try to beat the system. And it worked. So I did the same thing this year. And it worked again.
It requires a bit of planning and adjusting the week before, but I think it's worth it. It makes the hour time change much easier on Graeme and doesn't have us (or my parents this year!) waking up an hour earlier on Sunday. If you are curious for next year, here's what I do:
This works for us because Graeme is on a (fairly) consistent schedule. I'm sure you could make it work for your child even if they weren't necessarily on a schedule too!
The Saturday a week before the time change is when I started. I shifted everything 15 minutes ahead, starting with breakfast. That meant 15 minutes later for all meals. 15 minutes later for nap time. And 15 minutes later for bedtime. I did this exact same schedule for Saturday AND Sunday.
On Monday, I shifted everything 15 more minutes. This meant it was 30 minutes later than what his normal schedule was. We did this for two days as well, Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, his "wake up for the day" time was starting to catch on, and he slept in until 7:00am.
On Wednesday, we did another 15 minutes shift, putting us 45 minutes later than a normal day. This is when the day started to seem really long! He was adjusting fine, but a 7:45 bedtime just seemed really late to us! Another two days of this (Wednesday and Thursday).
By Friday morning, we had reached the beginning of "Phase 4," the final 15 minutes that put us an entire hour later. This meant he slept in until 7:30am. He ate lunch at noon. He went down for a nap at 1:00pm. He ate dinner at 6:00pm. And bedtime wasn't until 8:00pm. My parents took the torch and finished off the time change plan on Saturday using this same schedule.
Therefore, by Saturday night, he was an entire hour ahead of time. If that even makes sense. Ha. And when time fell back an hour that night, he fell right back to normal. I texted my mom on Sunday morning, "DID IT WORK?!" And I was happy to receive, "He slept until 6:30!" back from her. Back to normal. And no trouble at all from then on.
So, if I seem entirely crazy to some of you, you may be right. I try not to be "schedule nazi" too much, but yeah...I am pretty reliant on our nice routine we have going for us most days! There's a time to flexible, and a time to want sleep, right? Right?!
No comments:
Post a Comment