12/10

To Schedule or Not to Schedule??

I ask myself today, "why would any parent not want to have their child on a schedule?."
When my 3 infants came home, the NICU had them on a 'schedule' of eating every 4 hours. I thought that I was all set. Boy was I ALL wrong. My beautiful little angels were each on their own 'every 4 hour' schedule. I found myself feeding a baby at say 3 am, another at 4am, and yet the last at 5am. I would then sleep for 45 minutes and then do it all over again. I was a walking zombie. My dear husband, who is a fireman and works 24 hour shifts, hired a nanny to stay with me while he was gone (this was after my mother had to return to work). One day she called in sick and he was on shift...I was stuck with the kids by my self!

That day the kids and I came to an understanding. Once they were changed, fed, and there was absolutely nothing 'wrong' with them, I had to understand that I could not console them each and every second of the day...I was enabling them. It was better for both of us at that point if I let them cry it out a little. From that day forward I have been stronger and I have been able to do it on my own.
After that, I created a schedule for them. I knew that no matter how tired I was and how resistant to it they were, I had to be consistent. The schedule I created was, at the time, convenient for them and our family. After about a week the kids caught on and we were in business. I decided to go with the Eat-Play-Sleep scheduling since it seemed the most logical. That was about 5 months ago. Our previous schedule was:
7am- wake/bottle
7:30-9- play
9/9:30-11- NAP
11- baby food (breakfast)
12-bottle
1/1:20-3- NAP
3 baby food and bottle (lunch)
3:30-6 play
6- oatmeal (dinner)
6:15- bedtime routine (bath and such)
6:45-7- bedtime bottle

So today was the 1st full day of the new schedule. The kids have shown me that it is time for a change and I have agreed full hearted. I must say that they took to it very well today and I was quite surprised. I thought they would put up much more of a fight. The new schedule is:
7am-wake/bottle
7:30-breakfast (oatmeal)
9:15-snack
10am-NAP
12- lunch/bottle
2pm-NAP
3:30- snack
5pm-Dinner/bottle
6:15-bedtime routine (bath)
645-7- bedtime bottle


Anyway, not the most exciting post, but I know that some mommies want to know this kind of information, especially those who have multiples. It's always hard to take a schedule for one baby and make it work for your multiples.


Jess