I’m the type of person that likes to know what is coming. I like order and consistency and fortunately babies thrive on that as well.

Which is why from Day One I have set out to get Little Bug on a consistent routine.

During the month of November, when Little Bug was 5 months old, we FINALLY established a pretty consistent daily routine.

7:30am wake up

9:30am nap

11am eat (bottle + sweet potatoes)

1:30pm nap

3pm eat

5:30pm nap (short nap – only 30-60 mins.)

6:15pm eat

7:45pm bath

8:15pm (tank up bottle before bed…usually only 2 oz.)

8:30pm bedtime

11:30pm eat

4-6am (sometimes Little Bug wakes at this hour – if she does I feed her 1-2oz. and then she goes back to bed until 7:30am)

These times are flexible within 30 minutes. For example, at Little Bug’s 11am feeding she eats anywhere from 10:45am to 11:15am. Little Bug lays down for her 9:30am morning nap between 9:15am and 9:45am. It is usually closer to 9:15am.

I could have gotten Little Bug on this set routine sooner. I had not set a consistent wake time for the morning. I was letting Little Bug sleep till whenever in the morning. She was waking anywhere from 7:30 to 8:30am. I was desiring to have a set eat/wake/sleep routine with her so our days could be more predictable. It wasn’t until I set her morning wake time to 7:30am that we FINALLY established this routine!

At first, I would have to wake Little Bug at 7:30am each morning. But after a few days, she would wake at 7:30am on her own! And now she naps and eats at the same time each day, within 30 minutes.

It is awesome because now I can better plan our days around her eating and sleeping so that she still gets her rest and we are able to go spend time with a friend or run an errand between naps.

From here, it will be very easy to tweak things in her routine as her eating/sleeping needs change over time. Eventually, once Little Bug is eating 3 meals a day (bottle + solids 3 times a day) and is on a 4 hour eat/wake/sleep routine, I hope her morning wake time becomes closer to 8:30am and her morning nap is closer to 10:30am with an afternoon naptime at 2:30pm. By that time, she will have dropped the 3rd evening nap. I will know that Little Bug is ready/capable of sleeping until 8:30am when I have to go back to waking her at 7:30am to start the day. (I sure hope that wake time of 8:30am is in the future for us!!)

For now, this is our day … and I LOVE IT!!

Not only because Little Bug is finally on a set routine but because I LOVE SPENDING EVERY SINGLE DAY WITH HER!!

I’m the type of person that likes to know what is coming. I like order and consistency and fortunately babies thrive on that as well.

Which is why from Day One I have set out to get Little Bug on a consistent routine.

During the month of November, when Little Bug was 5 months old, we FINALLY established a pretty consistent daily routine.

7:30am wake up

9:30am nap

11am eat (bottle + sweet potatoes)

1:30pm nap

3pm eat

5:30pm nap (short nap – only 30-60 mins.)

6:15pm eat

7:45pm bath

8:15pm (tank up bottle before bed…usually only 2 oz.)

8:30pm bedtime

11:30pm eat

4-6am (sometimes Little Bug wakes at this hour – if she does I feed her 1-2oz. and then she goes back to bed until 7:30am)

These times are flexible within 30 minutes. For example, at Little Bug’s 11am feeding she eats anywhere from 10:45am to 11:15am. Little Bug lays down for her 9:30am morning nap between 9:15am and 9:45am. It is usually closer to 9:15am.

I could have gotten Little Bug on this set routine sooner. I had not set a consistent wake time for the morning. I was letting Little Bug sleep till whenever in the morning. She was waking anywhere from 7:30 to 8:30am. I was desiring to have a set eat/wake/sleep routine with her so our days could be more predictable. It wasn’t until I set her morning wake time to 7:30am that we FINALLY established this routine!

At first, I would have to wake Little Bug at 7:30am each morning. But after a few days, she would wake at 7:30am on her own! And now she naps and eats at the same time each day, within 30 minutes.

It is awesome because now I can better plan our days around her eating and sleeping so that she still gets her rest and we are able to go spend time with a friend or run an errand between naps.

