Morning People

Cleo likes to sleep in. For a while, I honestly believed this was a good thing. I LOVE to sleep in and I was feeling pretty blessed that my progeny shared in this. On my days off, the kid and I would blurrily blink ourselves awake around 10 or so and officially start our day around 11.

My view during down dog...

Slowly, though, we realized that this carried with it a frightful consequence: Late night baby. H and I struggled for some time with a little girl that would not sleep at night without making the connection. I mean, it seems obvious, but for a long time we missed it that if she is sleeping in until 10, why wouldn't she be up until 1or 2 am that night?

Sadly for dad, once we did make the connection, we had to end the sleep-ins. Alarms were set for 8 am with a special sleep in time of 8:30 am. The kid's been pretty unaffected by getting up earlier and actually does seem to thrive. Dad, on the other hand, has to sigh and, while entertaining the fantasy of building a pillow barricade around the kid to prevent her from toppling over the edge while I sneak in an extra hour of sleep, force himself to get up.

I've combated this by creating a routine. For about 1/2 an hour after waking, the kid climbs and rolls around on the "dad-nasium" and generally has a good time while dad tries to secretly check his email on his phone without the kid becoming interested in stealing the phone from dad. We then go to Cleo's room where she's free to crawl around, make noise, bang on stuff, do her feral growling (I feel at times like my child is part velociraptor...) and generally just entertain herself while dad does some yoga, which includes her rolling under dad and laughing while he is in Down Dog.

Then it's down to the dining room for breakfast for the kid with coffee for dad. After that, upstairs for a shower to clean up the thick coat of food the child has smeared on herself. Then it's back down to the main room where the kid is placed in the Pack and Play so dad can clean up the carnage from an enthusiastic baby breakfast. After that, it's milk time, then nap.

This usually takes us to around noon. I have to say, I've become a big fan of this routine. I'm not sure how Cleo feels about it as her mother is a lot less rigid than I am and their days together are much more free form. For the most part, though, Cleo does seems to do well with this.

What has suffered, though, is our ability to make events. For example, a brief look at PDX Kids Calendar from last Wednesday shows 16 kids events occurring in the morning between 9 am and 11, with only 6 happening in the afternoon... really only 4 if you don't count mommy matinees.


This puts me in a conundrum. Do I keep to the morning routine I've grown to love and that really helps bring peace of mind to me and reliable structure for Cleo? Or do I pack us up without our morning ritual in order to make sure my little girl continues to have a variety of experiences (even if she doesn't really comprehend most of them...)?

Yes, I know the answer is compromise, but I just hate having to break away from something that is working well. I'm hopeful that the new bike trailer (more on that in my next update!) will help with me feeling a bit more enthusiastic about getting the kid out and about in the AM. I'll keep you posted!

Independent yoga time