The Hardest Thing

Over the past month I've thought about some of the hardest things about being a mom, so many things have come to mind. I would go through something and think, "Wow, this is the hardest thing about being a mom so far.." only to have another experience challenge me even more...

• getting him on a schedule/routine (especially bedtime)
• feeding him enough but not making him dependent on me at times when he uses nursing for comforting 
• balancing time for everything and everyone (especially fitting in the time for myself and Andrew)
• going back to work and letting someone else care for Lucas
• watching him grow up so quickly

Every day is different, some days are harder than others, while some days seems like a breeze where I get everything done and Lucas is just happy and on his routine and easy to care far that day....those days are oh so much fun but can sometimes be tricky because that means I think every day should be that way :) But I can surely tell you, every bit of it is worth it! 

Right now his schedule has gotten much better. We kind of set it together...

Once he wakes up each day between 8-9am  and we play until he acts hungry sometime in that hour.

He usually plays a few more minutes before wanting a nap somewhere around 10 am.

Then he wakes up and we play and he eats and plays again. 

He usually goes down for a nap again between 1-2pm and sleeps until 4pm or so.

Then he is generally awake and ready to eat again, but the evenings are hardest....that's when he gets cranky.

We usually try to keep him awake so he'll sleep that night, but he's been sleepy and fighting sleep so much at night, so we're trying to move his bed time up (which is hard). He seems to be fighting it lately, even when putting him down for a 3rd nap or an earlier bedtime. Right now he's getting to sleep around 10pm, but we'd like it to be earlier...like around 8pm, so we're trying to move it up. Last night we tried moving it up to 8 because he was so tired, but he was in and out and fought it until he finally fell asleep at 10pm. He ended up waking up 2 times last night to eat versus the last week where he'd been waking up only once to eat, which is ok, but hopefully he'll get back to feeding one time a night. 

I need to not stress and worry so much about this schedule/routine, but I know he needs a routine and thrives off it, just like I do (yes, I am type A). It seems that he has set himself in a good rhythm right now, but we will have to adjust again when I go back to work in a couple of weeks and he goes to child care.  I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it, right now, I'm still going to work on an earlier bedtime, consistency will pay off as it did when we got him to bed at 10pm. 

So what is the hardest thing about being a mom???? 

I'll let you know when I figure it out, check back with me daily because I bet it will change daily.... 

But the best thing? that's easy!! Look at the picture below...that's the BEST thing about being a mom!! 

so tiny at his newborn session