My typical day with an 11-month-old

Wow. A year is almost here. We’re at the second-to-last post in this series. One of the ways I feel like I’ve changed the most is that … I don’t know if I would do this series again. Well, that’s not totally true. But dramatic shift in life after children doesn’t feel so dramatic any more.

My typical day with an 11-month-old

So, our typical day:

5 a.m. It seems that as the days have gotten longer, she wakes up earlier and goes to sleep later. There was a few weeks where she seemed to get up 5 minutes earlier every day until she was getting up for the day at 4:30 a.m. That’s settled back to normal in the past week, but man, we have had to get up early.

6 a.m. She’s done eating, I change her diaper and we come downstairs for the morning. This part hasn’t changed much from 10 months except there are fewer and fewer things I can do to immobilize her so I can take a shower (e.g. the jumper, the exersaucer, the pack-n-play) so keeping her occupied is more demanding.

At least it’s summer and we can go outside and also, she loves the dogs. They entertain each other. Her first word was “dog” and she says it constantly.

7:30 a.m. Solid food time. Lately it’s been Cheerios, she’s sick of yogurt and I’m sick of mopping the floor every morning.

 8:15 a.m. All my bags are packed and I spend the next 15 minutes getting her dressed, nursing her and putting her down for a nap. 9 days out of 10 she will go down for a nap at this time no problem. Especially if she got up early. I started nursing her in the morning before I leave again. Partly because she wanted it, partly because she wakes up so early that it’s been long enough, and partly because I don’t have to make the bus any more.

When I first went back to work I felt like I had to get nursing in constantly when I was home with her. Around 7 months I realized that I didn’t need to worry about offering it constantly and it made getting her to sleep a lot easier. But now she doesn’t need it for nutrition as much, it’s more about comfort, and I don’t get to see her much.

So the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction.

9 a.m. I’m at work. Lissie is at home, sleeping, usually until about 10:15 a.m. when her dad takes her to daycare and heads to work, so she gets about a 2-hour nap.

11:15 a.m. Pumping the first time. This is a bit later than it’s been. I cannot wait until I am done doing this at work. I love breastfeeding but it’s stating to get old.

On a good day I will go for a run about now. It’s not every day, it’s not even most days. I have averaged a run of 3 days a week for awhile now, most of them at lunch time. Which is crazy — it’s June! — I don’t think it’s stayed this cool this late for a long time.

3:30 p.m. The second pump of the day. Lissie is at her babysitter until about 3 p.m., and she is going home with her dad and going down for the second nap of the day around then (until 5 p.m., another 2-hour hap).

5:30 p.m. I get home. Later than I have in the past, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It’s still light out so I take Lissie for a walk with the carrier, or a ride in the bicycle. My awesome co-worker lent us a bike seat that bolts onto the back of a bike. It is the best. She loves it.

After work one day

6:30 p.m. Solid food dinner. Usually whatever we eat, and we’re eating burritos often. She loves picking up the little black beans or scooping refried beans and sour cream into her mouth. It’s the cutest.

7 p.m. Bath time starts.

7:20 p.m. We’re upstairs for lotion, jammies, books and bed by 7:30 p.m.

Sometime between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. She pretty consistently wakes up once at night. At this time last year I would have recoiled to think that I’d still be getting interrupted sleep now, but this is very bearable compared to how it was in January, February where she’d wake up several times a night and need a lot of coaxing to go back to sleep.

Things I learned since the last time I wrote this:

  • The bike seat. One of my earliest memories as a child was riding a mounted bike seat on my dad’s bike and falling, and I thought I would never use one with Lissie. But then I got my hands on one and it meant I could ride my bike again and she LOVES it. So I’m glad I got over that.
  • I find myself fantasizing about that time of my life when I could get up, get a coffee, leisurely warm up to the idea of getting my sneakers on and just go and … now I have to do it either right when she falls asleep or take her with me. And I’ve started a phase where I really dislike running with the stroller.
  • So I found that I make a lot of deals with myself that I’ll “train for that again when she’s older” or “I’ll be serious about watching my diet when I’m not breastfeeding anymore.”
  • But running keeps me sane, so I push myself to do it even though I find motivation in really short supply lately.

Mommy's Little Love Pug

Things that I see are changing:

  • I could totally see walking happening in the next month. She’s close, she can do it with one hand now.
  • I would love to cut down to pumping once per day at work, and maybe cut pumping at work out altogether after her first birthday, but I want to keep breastfeeding until 2 years old and I have worries about cutting that out too soon. But I really, really look forward to not pumping any more.
  • We haven’t had too many people too many times watching Lissie in the evening and put her to bed. But she’s getting much more receptive to other people putting her down for naps, so I think we might be able to try that.

 

This is one of a series of posts I’ve been doing about what life is like with an infant. Here’s the last one. Stay up to date by subscribing to my email!

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Pattie Reaves

About Pattie Reaves

I'm a new mom and renegade fitness blogger at After the Couch. I live in Brewer with my husband, Tony, our daughter Felicity, and our two pugs, Georgia and Scoop.