I remember when Mabel was two weeks old, a milk slug with that oxytocin inducing newborn smell and then me, barely washed, hungry and not the foggiest idea which day it was desperately trying to navigate feed times whilst rinsing the pharmacy of infant Gaviscon.
With baby fed, changed and wrapped like a beautifully formed burrito I hastily typed into Google the very question all new parents seek the answer to ‘when does baby sleep through the night ‘. The words written in bold jumped out of my overly lit screen, six months to never. Sigh. I glanced at my dozing offspring and back at my screen and announced my new wave of tiredness to my (very) modest Insta following. I was so grateful to be directed to a baby book, which I instantly Amazon primed and we had ourselves a brand new routine.
It changed everything! Because as soon as your child arrives your life is now milk comas, poo-splosions sleep deprivation and a bit of colic for good measure. So at least with a routine you can rein in some level of control (I’m saying that very loosely). Twenty months on and I can confirm Mabel can sleep a solid 10hours at night (except when she’s unwell). She’s an early riser, it was 4am starts for a long time and we’re now between 5 and 6 am so there’s progress.
The reason a routine was so important to us was of course the sanity of two sleep-deprived parents but also because I want to be able to work around Mabel by freelancing. Being able to work flexibly is really the only option that works. My hope is that employers will see that mums are super multi-taskers (I once saw a women in Aldi breastfeeding a child in one arm and packing the shopping with the other).
My work day is now usually broken into three sections rather that one 8-5 stint but it works for us. Everyday is a balance and there’s no perfect routine but my professional experience, be it trend forecasting, design details or tech packs haven't changed.
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