My Days with Amelia

I am now officially a stay at home mom. I put in my resignation with my job and I'm excited about this new journey. I will admit that I always thought being a stay at home mom would be easy and I'd feel so lucky to not have a job. Well, there are moments that I would love to be relaxing in my model home at work, but overall I'm loving it and am so thankful for this time that I have with little Amelia. We are finding our groove together and for the most part our days are pretty smooth. We are on a pretty good schedule that is helping me to learn what she needs. She eats every 2 1/2 to 3 hours during the day and the in between time she plays a little...interacting with me, me carrying her around, going for a walk with me or sitting in her bouncy while I do something and then she will take a nap hopefully until it's time to eat again. Then we repeat that all day:) I hadn't really thought much about scheduling prior to her being born and hadn't read any books, but I kept hearing about Eat, Play, Sleep and how that's a good order of doing things and I kind of realized that's what we were sort of doing anyway. But, I've looked a bit at the books Babywise and also Baby Whisperer. I've talked to friends and family about what they think and most people have found them to be really helpful. It's going really good. I can sort of count on what to expect from Amelia this way. I know about when she'll eat and then she'll be happy and content for awhile and then sleep.

Fussy time usually hits at about the time Daddy is coming home. I don't know what it is, but I've heard that evening is often a fussy time for babies. She's usually not too bad, but I can tell she's fighting sleep and acts really tired. She tried to skip that evening nap by fighting and flailing a bit, but eventually she can't help but fall asleep.

Bedtime routine starts at about 10:00. I feed her and we turn all the lights off and just have it nice and quiet setting the mood. After I'm done feeding her then Chad swaddles her in our "miracle blanket". This is basically a baby straight jacket:) I love it! She relaxes and is so calm when she gets swaddled and she can't work her way out of it during the night. Chad puts her down to sleep and she's such a good little sleeper that she just needs to be set down even if she's not asleep and she will put herself to sleep. She will usually sleep for between 4-6 hrs the first stretch and then I get up and change her, feed her and re swaddle her and she sleeps about 3 more hours. Sleeping has been going so good the past 3 weeks. We haven't had even one night where she's had trouble going to sleep and going back to sleep after her middle of the night feeding. It's made such a huge difference in how I feel. I feel rested every day now and can function like a normal person:)

Right now she sleeps in her bouncy seat in her room and we are wanting to get her into her crib. I've started doing some naps in her crib and they have been short and sweet. We are making the switch to the crib at night this upcoming weekend. Since it might require some more hands on attention in the night, I wanted Chad to be able to help more and not have to get up for work the next day. So, we're hoping we can make the switch.

Here are a couple pics of her first time sleeping in the crib for a nap. She looked so sweet and peaceful at first, but quite a different story about 25 minutes later.