We made it.

After 10 weeks off on maternity leave I officially went back to work this week. I had mixed feeling about it, spending just 10 weeks with your new baby just doesn’t seem long enough, plus he’s just so little to start dropping off at some strangers house for 8 hours a day. Then again, mama needs some time out of the house, interaction with adults, bringing home a full paycheck, and a schedule again. What I most was looking forward to was getting back into a routine and trying to get Madden into one as well.

Week one is complete and I can officially say, we made it. And it went awesome!

Ready for my 1st day of daycare (hating the camera flash, he really is awake!)



I of course was sad dropping him off Monday morning, as well as every other day this week. But I was ready. I know he really is in good hands with Miss Rachel. I’m looking forward to him being able to start interacting with other babies and younger kids now that he is starting to realize the world around him. The most amazing part is that he’s starting to sleep!!! I was a bit nervous as Sunday night he refused to go to sleep. I thought it was in protest for the week ahead of us! He was overtired which was our fault, he didn’t get a good evening nap in and then grandpa and grandma stopped by to see him. It took 3.5 hours to get him to sleep, he just constantly cried. As soon as we would get him settled and almost asleep in our arms we would then lay him down and either immediately or within 15 minutes he would be awake screaming. Finally by 10:30pm I just let him cry for a bit since that’s what he seemed to want to do, he cried for 20 minutes and was then was fast asleep.

I have a post I’ve been writing the last month or so on MJ’s nighttime sleeping once I tried starting sleep training that I will get published soon. I think my efforts for that have helped but I think daycare has been the big game changer. He is one tired little boy once I get home from work! I nurse him shortly after getting home and then we hang out for a short bit before he needs a little evening nap while I make dinner and we quickly eat. Then we try to start our bedtime routine between 7-7:30pm with a bath on most nights, followed by pajamas, nursing, a little bit of rocking and then I try to put him to bed drowsy but awake. This is how our first week went:

• Monday night he had just a few minutes of tired cries about 10 minutes after I laid him down then was out. He was asleep by 8pm and only up twice, at 11:30pm then 2am and up for the morning just after 6:00am.
• Tuesday he fell asleep on his own by 8pm, woke up twice at 1am then 4am. Then he woke up around 5:30 so I sent Dave in to settle him and he fell back to sleep while I got ready for work, I had to wake him up for the day at 6:30am.
• Wednesday evening we had a visitor, my best friend Tiffany was in town to meet Madden so he took a longer evening nap in her arms. Then we did bath time, nursed and he fell asleep on his own by 8:30pm only waking up once at 2am to eat! I had to wake him up at 6:30am for the day!!
• Thursday evening he only catnapped for about 20 minutes so he was still very tired. I’m on my own Thursday nights so I gave him a bath, fed him and put him to bed. He cried and fussed for about 20 minutes since I think he was a bit overtired but then fell asleep on his own only waking up once at 1am to eat then woke up at 5:45am. Dave settled him a bit before leaving for work while I jumped in the shower. He didn’t go back to sleep so I got him up and he just hung out staring at the bedroom light until I was done drying my hair.

Of course now the weekend is here. The weekends are where scheduled get thrown off so we’ll see how things go. I’m going to try my hardest to stay on a schedule during the weekends so Monday’s are so hard on everyone. I guess we’ll see how it goes….

Hanging at daycare!