Max has a routine, this has taken some great work on the part of his wonderful Mum to organise. Meanwhile I have been busy with the odd bit of teaching here and there. I play a part in the routine but its genesis and keystone is the morning.
At about 7am the little fellow wakes. He doesn't enjoy this. He wakes up hungry. He wakes up angry. Do we sort out his hunger, do we heck. We change his nappy first. This is my job. I have previously blogged about nappies. They are boring boring boring now (except for when they are not - about once every two or three days). So his boring nappy changed he goes back for his first feed of the day. This is Ciara's job, she does it really well.
Having prepared everything for my day I return at about 7:30 just in time to burp him and say good bye. This is very hard.
He then plays for a bit (maybe has a mid-morning snack) and goes back to sleep. An hour and a bit later he is ready for food and action and there is plenty of action. He gets dressed up into his day gear. On one day he is swimming, another at baby yoga. Suffice it to say that his future development is safeguarded by a schedule of activities that stimulates body and mind. After these activities and another snack it is lunch time.
He then has some more play and mat time (that's play on his mat with the bee and the mirror). He does have an afternoon nap but its time is a bit variable. In fact the middle of the day is a big variable. This suits me fine. I am at work, no worries. For Ciara it can be a bit of a roller coaster. Most days work out fine but some days when I get home, young Max is thrust into my hands and - tag I'm it!
So as the afternoon drifts away like one of Max's particularly virulent farts, the routine begins to reestablish itself. At around 7pm, it's bath time! This is a wonderland of emotion and wriggling and splashing and suds. Sometimes both of us are involved and sometimes just one of us. A clean Max is brought to the bed, redressed into night gear and read a lovely story. There will be many posts about childrens' literature in the future but for now lets assume that the story is lovely and that Max is very relaxed and ready for a feed and bed. He then gets his bottle, up to 220mls and theoretically falls into a stupor until 7am again. Meanwhile we fit in the evening dinner and small amount of relaxation time around this. Like water pouring into a bucket of stones. In fact that's how we work with the routine, we dance around it like particles flung around in Brownian motion.
It's an imperfect system because it is so variable in the middle. You can't set your watch by him but you can at least have a good crack at figuring out day from night. He is much happier with the routine. When we don't follow it, he is upset. He is much more difficult to settle and our lives are full of misery. So we follow the routine, and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. They have to get him asleep while his parents rest - be warned!
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