Naked Time!

I've decided it's time to start establishing a bit of a routine. The easiest one to set up (and my favorite) was the night time routine. It starts with naked time (for Hannah). I strip her down and sit her on a pee pad on a bouncy chair in the bathroom. The reason we have naked time is so she can "air out" a bit. I forgot to mention this, but she had a little case of jock itch...weird, eh? Her netherlands got all red and irritated looking so I started gobbing on the diaper rash cream (we use three different kinds: Butt Paste, Burt's Bees, and the one by Jason) but it didn't seem to be doing much, if anything, the red got redder and it even started peeling...weird. It's been a while since I've seen diaper rash, but I had a sneaking suspicion that diaper rash did not cause the inner thighs to peel. So I showed it to the nurse practitioner when we were there last and she said it was a yeast infection and told us to apply Lotrimin twice a day for 14 days. Then she said not to be surprised but that I would find Lotrimin in the section where they keep stuff for athlete's foot and jock itch...Sure enough, the box had some statement about how effective it is on jock itch. So my baby girl had herself a case of jock itch.

I digress; back to naked time: I like for her to air out so she hangs out in the bouncy chair while I shower. Depending on Eric's homework load, he might join me in the shower. Once we're clean, we fill the tub and one of us grabs her and bathes with her. I've found that it is easier to wash her if I'm in the tub with her rather than attempting to lean over the tub. The other person (this process definitely works best when it's a tag team effort) gets dressed and stands by with her towel to receive her when she's clean. That person will dry her off and dress her while the other person dresses.

Once dressed, she gets swaddled and fed. I put her Sleep Sheep (thanks Shannon!!) on the ocean sounds setting and place it next to her while she's eating. When she's finished eating, I read to her. Right now I am only reading two books, both of which are night time specific: Good Night Moon and Night, Night Little Pookie. I wait till she's finished eating because I don't like to distract her while she's eating. Usually she's asleep by this time but I read to her anyway hoping she might sort of be listening. Then we put her in her bassinet! Night, night little Hannah!!

I'm still trying to figure out a routine for the rest of the day...I think we should wake around 7...and I think she should have an afternoon nap between 1-5 (that way she's ready for bed between 7-9, ideally closer to 7). Yesterday she slept from 3:30 to almost 7 so the whole routine was screwed because she screamed till nearly midnight...But tonight she went down easy peasy at 8:30 which left me time for a quick post before the season finale of True Blood! Woot, woot!

CORRECTION: I am amending this post the morning after because the "easy peasy" turned out to be a big fat lie. Right when True Blood was starting, the Banana began crying. We paused True Blood (woot, woot for a DVR) and went upstairs. I insisted on not bringing her down because I don't want her to eventually think that she can cry her way out of bedtime, so we snuggled in on the bed and I attempted to feed her again (she really only snacked a bit the first time, which is what she did this second time too), then I rocked her back to sleep, and we went downstairs and hit play. After about 20 minutes, she was awake and crying again. This time I gave in and asked Eric to bring her down. This time she ate a full meal on both sides and passed out in my lap without having to be rocked. And this time she stayed asleep, though by this time it was nearly 11:00. On the bright side, that's an hour earlier than the night before.