More Rainy Day Antics

Today and yesterday have both been washouts- in other words, I have had no motivation to take CJ out anywhere.  However, these have been great days to work on getting CJ on somewhat of a schedule.  As most everyone knows, I am pretty Type A.  Being spontaneous sounds great- but it's just not for me.  There have been afternoons where Kevin will call me up and suggest going out in the evening; but probably 8 times out of 10 I will say no because it was not in the day's plan.  I know, it's pretty ridiculous and I wish I wasn't so anal. 

Anyway, we have been pretty lucky because CJ has been a great night sleeper.  Since bringing him home from the hospital, there have only been a handful of nights where we have had to get up more than once.  Now he is fairly consistently sleeping through the night.  On the other hand, the days have not been so consistent.  There have been days when I could get a good 3 hour afternoon nap from him, others where he was just catnap throughout the day.  It's very hard to plan your day when you can't predict when he will sleep.  Some friends of ours as well as our pediatrician recommended a book called "On Becoming Babywise." 

There are so many different theories about parenting, it's overwhelming.  Some say that you should always feed on demand and to not put the babies on a schedule until at least 6 months.  Letting a child "cry it out" at 2 months could possibly cause the baby to feel abandoned.  Some follow a very strict schedule that allows for no flexibility.  I may be anal, but not that anal.  The Babywise schedule is basically a cycle of feeding, waketime, and naptime.  The length of the cycle depends on the baby.  Also, it states that a baby will not end up on therapist's couch if he is let to cry himself to sleep.  It also allows for some flexibility- there are days when his schedule will just not match mine, but that is okay.  This schedule I think is the best fit for our family.

So here's his schedule right now.  I have him on a 3 hour cycle.

~7 AM- Feed (so far he has not had a super consistent morning wake time, so the schedule sometimes is adjusted)
8:30-Nap
10:00-Feed then play
11:30-Nap
1:00-Feed/play
2:30-Nap
4:00-Feed/play
5:30-Nap
7:00-Feed/play
9:00-Feed/bedtime

According to the book, we aren't supposed to feed right before bedtime, but at this point we are not using nursing to get him to go to sleep.  We end up putting him in his crib awake, so CJ still needs to fall asleep on his own.  In the future though we will take away this feeding. 

So far, this schedule seems to be working pretty well, and has allowed me some predictable time during the day to get stuff (like blogging!) done.  He does not necessarily sleep during his whole naptime so I have to let him cry a little.  This is not easy, but it will make things easier for us in the long run.  I know everyone has their opinion, but I am of the mind that children thrive when they are on schedules.  Even high school freshmen do better when each class has a routine.  Throw in a fire drill?  All goes to Hell.  :)

Here's the little man sleeping.  The night vision kind of reminds me of Paranormal Activity...