Where does the time go?

Since having Isabelle I have become very aware of the time, before I was very relaxed and only glanced at the clock a couple of times a day. Now on the other hand my days have structure, I constantly keep my eye on the time. From when she was first born and I was left alone in the hospital room with her, I was told to get some rest and sleep but I couldn’t. I stared at my little girl for hours as she slept. I thought we had hit the jackpot as she was doing an awful lot of sleeping (I later discovered this was due to the drugs during labour.) As she was sleeping so much I was told it would be best to get her to feed every 2-3 hours, that’s where my clock watching began. Counting down the time between feeds, which later turned into trying to develop some kind of routine throughout the day to get things done at home in-between those feeds.

It became a cycle of clock watching, timing her naps and feeds and trying to develop our new routine whilst still attempting to include our daily chores and activities especially when the Mr went back to work. Now we don’t have those 2 hourly feeds its all about our routine, if we break it then I can only imagine all hell will break loose in our household, especially if a meal is late, or naptimes are late, even worse if we skip naptime altogether.

As she gets older it will become easier rather than planning our days out around naptimes, meal times, bath times and bedtimes. I’m not whinging, I quite like that our days have structure but it also means that a missed nap causes chaos and one very grumpy little lady who then refuses snacks, cries and does not want her dinner.

Right now our days are packed and I couldn’t possibly see how we could squeeze anything else into our days but in the next year or two we are planning on extending our family to add another bundle to our household. Even though I am prepared for another child (and more relaxed about what to expect) I am still rather nervous about how we will manage our time with a newborn and a toddler, especially as Isabelle is always on the go and getting up to mischief.