A Day in the Life of Delilah
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about Delilah’s daily schedule or routine. She doesn’t really have a set routine but we try to do certain activities like eating and naps around the same time. Overall, our day is based around what Joshua and I have going on and Delilah’s mood.
Usually, when I have any type of question, I turn to Pinterest. Whether I need a recipe, a homemade cleaning solution, ideas for foods for Delilah, or if another parent has the same questions as me, I turn to Pinterest. When I was reading up on ways to get your baby to go to sleep on their own (which I still haven’t accomplished), multiple pages said a routine is key to regular sleep. In the efforts to procrastinate the inevitable battle of getting Delilah sleeping in her own bed, I thought a daily routine would be a good place to start. I’m a fan of “slow transitions,” meaning I don’t like to make big changes abruptly, so I thought the best way to get her on a daily routine would be to alter the somewhat routine we already have.
So, what’s a day like in the life of Delilah? By the way, this is an average day where I’m not working and am home with Delilah all day. Also, all the times are approximations sometimes I honestly have no idea what time it is when we’re doing our daily activities!
8:00-8:30am: We wake up
We like to sleep in! And sometimes we even sleep in until 9:45am. During this time, Delilah and I usually take our time getting out of bed by talking and playing until she’s ready for her first bottle of the day.
Around 9:00am: Playtime
Once Delilah finishes her bottle, we usually get out of bed and Delilah plays with her toys in the living room while I have coffee and tidy up around the living room.
9:30-10:00am: Breakfast time
It seems a little late but we usually don’t have breakfast until close to ten. We usually take our time in the mornings and that seems to work for us. At breakfast time I’ll put Delilah in her highchair with a biscuit or some yogurt bites to much on while I prepare her breakfast. Today she had ½ of a mini bagel with cream cheese and some cut up banana. Usually while she’s eating I’ll whip up something for myself and the rest of the family. Sometimes I may even get some dishes washed or laundry going if she takes her time eating.
10:30-11:00: Get ready for the day
On days when we’re planning to be at home all day, I usually wait until after breakfast to get Delilah dressed for the day. Sometimes it feels strange that she’s in her pajamas until almost noon but it’s better than changing her outfit multiple times a day. She is a messy eater! After Delilah’s dressed and looking cute as can be I try to do a little something about my own appearance while she plays with her dad or grandma.
Around noon: Naptime
Delilah takes her morning nap around noon. I say around noon because sometimes it’s around 11:00am and sometimes as late as 1:00pm. Right now, her favorite way to fall asleep is cuddled up in someone’s arms while holding her Bluetooth speaker playing her country playlist.
Around 2:00pm, or when she wakes up: Lunchtime
Lunchtime is either the best time of the day or the most stressful, depending on what I have going on. On busy days, I make Delilah something quick and easy from the freezer ahead of time. Today she had a chopped up hardboiled eggs with Asian style veggie/rice blend and an applesauce mini muffin. Today was an easy day so I also used the opportunity to prep some new foods for busy days by making mini applesauce muffins and protein pasta cups.
3:00pm-5:30pm: Free time until naptime
After Delilah’s lunch we don’t have much planned regularly. Sometimes if she’s really messy, we’ll give her a bath but mostly it’s just extra playtime. Usually if she watches any of her shows during the day it’s around this time. Recently Delilah’s been using her push toy to practice walking. She hasn’t figured out how to turn around but she walk’s back and forth between my mom and I and we turn her around. Usually around 5:00pm- 5:30pm, she’ll take her second nap of the day with Joshua or my mom while I make dinner.
6:30-7:00pm: Dinnertime
On most nights I try my hardest to all have us eating dinner together at the same time, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out. If the dinner I’m making takes a little longer, I’ll go ahead and feed Delilah because she is not a patient girl. Other nights if she’s still asleep when I finish dinner, I’ll eat so I don’t have to multitask. Tonight, we didn’t eat the same things, but we all ate together. Delilah had some of the protein pasta I made earlier with the applesauce I had left from making her muffins.
8:00pm-9:30pm: Bath time, playtime, bedtime
After dinner is Delilah’s usual bath time. It’s the perfect way to get her cleaned up from dinner and in her pajamas. Delilah loves bath time. Today before dinner she kept crawling to the bathroom and clapping and laughing at the bathtub. I think she was trying to tell me it was bath time. After the bath, I’ll take Delilah to her room to put her pajamas on and play for a bit. This way she can get out any last bits of energy she has for the day. When she’s sleepy, she’ll crawl over to me and we’ll read books. When she’s good and sleepy, I’ll make her last bottle of the day and then it’s off to bed, and by off to bed I mean cuddled up with me. I usually at least start trying to get her to sleep around 9:30pm in case it takes a while, but recently she’s been falling asleep by around 10:00pm every night. I will stay up for an hour or two after Delilah falls asleep to decompress from the day and have a little me time, either playing a game on my phone or working on my latest crochet project.
There you have it, an average day in Delilah’s life. It feels strange looking at her kind-of routine written down, like how late we do some things but right now it works for us. I think the first thing I’m going to adjust is Delilah’s bedtime, and try to get her to bed by 9:00pm. It’s just an hour change, but 10:00pm feels late for her to be going to bed even if we make up for it by sleeping in. It may not be a consistent schedule but seeing it written down, makes me feel a little better. Before writing it down, I felt like we really had no routine at all but we do have our own little groove and it works for us.