The Schedule

This is ironic. Within the last week or two I thought to myself "you know what, this is it. Tyler needs to be on a schedule. We need to know what time he is going to do what things- nap, wake up, etc." I was fully prepared to put my mom foot down and regulate on this situation.

Then, I got struck with some sort of flu like thing for 3 days and was home with him along with my mom who was here to help. I thought "now's the time to implement this schedule and get him running on human time not newborn baby time aka do whatever whenever I feel like it!"

Alas, it turns out I didn't have to regulate anything. Tyler regulated on himself- or more accurately- he WAS on his own schedule which I found myself fighting on a lot of days and therefore messing up his schedule.

As it turns out, when I actually started paying attention to it- Tyler naps from 830-930am pretty routinely. He  wakes up between 630-730am pretty routinely. His second nap rolls around between 1130 and 12pm. And guess what my friends, he's 8 months old and he still likes the third nap. This is probably what caused me and him the most harm...all those sleep doctor book type things say that around 6 months babies drop the 3rd nap and don't need it anymore. There may have been some statistic like ___% of babies keep the 3rd nap of the day for longer but obviously Tyler doesn't need the third nap. Why? Because the book says!

Actually he does. If he sleeps between 330-430pm he is a joy to be around until 7pm (bedtime). If he doesn't sleep between 330-430pm, he is not so joyous and bedtime becomes more like 6pm which then means wake up time is more like 6am. (yikes!)

So it appears that if I leave him to his own devices and stop trying to go all baby schedules-sleep book-doctor says- on him, he is quite capable of telling us what he needs when he needs it. Even if it includes a third nap. Tyler wins. But now I realize that when Tyler wins, we all win because he's a whole lot cuter when smiling and happy than crying and less-than-joyous.

The other major benefit to figuring out "his times"?  I can organize my day around him and it has some structure and flow and process to it. Like today...wake up, play, Tyler naps-I work, wake up- planned ahead to go to consignment sale upon wake up (it works), come home, play, take nap- I blog & wash dishes. You get it...this thing is a much more well-oiled machine.

Oh you know the funny thing I just thought about. Every time I think alright now we've got it, Tyler throws his next curve ball (which by the way, his latest skill is actually throwing toys!).