I could write a long drawn out post about all my problems with scheduling babies' sleep and feeding habits. I'm against it, but I'll leave it at that, and instead, share a story to demonstrate why it just doesn't make sense in my house.
Due to the ADD affliction of the majority of our house, scheduling out our school days is mandatory. If I schedule it, we get it all done. If I wake up and wander around for a bit and then start breakfast and then start thinking about school... by then the kids have turned on the TV and even once I turn it off, before I know it, it's dinner time and we've read one story and done two math problems. It doesn't work. I'm working on my big detailed daily schedule, but for now I just do it every few days. I break the day into 30 minute blocks and I schedule out everything I want to accomplish, including meals, breaks, clean up, and anything else I need to fit into the day.
Lately, Gabriel goes back and forth between napping before lunch, or napping after lunch. It just depends. But as I made out a schedule for the next two days, I got to 1230, and wrote in "History reading" and then thought, "oh, and Gabriel will want to nap around then, so I'll just plan on nursing him while I read, and then he should, theoretically take a nap." So I wrote in, "nurse and nap for G" in the same box. And then I twitched a bit. I'd just scheduled my baby's nap. But I knew that if he had no interest in nursing, I wouldn't. I was just making a note that he will be working toward transitioning to an afternoon nap anyway, so it won't hurt to encourage that along by trying to get him to hold out until after lunch.
So, today was going fine. All according to schedule. I came upstairs to check email and my facebook real quick (really, I did it fast this time! at least until I decided to blog "real quick" too.) and Gabriel followed me. He wanted to nurse. I can easily nurse while typing and clicking, so he snuggled up and nursed... and then went to sleep. No, we have not had lunch yet.
I think he read the schedule and said, "Ha! I laugh in the face of a scheduled nap!"
So now he dozes peacefully at 11:20. Oh well, now I can make lunch without him underfoot.
4 comments:
Hahaha! I have never scheduled anything...but that's not to say I haven't tried! It never goes as scheduled so I gave up :) How long will you nurse Gabriel? I am in a debate right now about whether or not to wean Caleb...he is down to nursing once a day but I am having a hard time deciding on cutting out that one nurse time.
I don't know how long we'll go. Until whenever he's done, most likely. Mikayla nursed until 2 months after her 3rd birthday, and Xander until 2 weeks before his 2nd birthday (but Michael was away, I was pregnant, I was dealing with the stress of Aaric's skull fracture... I may not have weaned him under normal circumstances). He still nurses a few times at night, and around 3 times during the day. Give or take, depending on his mood and how often I'm sitting down.
Oh wow! Does he sleep in the bed with you? Caleb hasn't woken up to nurse at night since he was about 10 months...I hope it will stay that way. At one point he was waking up every hour and I was about to pull my hair out! Good for you for nursing so long. I really think it keeps Caleb healthy, among other things. Plus, I dont mind it at all...in fact I will be sad when he gives it up for good. Men don't understand these things...lol.
Yeah, he sleeps with me. In fact, I'm still working on getting Xander permanently out of my bed, but he's a stubborn one!
I barely wake up to nurse at night. He stirs a bit, I stir enough to lift the shirt, he latches without help, we both doze back off as he nurses, at some point I wake up and re-cover. It might be a problem if I was losing sleep over it, but I wake up feeling plenty rested.
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