Schedule at 13 months

Perhaps some day I'll look back and ask myself what a typical day with Isaac was like when he was 13 months old. Luckily our days have been pleasant and predictable of late, so this question is an answerable one -- at previous points, Isaac's schedule varied so widely and horribly that I would only have been able to grit my teeth and answer, "Every day is different."

Courtesy of Trixie Tracker, here's a look at Isaac's Sleep Probability Distribution map for the last 18 days (since he's been 13 months old):








This map takes all Isaac's sleep patterns for these 18 days and lays them atop each other. White equals wakefulness and black equals sleep; the darker the line at any given time of day, the more likely it is that he would be asleep at that time. There are only a few pure black areas, so we can tell that Isaac's sleep patterns aren't completely fixed. For example, most nights he wakes up once to nurse for 20 minutes, but as you can see by the three stripes of lighter color, the exact time varies -- sometimes it's at 12:30 a.m., sometimes 2:30 a.m., and sometimes 3:30 a.m. Don't worry, this doesn't mean that he's awake all three times on a given night! Also, although it looks like there's a ghost of a chance he'll take an afternoon nap around 3:30 p.m., notice how pale the stripe is -- a nap at 3:30 has only happened three times in the last 18 days. Those are poor odds.

So, on to our schedule, if you can call it that. The timing of the day's events is determined by the time that Isaac wakes up in the morning, which varies slightly from day to day -- for example, his nap has been happening after he's been awake for three and a half hours -- so keep in mind that these times are approximate (and, as they say, may not add up due to rounding):

7:30 a.m. wake up
8:15 a.m. nurse for about 10 minutes
9:00 a.m. breakfast with mama
10:45 a.m. nurse for about 20 minutes until asleep
11:00 a.m. nap for at least one and a half hours
1:00 p.m. wake up
1:30 p.m. lunch with mama
midafternoon nurse once for about 10 minutes
5:30 p.m. nurse for about 10 minutes
6:00 p.m. dad comes home
6:45 p.m. dinner with mama and dad
7:15 p.m. bath given by mama
7:30 p.m. pajamas and stories with dad
8:00 p.m. nurse for about 20 minutes until asleep
8:30 p.m. asleep
overnight nurse once for about 20 minutes until asleep

Boy, that was dull, wasn't it? Talk about factual. When does all the fun stuff happen? Where are the cuddles, the kisses, the games, the books, the toys, the outings to the park, the times when I let him dig in the flower beds even though the dirt makes me uneasy?

Well, let me flesh it out a bit. Over the last few weeks we've usually stayed safely at home until after the nap, since I'm afraid to take him anywhere in the car around naptime. If he has a catnap in the car he won't nap at all for the rest of the day, which makes our weekly 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. playgroup a big disaster -- two out of the past three times he's fallen asleep on the way home, with dire and napless results. So after the nap and lunch we go out, either to run errands or someplace fun like the park.

I say there are "dire" results from a missed nap, but really that's not true. Isaac is pretty easy-going, and he doesn't much care if his meals are late, if we skip a nursing session, or if he didn't get enough sleep. Maybe he'll be a little more clingy -- I'll have to prepare lunch while holding him on my hip, for example -- but we haven't had many schedule-related meltdowns. The most dire consequence of a missed nap is that I didn't have an hour and a half to devote to my own activities. Honestly, I think Isaac's parents are much less flexible than he is. I don't see him writing up a schedule.