times change...

Our little one is on a relatively strict schedule in the evening. We found that the schedule works great and ensures a nice quiet night.

7:00 - Miscellaneous nap time...she gets tired and gets whiny, so inevitably one of the pushover parents will hold her until she's asleep and then naps for a bit. Occasionally she'll hang with us and stay awake. All depends on what time she last had the bottle.

8:00 - Mom preps bath, dad preps baby for bath. Once I'm ready in front of the tub, Jamie comes from bedroom to bathroom with poor naked baby hanging at arms length. I guess Karma is a b*tch...pee on daddy twice and that's how you'll be carried. After bath, dad takes baby, puts on diaper, lotion, and PJs while I clean up tub and stuff. Mom's also prepping the good-night bottle so that dad can feed her once he's done getting baby all ready.

8:15 - Dad feeds baby while mom sees if there's any last minute stuff to get ready in baby's room before bed.

8:30 - Dad says goodnight and passes off the drunk baby to me. A little extra back patting on the way to the bedroom (those darn bubbles are apparently very painful). Then we sing some twinkle twinkle (don't have much else in the lullaby arsenal), I put her down, and that's it. Sleeps through until the morning. Beautiful!!

If we stray, we've found that the results are not good. With Thanksgiving yesterday, everything was too bright and new, so she didn't sleep there and freaked out a good bit. Once we got home around 9:00, we did PJs, bottle, bed, and she was out like a light. Then she woke up at 4:30 though. Ugh. She apparently had no intention of going back to sleep, so at around 5:15 I finally gave in with a bottle.

As with dogs, babies seem to thrive on routine and predictable patterns. Hopefully, in time, she'll be more flexible, but for now, don't expect to have much fun with us all night. Even though she's the baby, she's given us a curfew. We'll remember that when she asks to stay out until 12:30am to hang with a boyfriend. Again, Karma's a b***h.