One of the things I know that stress us mums out about Christmas is it’s the spanner in the works for a routine with your baby especially if like me you aren’t that flexible with nap times. Baby Routines at Christmas may seem like a fantasy, however, here are my top tips to make it easier.
Top Tip
I know many of us are feeling like time is running away from us however something I recommend doing is to actually start buying presents from October and wrap them as soon as you buy them rather than having a big pile to deal with all at once.
Next, I keep the presents in big bags so they are separated by my partner’s family and mine so we don’t take the wrong presents to the wrong household.
Where are you spending Christmas?
We’re doing Christmas Day at my mum’s house and Boxing Day at his other grandparents. They both live 40 mins away from us in opposite directions so we didn’t want to be travelling on Christmas day more than we have to.
On Christmas day we’ll wake up and do our morning routine, when he has finished his bottle we will then open his main present as it’s too big to transport and our stockings together in bed.
9 am is his morning nap until 11 am, I’ll be loading the car and making sure we have everything ready. Leaving just changing his nappy and then feeding him before we get him in the car. I’m not going to take any toys with us as he’ll be overwhelmed enough as it is so all I will be taking is his food for the day and his nappy bag with changes of clothes if he needs them including a jumper.
When we arrive I’ll be settling Theo and letting him run around to burn off the car journey whilst my partner gets everything from the car. I’m then just going to stick to his feeding times so he’ll be fed his lunch at 1 pm (solids) at 2 pm I’ll put him to sleep in my old bedroom in a travel cot.
To me, it is not worth changing his nap and feeding times for one day to accommodate other people, when I know he will then not sleep at night.
In my opinion, which you don’t need to stick to it’s that my child comes first so other people will have to work around us rather than the other way around.
Before having a baby
- 8am wake up and open stockings all together
- Breakfast
- Church
- Walk the dogs
- Relax until “dinner”
- Have dinner
- Watch the Queen’s speech
- Open presents from under the tree with a film on
- Pudding / cold meats and cheese at 8pm
This year, I have asked we eat earlier as it is easier to go home and spend the night here than stay over this year. We’ll be leaving at 7 pm to be home in time for bathtime and bed which I’m sure after the excitement of opening presents he will be exhausted from.
Baby Routine for Christmas Day
- Do normal morning routine of 7am wake up, bottle and nappy
- Open stockings together
- Play with him and give him breakfast
- Put him down for his nap at 9am
- Load the car whilst he is sleeping and get dressed/ready
- Wake Theo at 11, give him bottle and change his nappy.
- Drive to my mums
- His dad to unpack the car whilst I settle Theo
- Feed Theo lunch whilst we are eating
- Have lots of playtime
- Naptime at 2pm with bottle
- Wake him up at 3pm and open any remaining presents
- chill out for the rest of the evening until 7pm when we will head off home
- 7;40pm bath and bedtime