Parenting from Work Life

This is going rather well, for the moment. Lucy is pretty easy going during the day. She'll generally fall asleep in her car seat on the way to work, and I'll unbuckle her, but leave her in there (within eyesight) until she wakes up. Most days, she'll stay asleep until 11 or 12, which gives me a solid two or three hours of powering through whatever needs to get taken care of right away. Phone calls, emails, etc. She'll wake up around lunch time, and I'll spend the lunch hour in my office holding her, and engaging with her until the lunchroom has cleared out a bit, and I'll head in there with her in her bouncy chair to eat quickly while she lounges. Sometimes, a co-worker will take her to their desk for a bit. 

After lunch, she'll lounge in her bouncy chair a bit longer, and fall back asleep. To get the longest possible second nap of the day, I'll usually put her in her pack n play, swaddled. She'll usually give me at least another hour, hour and a half of sleep. Once she wakes up from this second nap, it's about 3 o'clock, and I'll wear her around the office. She's usually a bit more fussy for the rest of the day, but by this point, I'm pretty satisfied with what I've been able to accomplish so it's not quite so difficult to juggle. I'll hope for a good feed somewhere between 4 and 4:30, so that she'll be in good shape after 5pm, in her car seat for the ride to pick Mia up, and hopefully, she'll even let me make dinner while sitting in her swing.

Evenings aren't quite as hectic as I initially thought they might be. She's still pretty content to lounge in a bouncy chair or swing while I make dinner and cater to Mia's various snack and juice needs. We don't have any more evening downtime, which is a bummer and I'm hoping we get back to it soon. But for now, evenings are still Lucy's fussy time, where she wavers between wanting to be wide awake, being hungry, and wanting to sleep. At this point, we still will do our best to keep her awake in the evenings until at least 10pm, or we're afraid she'll wake up multiple times over night. She always always wakes up at least once, and the goal is to delay that second wake up until morning.

She's been great, and when she's with me during the day, I marvel at how sweet and laid back she is. Even when she cries, I can still look at her and laugh because I know that whatever is wrong, it's not much. I'm not going to lie though... I do look forward to Brian's days off during the week, when I can go to work without having to juggle anything but my pump. Quite frankly, those pumping breaks feel like exactly that... a break.