Schedule - 2 Months

I feel like I'm finally getting into a morning routine...

7:30am - Olivia wakes me up, then I nurse her and get her dressed

8am - I feed her a bottle (breast feeding isn't a full meal any more) and then stick her in the bouncy seat to play while I take a shower. Olivia used to melt down part-way through my shower, then she gradually entertained herself farther through mama's shower, hair & makeup routine. (I'd describe everything I was doing as if I were on a cooking show, just to keep her entertained.) Today she lasted the whole time by herself; I think she's finally interested in the star mobile dangling in front of her, or the bathroom lights. She gets hiccups after she eats, so that seems to keep her entertained and happy as well.

9am - Swaddle her for a nap. Olivia usually cries when left in the crib without the jungle soother or a moving mobile to entertain her (and the wind-up mechanism lasts only a couple minutes - ugh). And once she starts full-on crying she doesn't stop; there is no soothing herself. So, I had been rocking her to sleep, already swaddled for her nap, but as beautiful as that is I don't want her to be dependent on it. I would love to put her down in the crib when she's sleepy, then walk away and have her fall asleep on her own, even in the daylight. Right now we're doing whatever works, so she's in a dark room with white noise, but this morning I didn't have to rock her to sleep. Baby steps!

I'm still figuring out the routine for the rest of the day, but things tend to go in 3-hour cycles of eat-play-sleep, so we'll do it all over again at 11. She naps for at least 45 minutes in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon, but I still feel like it's hard to cram all my tasks into nap time. It's been tough going from 14+ hours of unstructured time each day BC (before child) down to a few, and I'm still struggling just to get the important stuff done. Welcome to my world! I'm telling you all this not because I want to complain, but so I can look back and see what life was like with a 2-month-old. I'm happy and embracing motherhood, I promise!