Belen Time

12:00 midnight - Either Jen feeds Belen via breastfeed or I feed her from Jen's breast milk supply.
2:30 am - Belen has been waking around this time and Jen feeds her for about five to ten minutes.
12:00 - 4:00 am Belen usually sleeps, unless she is being a cranky pants at which time Jen or I administer to her needs.
4:00 am - I wake up finding Jen feeding Belen so I go back to bed.
5:00 am - Jen asks me to help her with Belen. Jen will usually have a bottle of about 2 oz milk ready for Belen. Since Belen arrived home, I have been waking up around this time to feed her.

This is a pivotal time for Belen and I because if I do not get her to fall asleep before 6 am, she will be awake on the hour till about 9 am. I have found that feeding her in the living room, as we both relax on the couch works best. After she finishes with the first 2 ounces, I observe to see if she is done. If I feel that she is not full, I will warm her up a couple more ounces.

I will burp her and hold her on my chest for about fifteen minutes, then she falls asleep and will pretty much sleep until 8:00 am. This is typical after each meal.

8:00 am - This time of the day Belen is usually real good at maintaining her daily routine. I begin by changing her diaper which is immediately followed by a feeding. On occasion, I warm up her milk before I begin changing her diaper. This allows the milk to be ready as soon as I finish changing her. We typically go to the living room and spend about thirty minutes eating, burping and falling asleep.

12:00 pm - Belen will sleep until about noon and the cycle continues, again. There has been a couple of times when I had to wake her up so that she may eat. The information that I have read states that I should not allow her to go more than three hours before eating again. I don't let her sleep but I also don't shake her so that she may wake up. I find that changing her diaper gives her a boost in waking up.

My goal is to maintain a four hour routine, and Belen does very well for the first part of the day till about 4 pm. The routine of taking care of Belen is pretty straight forward. She sleeps for three hours, wakes up, gets a new diaper which obviously requires a wipe down of her privates then she will eat from 2 to 4 ounces of milk. I have given her as much as 5 ounces in one session, never more and most of the time she will take an average of three ounces.

Lately, Belen tends to shift into a 2 to 4 hour schedule from 4 pm till about midnight and sometimes as late as 1 am. I don't understand why she goes off into this weird schedule, but if you think about it, she does it on a daily basis that perhaps this is simply part of her routine. Jen and I have become accustomed to it, we record all her feedings and spoils and simply do our best to keep her on track towards a healthy feeding schedule.

I absolutely do not mind taking care of my baby girl. I have been pretty good about getting up early in the am, though there have been a couple of days when I would much rather stay in bed. When I am home alone with Belen, I will take a nap between 9 and 11 am to catch up on the previous night's wake up calls. Belen will begin waking up around 11:30 and by noon she is on her schedule.

Belen Times are not to the minute but they are real. There is a fifteen minute flux but the general time, "Belen Time" is consistent throughout the day. Furthermore, I have learned more about babies since Belen arrived home on the 10th of April, than I have done my entire life. I am thankful to my siblings' kids because I did not arrive to this point without any experience. Does that make any sense?

I am thankful to Heavenly Father for this blessing and I love my wife for her dedication, love and compassion. I love spending the day fulfilling my role as a father simply because I love my family. I can't believe that there is another body in our home and now there is three of us to fill this humble abode.