From here, it will be very easy to tweak things in her routine as her eating/sleeping needs change over time. Eventually, once Little Bug is eating 3 meals a day (bottle + solids 3 times a day) and is on a 4 hour eat/wake/sleep routine, I hope her morning wake time becomes closer to 8:30am and her morning nap is closer to 10:30am with an afternoon naptime at 2:30pm. By that time, she will have dropped the 3rd evening nap. I will know that Little Bug is ready/capable of sleeping until 8:30am when I have to go back to waking her at 7:30am to start the day. (I sure hope that wake time of 8:30am is in the future for us!!)

For now, this is our day … and I LOVE IT!!

Not only because Little Bug is finally on a set routine but because I LOVE SPENDING EVERY SINGLE DAY WITH HER!!

We are in a pretty consistent routine now. Little Bug wakes up anywhere from 7-9am, usually around 8am. By 9 or 10am (depending on when she woke up) she is ready for her morning nap. That nap is usually 1.5 to 2 hours long which allows me to have my Quiet Time and get us pack up and ready to leave the house if we are going somewhere that day.

Around 1-3pm, Little Bug is ready for her second nap, which also lasts anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours.

At around 6pm Little Bug needs a short nap. I only let her nap about 30 minutes at this time so that she will be ready for bed time at 8:30pm.

If we are home, around 7:30pm we will go on a walk around the block.

Around 8pm, Daddy gives Little Bug a bath. While he is giving her a bath I wash bottles and clean up from the day’s activities. Dave giving Little Bug a bath every night is so helpful to me! It is nice to not have to worry with that, plus it gives Little Bug some time with her Daddy.

Little Bug is in bed at 8:30pm. That is the only consistent time we have established so far for sleeping schedules. 8:30pm is a wonderful bed time because that gives me 2 hours before I need to be in bed. I am sure in the next 2-3 months we will also be able to establish a morning nap time and an afternoon nap time.

If I could choose I would have Little Bug wake up at 8:30am, then nap at 10:30am and 2:30pm. We shall see what she thinks about that as time passes!

I was telling Dave the other day that I finally feel like we have a “new normal” around here!

Today, I have been packing away Little Bug’s preemie and newborn clothes. Yesterday, Mama and I went to Penney’s and bought Little Bug the clothes she will need for fall and winter. I have alot of clothes for her for spring and next summer from all the hand-me-downs I got. I spent only about $20 yesterday because I had a gift card and Mama had a gift card! So, for one years worth of clothes for Little Bug, I will have only spent $20!

Little Bug is up from her nap. Going to go see her smiling little face!

No one reads this blog but me! And I want to keep it that way.

I will probably make it private very soon to ensure the only eyes seeing this blog are mine!

My other blog is read by people all over the world. Everyone parents differently and I am tired of negative comments concerning the way I parent Little Bug. I’ve only received two negative comments (I think).

I am just going to be more careful what I say on that blog and tell it like it is on this blog!

People don’t have to know every little detail about my life or Little Bug’s life for that matter!

What can I say? I am a perfectionist, a planner and an organizer. And while those are good qualities to have as a mother, focusing on just those can cause  you to go bonkers when things don’t go as planned with the wee one!

Flexibility and a “go with the flow” attitude are just as important. And those happen to be harder for me to come by.

I want Little Bug on a set routine so that I know these are the times she eats and these are the times she naps and this is when she goes to bed and this is when she wakes up and we start our day!

I am learning my expectations are too high and sometimes, the best thing for me to do, is to just “go with the flow” of Little Bug.

I think Little Bug is in a growth spurt right now because she is eating constantly and has even starting getting up in the night for a feeding as well. Obviously, this throws off any kind of routine we had somewhat established.

So I can either be uptight about it and sit and think all day long about how I am going to get my baby back on a routine  OR I can accept the reality that some days I am going to have to ditch the “routine” and “go with the flow”.

I think the main idea behind a routine in the first place is that the routine is the norm and some days, or some weeks, I will just have to deviate from the routine and do things a little different to meet the needs of Little Bug. Then, once she is over the growth spurt, the teething, the cold, the developmental leaps that are disrupting sleep patterns, we can easily slip back into routine-bliss!

For now, I am going to have to constantly remind myself of what my high school Economics teacher, Mr. Weightman, used to always say, “Relax and have a pickle.”

Too bad I hate pickles. Guess I will have to develop a taste for them.

