A Day in the life of Hadley Kate

For all our family and friends back in the states who are wondering what a typical day is like for us here on Kwaj, let me tell you...it's exciting stuff! Except not really. I try and make it so that Hadley has a fairly predictable routine everyday, which makes it a bit like groundhog day for the rest of us, but I have really come to love our little daily routine! So here it is: Hadley Kate's day-5 month edition!

** I had planned to do this blog several weeks ago, but never got around to it. SHOCK. So some of these pictures are of Hadley about 3 weeks ago, and some were taken over the course of a few days more recently because our main model wasn't cooperative enough to do it all in one day. Sheesh...so unprofessional. lol I kid. Anyway, lets all just use our imagination and pretend it all happened in one day. Ready....break!**

Hadley started sleeping through the night (12 hours) around three and a half months (hallelujah!). Shortly after that we started leaving her unswaddled at night. She makes it most of the night unswaddled, but almost always wakes up around 6-6:30am. Fortunately, if I swaddle her arms up she will go back to sleep until around 8:30am!!! Woohoo! This gives me some time to myself in the morning to have coffee, check my email/blog hop, and eat breakfast before Hadley wakes up. I realize I'm going to have to stop using the swaddle as a sleep crutch eventually. I just keep telling myself, "OKAY, THIS IS THE LAST TIME!!" right before I cave in and go swaddle her, because...8:30!! No judgement please.

Our happy girl, ready to start her day!

Hadley is such a happy baby, and is always smiling, and talking to her mobile when I come and wake her up! I change her, feed her, then it's downstairs to the mamaroo, where she hangs out while I pump, eat, or finish up emails.

Hanging out with her woobie, sucking her thumb and watching Sesame Street

Sesame Street came on randomly a few weeks ago, and girlfriend ATE IT UP! I mean...seriously loved it! So I usually put it on while she's relaxing in the mamaroo. After that, its time to take Hadster and Sadie for their morning walk. That morning, our next door neighbor Leigh and her daughter Maggie came with us, and were nice enough to play photographer for me! Here we are walking along ocean side by the Colonel's house.

Hadley is usually not quite ready for her first nap by the time our walk is over, so she will usually play in her bumbo or on her activity mat until she gets sleepy.

We hung out on her changing table and looked out the window for a few minutes, before this...

We have progressed to napping with Hadley's arms unswaddled probably 50% of the time. She tends to wake up halfway through her nap wanting to be swaddled, and I cave and wrap her up: See previous swaddle confession above :(

ahhhhh nap time :) a mom's favorite time of day! Hadley naps from about 10am-12pm. Then she wakes up, eats again, then we take Sadie for another short walk around the neighborhood.

When we got back, Hadley ate some baby food, (I believe pears were on the menu today), spent more time on our activity mat, then read Hadley's favorite "Little Blue Truck" before her second nap. Hadley napped from 2-4pm, then we got up, ate again, and today she hung out in her bumbo while I cooked dinner, and waited for Johnathon to get home!

Excuse my face...she prefers to eat only when I look like an idiot

Also please notice my helper who likes to lurk around for any wayward food particles

Just doing some light reading

Sadie chose to help with tummy time today...Hadley didn't mind one bit

My sous chef prefers to work from her bumbo seat

Johnathon is such a great dad! He always comes home and immediately plays with Hadley while I finish dinner.

After dinner, we loaded Hadley up in the burly bike trailer, and took her on a bike ride with the dog! Once we got home it was Hadley's favorite time of day....bath time!!

We bathe Hadley in the Kitchen sink in her 4Moms tub and we all love it!

Johnathon usually takes on the lotioning and pajama portion of the evening while I clean up dinner, and all of her bath stuff from the kitchen sink. Hadley definitely had a "witching hour" when she was little, which I think was a result of her being overstimulated and overtired by the end of the day. She would fuss and cry, and had a really hard time calming down enough to eat before bed. We remedied this by swaddling her and putting her to bed when she was upset. She would cry for a few minutes, but then fall asleep pretty quickly. Once she fell asleep we would come in and give her a bottle in her sleep, and she would eat so much better! Even though her evenings are better now, we still let her fall asleep, then give her a bottle. Don't mess with what works, right??? She usually finishes her bottle around 8pm, and is down for the night. This lets Johnathon and I get some quality time in the evenings, and usually involves us binge watching something on Netflix. Our current watch list revolves around Sons of Anarchy, Game of Thrones, and White Collar. And that's a pretty typical day in the life of Hadley Kate. Nothing crazy exciting, but I really love our days right now, and I know I will love looking back on this time once Hadley is older! Thanks for sharing in our day with us!