Is there anything you do as a parent, that’s the complete opposite of what you expected you would do?

In many ways, I parent in exact the ways I expected.. however.. in one very big way, I don’t!

I am a routine ADDICT.. I find myself doing lengthy calculations of how 5 minutes extra here means 45 minutes less there.. 20 minutes later there gets a whole hour later here.. maybe it’s the puzzle that entertains me and keeps us a it! (Or maybe it’s the no night waking and super long naps!!)

Which is funny because Papa O and I couldn’t have less routine in our own lives! As members of the shift worker/ self employed bracket of humans, we grab our sleep when we can, grab our food when we can and fit everything else inbetween!

For the first few months our ‘happy go lucky’ approach of ‘follow his lead’ or ‘chuck him in a carrier and continue with normal life’ worked wonders. Until it didn’t. One day it broke. And remained broken for WEEKS! He was tired, he wouldn’t sleep, he was up all night and he wasn’t the same super happy, chilled out boy! We were ready to try anything..

I vowed I would never be that person who is ‘free between 10 and 12.30 or after 3pm only’.. but it turns out I’d rather be that person, than the one I was- turning up an hour late for things because he’d finally fallen asleep and you must ‘NEVER wake a sleeping baby!’

I was sceptical, but desperate! In so many ways I wanted it to ‘not work’; proof that routines were a load of rubbish! But it did. A luxurious 2 hour lunch break and mostly full nights sleeps became the norm! It was ingenious!
Don’t get me wrong, there are some down sides.. I have heart palpitations if we need to be somewhere at 2pm.. long buggy naps are a thing of the past!.. we’ve spent far too much money of blackout contraptions of every variety for an extra half hour’s kip… but I’ll take it!
Anyone more closet routine addicts out there?

Note: I’m obviously writing this on the day that we decided to ‘lie in’ til 8am, which has completely screwed up ‘the routine’ and unless he’s started sleep talking, he’s definitely NOT currently napping! So it works, yes, but only if you stick to it 😂