Catching up from the weekend? Check out the posts below:
10 Things Pregnancy Taught Me / Homemade Tomato Soup Recipe / Eating Well

I also decided to revisit Self-Love Reflections topics once/week on the blog. Topic 1 = Confidence. Check it out; share your thoughts; be confident this week!

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Things are still going smoothly around here. I haven’t gone a night without at least 6 hours of sleep and during the day we have slowly been getting into a groove. Getting into a routine is so important to me. I believe children thrive on routine…and I know I do too. Knowing (somewhat) what to expect during a day helps tremendously.

When I was pregnant with Makenzie, I read a book called Babywise. The book discusses helping infants get into a routine and it quickly became controversial. I took what I wanted from the book and adjusted it to fit us well. I will never rigidly place my own routines over baby B, but I can do things to help him fall into one on his own.

I focus on keeping him awake to take a full feeding each time he eats. It is beneficial to his health because he gets more of my quality, heavier milk. It also helps him go longer stretches between feedings. This helps him fall into a natural eating schedule of every 2-3 hours. I still feed him when hungry, but I can also tell around what time he will get hungry based on when he last ate. So important!

For sleep, I try to keep him awake briefly after each feeding. This is so when he naps, which is a LOT as a newborn, he isn’t used to being held, rocked, etc in order to fall asleep. I hold and rock and cuddle him plenty, but when he tries to sleep…he gets to fall asleep on his own. Which he does easily.

I used these ideas with Makenzie and very rarely did we have issues with them. I believe it helped her feel more secure to know what to expect in her little world. It helped me more easily go about life and be able to take her places. You certainly have to be prepared to go with the flow as a parent, because the unexpected always waits around the corner. However, you can still have some order with a little practice, patience, and persistence.

Please note: These are my personal beliefs on what works best for me and my family. Every mother knows her child and her own needs best. I never judge anyone for doing/believing differently. I hope the same courtesy can be extended to me as I know, from past experience, that these topics can sometimes get heated.

Question of the Day – Do you thrive on routine or does it stifle you?

We got to come home today! Technically, our discharge should have been tomorrow but they allowed us to leave earlier since the roads may worsen for Thursday. We took advantage of that offer. Although going home did present a few problems.

First off, we had no car. We headed to the hospital via ambulance, remember? Peter’s dad helped us out. He drove up and then picked up Peter to take some of our stuff home and pick up the car seat. When they made the original pit-stop to our house, they quickly discovered that our neighborhood’s roads are still not driveable.

What did that mean for us? We still went home. We had to park the car at the front of the neighborhood and walk up to our house.

The fun just never stops, huh? Luckily its a short walk and we made it safely. We also managed to get Makenzie home. I wish you could have seen the excited look on her face when she first saw him!

It feels so incredible to be home with my family!

Question of the night – What makes your home feel like home to you?