Pre-Toddler Room

AKA: the time I almost cried and feared that the daycare would sabotage my child-rearing philosophy and change my son forever.

A little dramatic, yes, but when you're in the thick of it and calling your mom in a panic on your 10 minute commute to work in the morning, it.is.a.big.deal.

So the pre-toddler room (we have a week...we have a week..breathe in, breathe out), is VERY scheduled.

And you know how I feel about babies and schedules - if not, I'll remind you - I've always been of the mindset 'why force a baby to eat and sleep at certain times, we don't eat and sleep at the same time every day and night' - now granted, we were blessed with an OUTSTANDING LC, who never blinked an eye when it came to knowing the difference between day and night sleep, who latched on (albeit improperly for the first 6 weeks but we figure it out) and drank milk from both his mamma and a bottle with ease, and went to anyone and everyone he came into contact with. Coworkers he'd never met, family members, friends, you name it, he has no fear.

So we never instilled any sort of 'naptime is at X time and here is how you'll know it's naptime' or 'eating happens at X time no if ands or buts. We just rolled with it, and ya know what, LC made his own little routine, even set his own bedtime. It was 10p for a while in the early early days, then 9, then 8:30, then 7:30, and now, 7p. We watch for rubbing eyes and sighs of sleepiness, and go from there. We follow his cues.

Same for naps on weekends / days off. He lets us know when he's tired, he lets us know when he's hungry. He usually naps around 9 at home with us, but not til 11 at daycare, and usually only one nap a day for home and daycare, although if we sat around at home played and waited for him to get tired, he would most likely take 2 naps at home with us - but we go out and play and see the world, and grab catnaps in the carseat to and from the park :) It works for us, for now :)
Fortunately he is hungry around normal mealtimes which is helpful :) But even eating, he has regulated himself. Wake up, nurse, have oatmeal, 10am, bottle, then a yogurt, 2ish, bottle and lunch, 4ish or 5ish milk, 6ish dinner, nurse, then bed by 7.

Amazing how it works itself out like that, and um, we didn't do anything cept watch him!

maybe that's how it'll be in the pre-toddler room, although they all do 'naps at 9, naps at 1, lunch at 10:30, snack at 2:15. I think we will do 'snack at 10:30, lunch at 2:15' since that's what we're more used to. I also have major beef with 10:30am lunchtime. I mean I get 11 or 11:30, but 10:30 EEK!

Next week opens another little door to our little journey in LC's life. I"m anxious to see how it goes! :)