Month 10 Wake Windows
A detailed look at how my ten-month-old baby and I typically spend our wake windows. (A wake window is just the time between naps, when the baby is awake.)
Wake up
In the morning, wake-up is any time after 6:30am. If Toby is stirring more than an hour before that, we will feed her, change her, and set her back to sleep. Between 5:30am and 6:30am, if she wakes up, we let her try to fall back asleep on her own. She frequently sleeps in until 7:00am.
For the midday and evening windows, we can expect Toby to be ready to roll at any point after she’s been down for an hour of nap. That’s often 10:30am and 3:00pm, but sometimes she stretches out those naps, and we do our best to let that happen :)
Reorient
After wake-up, we spend a bit of time reorienting - I think we all know how hard it can be to transition out of a solid nap.
In the mornings, when the diaper change is not urgent, we head out and do a patrol of our domain. This is just me holding her and walking around the house and yard. I enjoy the fresh air and chance to appreciate the sunrise. I think she enjoys the opportunity to stay close to me after being alone in the crib, because if we have to address the diaper first, she fusses quite a bit.
For the midday and evening windows, reorienting consists of a quick check-in on Mom at her home workstation, and maybe a game of “find the cats.”
After reorienting, it’s diaper change time.
Eat
Next up, it’s meal time. Each meal throughout the day is kind of the same (bite-sized fruit, veg, meat, and a grain). But for breakfast, a couple things are different. First, she’s still in her PJs so we can afford to get a bit messy. Yogurt is on the menu. Second, Toby seems to really like toast, so I make a point to share some of mine with her as the breakfast grain.
For lunch, I serve her whatever’s in the fridge while I also get something ready for myself and Mom. (I’ll talk more about prepping food for Toby in a separate post).
During the evenings, this is a bit different. Dinner will be at 5:00pm or so, giving us more time to hang out as a whole family before then. If I’m cooking dinner, Toby will have some time alone with Mom. Then, we all eat together.
Clean
With the solid foods taken care of, we have some clean-up to do. We head to the bathroom to wipe her face and wash her hands. In the mornings, we also get to brush teeth: we’ve got a little silicone banana brush and she genuinely gets excited for it.
Play
Finally: time to play!
After being carried around and plopped into her highchair, she’s got energy to burn. This round of play tends to be very independent, covering lots of ground and …reorganizing the toys. I make sure she gets to make some decisions for herself and try to just be there to keep her safe.
Outing
We aim to get out of the house at least once a day. I can almost always come up with a reason to head to the grocery store. The library is a nice easy walk, and the mall is a great place to people-watch. Toby is always a good companion for errands.
In the morning, it’s usually 7:45 or 8:00 by the time we’re done playing, and we’re targeting 9:15 for our first nap, so we don’t often have time for a meaningful morning outing. If we get up early and make money moves on the rest of our tasks, maybe I can get us to the beach for a little walk.
Most of our outings are in the midday session. It’s not ideal because that’s also the hottest time of day, but we can handle it.
We’ll go out as a family after work a couple times a week, too. We get to be a bit more ambitious for those outings because we’ve got Mom to help. And the evening wake window is the longest.
Bottle
This is new for Month 10: I’ve shifted the bottle to the end of the wake window. Toby has gotten a lot better at actually feeding herself in the highchair, so the bottle can wait. And this also feels like a good glide path towards weaning: solid foods are her first option, and the bottle bats cleanup.
It’s also a nice way to cool down before the nap. Our girl has always been easily distracted from nursing or taking a bottle, but I’ve found she sticks to the task at hand a bit better when she’s just about done being awake.
Sleep
Before getting back into the crib, it’s another diaper change, a quick look at a book together, and into the sleep sack.
While the baby is asleep, it’s my time to take care of some chores - and myself.
The first priority is cleaning the bottle(s) we used during this last window and prepping a bottle for the next one. Then I make sure the kitchen is clean and keep the laundry moving if we’re doing that today.
With that all set, I’ll get some time for my own hobbies. Or a nap of my own!