Week 1 of Little Bug’s life was spent in the NICU. Her birth mom was on methadone and Little Bug had to go through withdrawals. As awful as what she went through was, it could have been a whole lot worse. They told us the best thing for her was as little stimulation as possible. So our NICU routine consisted of feeding her, changing her diaper and putting her right back in the isolate to sleep. And sleep is mainly what Little Bug did. After 5 days in the NICU, we brought Little Bug home. She was 7 days old.

Weeks 2 and 3 were spent with family in and out of the house, which was WONDERFUL. My mother was with me the week Little Bug came home from the hospital. Then, the third week of Little Bug’s life, my aunt was here for a week. It was absolutely wonderful to have my mother and my aunt’s help in those first 2 weeks of having Little Bug home.

Week 4, reality hit. It was the first time I was home all day with Little Bug by myself. And it. was. hard. VERY HARD. Harder than I ever imagined. You see, I’ve been taking care of babies all my life and I just assumed (very wrongly) that caring for my OWN BABY would be a cinch! I quickly discovered taking care of a newborn round the clock is very hard work. I like to refer to those days as living in “Survival Mode”! That is essentially what you do – just survive each day.

I remember there was a time that I couldn’t get dressed, brush my teeth or go to the bathroom without knowing Little Bug would cry and I’d have to go tend to her. I would have to time getting dressed when she was sleeping or else I’d be listening to her cry while I got dressed.

Those were also the days that I spent trying to figure out Little Bug. What she likes and what she doesn’t like. The turning point was around July 10th when I watch the video Happiest Baby on the Block and learned of the Miracle Blanket.

The Miracle Blanket became my best friend in one night flat when Little Bug was 6 weeks old. Little Bug had been waking often in the night and wasn’t sleeping peacefully. The very night I started swaddling her in the Miracle Blanket she did a 5 hour stretch and then a 3 hour stretch. That became the norm from that night on! I have since let two other mothers borrow our extra Miracle Blanket and they are hooked too!

Weeks 4, 5 and 6 were probably the toughest for me during that Survival Mode time period. I had to learn to RELAX and go with the flow and do whatever worked for me and Little Bug. I was too focused on trying to get Little Bug on a routine! Newborns don’t do routines. I had to be patient and wait for her to grow and mature before starting her on the EASY Routine from The Baby Whisperer.

Week 7, I began to feel like we were over the hump of Survival Mode. We went on vacation that week and it was nice to be with family and have help all day long!

Week 8 was my mom’s first week of no work after retiring! What a blessing that has been. We are able to spend so much time together. We had so much fun running errands together, going to lunch and just spending time together. I started going over to her house on Tuesdays and Thursdays since we eat dinner there on those two nights every week. Sometimes, she would take Little Bug and let me nap, read or write blogs. Then on Friday, she would come to my house and take care of Little Bug while I did laundry and got my house cleaned! I know I am tremendously blessed to have my mother be able to help me so much.

When Little Bug turned 12 weeks old, I started letting her nap on her belly in whatever room I was in at the time. She napped so well that way – for about 2 weeks! It is interesting how when you find something that works, it isn’t long and it no longer works anymore because babies grow and change at such rapid rates. (The Miracle Blanket is the only thing that has worked for a LONG period of time.)

When Little Bug turned 15 weeks I started noticing her waking up in the middle of a nap and wanting her paci. I would go give it to her and she would sleep for a little bit longer and then want it again! This way of napping was no longer working since Little Bug wasn’t getting the uninterrupted sleep she needed. I decided it was time to let Little Bug cry it out and start sleeping in her crib for naptimes.

I started on September 9, 2009. The first time she cried for almost a hour. It was so hard to let her cry, but I knew it was for her good, so I stuck it out. I know some people do not think you should let a baby cry it out. They feel it is cruel and even abusive. The book Babywise has a very bad reputation out there, especially among mothers who chose to do Attachment Parenting.

I decided to read the book Babywise myself and form my own educated opinions after having read the book cover to cover.

After reading that sleep is crucial to a baby’s proper growth and development and that sleeping is a skill you can expect your child to master, I decided letting Little Bug cry it out if I know she is fed, diapered and sleepy, would be the best thing for her.

