Follow-Up, Routine Change

The Talk about the television issues I was having went about as I'd expected. I stated my perspective and frustrations, Roger said we'd never agree on this issue because they are an everything in moderation type family and my view on this is extreme, but that he does respect my opinion and Sara was the peacemaker, as she has been in the past.
" Samara we respect your view and will talk to eachother to see where we stand. If you have some websites or the reseearch you've mentioned I'd love to look at it. We haven't really researched this and what happened over the weekend was more of an experiment than a plan."

I'm hoping that we can find a balance that suits us both. As noted by yesterday's post I do not see any benefits to babies watching television. I think they miss out on other things and the parents use it as a default and miss excellent opportunities to use their imaginations to come up with suitable activities for the babies and themselves. They think that twenty minutes each week, which will become forty before two weeks have gone by, is fine. The main reason they think this is fine, both Roger and Sara said specifically, is because I'm here all week and I do such a great job with them that on the weekends they don't have to try so hard. Hmmm, and how does this make me feel?

Frustrated.

I understand this perspective and can see it's validity. But I'm here for a few years max, they will be with thier children FOREVER. And shouldn't the best quality time be spent as a family and not with their nanny?!

Unless something changes, I will try not to bring this up again. I'm not using this blog as an outlet for my frustrations but as an opportunity to share what I do. Most folks don't understand, respect or value nannies and I'd like to see that change. I've been doing this long enough to know what works and what doesn't and I feel I have a lot to offer. I work very hard and put 100% into my job. I also love my job and make a pretty good living considering that until Norah finishes her doctorate I'm the primary breadwinner.

UPDATE: Jackson and Tabitha haven't watched television since this event. Sara had no idea about all of the research and has told me it was more of an experiment than anything. We all joke about it from time to time, "it" being my extreme response. I think because I responded so seriously they stepped back and re-evaluated. I'm very happy with the outcome and the discussion made us into a stronger, better communicating team that trusts each other more.

All that aside, you may be wondering how scheduling and naps are going, at least I'd like to think that you are. Things are changing again. Jackson is having a really hard time eating. He screams at his bottle before starting to eat. I've noticed that this is worse when he is tired. Which makes sense, tolerance is lower when we are tired. They are both eating less at certain times and we've been having trouble with the last two bottle of the day running into each other. Roger and Sara have decided the third nap of the day is optional. They decided to skip it all weekend. I think that this is contributing the the sleep issues, both babies being overtired. Because one, a nanny, has to choose her battles, I'm letting this one go. I can't control what they do on the weekends and have other concerns surfacing.

If we drop one of the bottles we can make an actual dinner-bottle and drop the going to sleep bottle. This opens up the bedtime routine to actual together time. Right now it focuses on food. They don't need that and once they start getting teeth that would need to change anyway. Since they are five months that could start happening anytime. It is unlikely because they were three months early, but it is indeed possible. Changing the bottle schedule and bedtime routine opens a lot of doors and only closes the door to needing a bottle to go to sleep.

The bedtime routine looked like this last night;
6pm Samara leaves, playtime begins
bath, bottle, snuggles before bed at 7-ish, this is always variable because playtime, bathtime, feeding time, burping time, etc are all variable. Removing some of the parts of the equation should make this period more predictable.

In turn the wake up time would become more reliable. On an average day they wake between 6-7am to have a bottle then go back to bed. The later they go back down after this bottle the less likely they are to actually sleep, the more likely they are to start their day tired and short-tempered.

With the last bottle of the day happening before I leave, at the same time each evening, the morning bottle should follow in line behind. We'll see how this goes. If this works then the evening catnap is gone and morning predictably reigns.

I'll keep you posted!

Yesterday I photographed the babies bottles because there were so many and after I took two out the pattern surprised me. It was also the end of their little square containers. Now there are fewer bottles because we are now at four per day. Wish us luck!