The DeCook Family Adventures: Modern Day June Cleaver

Emmett is 13 weeks or 3 months old, depending on how you want to count it. This is about the time that most working mothers begin to return to the office, give or take a couple of weeks. Simply put, I do NOT know how women balance having a career and having an infant. Adding something as complicated as getting to the office by 8 am and concentrating for 8+ hours a day on something other than my baby is unfathomable to me. The sort of efficiency, dedication and organization that this must require is incredible and I have unmeasurable amounts of respect for those who make it work. I am grateful every morning that we have made the decision that I am going to stay home with our children.

I always had a picture in my head of what the life of a stay at home mother was like, and what she would do on a daily basis. The reality is far from the vision I had in my head. I am not a domestic goddess, who is perfectly coiffed and has an elaborate meal prepared for my husband when he gets home from work. Half the time I haven't even managed to make myself breakfast or lunch, but the baby is always fed and happy. Our house is rarely spotless. When it is, it's thanks to the housekeeper, not me. It is always neat and organized and I always know what needs to be done when I can find the time. I don't greet my husband at the door every day to find out how his day was. Generally when Todd gets home from work, Emmett and I are laying on the floor somewhere playing, with a bunch of toys and burp clothes leading a trail to our location like breadcrumbs. I have three goals every day, and in my opinion anything else I achieve before 1 pm when Todd gets home is gravy:

1) Have the bed made. Even if that's where we are hanging out and playing.
2) Kitchen cleaned, dishes done. At least from the night before.
3) Baby and Mom dressed. Please note being "dressed" is subjective. Yoga pants and a sweatshirt are fine, as long as it wasn't the outfit that Todd saw me in when he left for the office. Having showered is ideal but not required.

If someone had told me 10 years ago that I was going to be a "housewife" or stay at home mom, I would have laughed at them. I always anticipated that I would be bored staying at home with a baby, and would not want to forfeit everything that I had worked so hard to achieve. I didn't think it would be challenging enough for me to be at home. WOW- I honestly don't think I have ever been so wrong! Staying at home is a different kind of challenge than having a career, but if it is one thing, it is filled with constant, new challenges and is so different than I envisioned it being.

Our challenge for the last week has been trying to begin establishing a sleep schedule and routine. The first part of this was moving Emmett from our room to his nursery at night. This was really, really tough for me. Emmett has seemed completely unphased by it...in fact, he seems to be sleeping better than ever. Maybe he was looking for a little space? We are still on the same schedule during the day- he naps every hour to hour and half for varying lengths of time. At night, however, we made some changes since he moved to his room and been able to establish a very promising pattern for the last week.

Everything that I have read says that part of creating good sleep habits for your infant involves establishing a set sleep time routine that he will recognize. So now, every night between 6 and 7 pm Todd and I read Emmett a book, feed him, kiss him goodnight, rock him for a little bit and put him to bed. So far, it has been working out pretty well. There have been a few nights where he fights going to sleep- he is, after all, mine and Todd's child. That stubborn streak runs deep in him! And he woke up wanting food a couple of nights around 9:30 pm but went back to sleep while he was eating. The result has been him sleeping until 4-6:30 am every morning. At 13 weeks, I am MORE than happy with these results. Of course, this doesn't mean that I am getting a ton of sleep. Since he is now downstairs and sleeping so well, I get nervous and end up checking on him multiple times during the night just to make sure that he is ok. Hopefully I will get over this and we will be a well rested family!