There is a chapter in the book Babywise that talks about how critical good sleep is for a baby/child. It talks about how a baby goes through light sleep and then deep sleep cycles every 30 – 45 minutes. Often times when a baby is transitioning between the two, they start to cry and mom or dad assumes baby is ready to wake up. But really, the opposite is true. Baby is just trying to transition to deep sleep. If you leave baby alone, she will transition into deep sleep and get the rest her little body needs to be able to grow and mature properly. A baby that cat naps all day is not getting the deep sleep they need.

As I said, the first time Little Bug took at nap with no paci she cried for almost an hour before going to sleep. Then it was a 20 minute or so cry. It wasn’t long and Little Bug was crying for only 5 minutes or less when laid down for a nap. Sure enough, 30-45 minutes after getting to sleep I will sometimes hear Little Bug stir. Instead of popping the paci back in her mouth, she has learned the art of putting herself back to sleep. Little Bug wakes up so rested and SO HAPPY, which Babywise says you should expect from a baby getting proper rest.

We are on week two of napping in the crib and crying it out if necessary. Little Bug is doing pretty well. She has had a couple days of insisting on crying for 15 minutes every nap! That is hard to listen to but she does go to sleep and takes a good nap every time. Today has been good. She only cried 10 minutes this morning and just now she only cried less than 5 minutes.

It’s a learning process. Some days will be better than others. But the outcome will be GOOD for all. A baby who takes naps on a routine and Mommy who knows she will have some down time during naptime!

So, here we are at 16 weeks! I can hardly believe Little Bug is going to be 4 months old at the end of this month.

Motherhood is definitely an adventure. An adventure I waited almost 28 years to experience. It is amazing how one little girl can have such a huge impact on my life. I did not expect my life to be completely changed from one day to the next when we brought her home from the hospital!

But my life has changed. Completely. Life is that much sweeter now. Yes, life is way more chaotic than it used to be with just me, Pup and Daddy Bug in the house.

But I am finally a wife and MOTHER. My dream my entire life. I know I am tremendously blessed to be a stay-at-home mother to Little Bug.

And I am learning to roll with the punches of motherhood.

In March of 2007, I started writing in a blog to document my journey through infertility. At the time, we were 7 months into trying to conceive and had just had our first visit with the Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). I thought having a blog would keep family and friends informed of our journey so they could pray specifically for us. Through time, the blog turned into so much more. Complete strangers, from all over the world, started reading and praying. The blog became a place for me to be completely honest and open and share about my strong desire to have a baby and the extreme disappointment that would follow after another failed cycle.

God performed a miracle in my life over that year and used my blog to allow other people see the Hand of God at work. More than anything, as I walked the road of infertility, I desired that God receive glory in and through my unwanted, unplanned for circumstances. While I created the blog to keep family and friends informed, God knew that the blog would be used to give all the glory to Him for the great miracle He was going to perform.

After three failed IUIs, surgery to remove endometriosis and a failed attempt at IVF,  I knew God was asking me to surrender to Him my desire for pregnancy and childbirth and pursue adoption. In March of 2009, I felt an urgency to get our adoption paperwork turned into the agency we had decided to use.

On April 9, 2009, I turned in our paperwork to the agency and the lawyer told me that very same day that an adoption had fallen through that week and if we wanted a baby in JUNE, we could have one!

Talk about God’s perfect timing!

Forty-eight days later, our daughter, Little Bug, entered this world. Eighty-one hours after her birth, she became our little girl.

God put the desire in my heart for motherhood long before I was even a married woman! When Daddy Bug and I married in 2007, we had plans to start a family right away. God, however, had other plans for us. He had something more planned for us. As we have journeyed through the road of infertility we have learned that God’s plan for our life is far better and far greater than anything we could plan for ourselves.

Our journey to Little Bug is proof of that!

While I am still infertile and apart from another miracle of God will most likely never conceive naturally or with the help of modern medicine, my focus is now walking the road of motherhood.

I’m 6 weeks into this new journey and contrary to what I first believed, the road of motherhood is anything but easy! After going through infertility, I think it is just very easy to assume once you have that baby in your arms everything will just be a bed of roses. I quickly learned that is not the case after bringing Little Bug home.

So this new blog is a place for me to document my life as a mother to Little Bug (and the other Little Bugs that are sure to follow).  Writing is as essential to my life as breathing. I’ve actually kept a journal since I was 15 years old. When I started blogging in 2007, my journals became my blog.

And so, this new blog begins as I record life with Little Bug – the good days, the hard days and everything in between!