Maternity Leave Round 2 – Day in the Life

Happy Wednesday, friends! I was looking back on the day in the life of my maternity leave with Sophia and couldn’t help but be shocked at just how different the two have been. With 18 weeks of maternity leave this go around, I feel incredibly lucky to have had this bonding time with Mason and Sophia! I still have 2 weeks left and just as it did the first time, these weeks have flown by. One of the ways this leave has been different is that I have an additional 6 weeks that I am able to take. First time around I had 12 weeks – what a blessing that I do not take for granted.

We decided to keep Sophia out of preschool / daycare starting when Mason was born. With the winter looming, RSV / flu season and COVID, it was just the best decision for us and honestly for the anxiety that I was feeling over having a newborn at home during this time. Since Sophia was going to be home, I wanted to make sure she was getting 1:1 time with playing and learning so we found an incredible nanny, Daisy, to be with us. I also wanted to have time to bond with Mason the same way I had with Sophia. Little did I know, our amazing nanny would be such an incredible help for us all! The plan is to have both of the kids go back to daycare / school in the Spring, but we will see how that goes. Here are some snippets from my day!

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We are up at 7:15 – what a treat! I feed Mason and then I go pump in the kitchen while Sophia and Mason laze around in the living room. You may laugh, but this pill organizer has been a dream for my morning vitamins and supplements! I try to pump at least once a day so that I can build up my stash for when Gary is on paternity leave.

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I get ready every day – even if that means just putting on makeup with leggings, it still happens. Gary made breakfast and I wolf it down before Mason’s first nap. Gary doesn’t go into work that often, but he happened to go into the office and left around 8:45. While I go put Mason down, I leave Sophia downstairs to finish breakfast and she watched a little show.

Mason naps between 8:45-10:15 and Daisy comes over at 9:00 AM. She and Sophia go up to the playroom and I clean up the kitchen from breakfast. If Mason is having a good nap I squeeze in some emails / checking on socials. Today I actually had a quick call with one of my brides for her wedding in August!

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When Mason wakes up, he eats and then I drop him off with Daisy and Sophia so I can squeeze a 20-30 minute workout in. I did a 20 minute strength workout with 10 minutes on the elliptical. I don’t work out every day, but I usually take that 10:30-11:30 time to either run an errand or get something done around the house.

Daisy gets Mason down for his 11:30 nap and I get lunch ready for me and Sophia. I wolf it down in case Mason needs help with his nap and Sophia eats around 12:00.

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Mason is up around 1 and I feed him, then we go and play a little! Daisy left at 1:00, so it’s me and the kiddos and operation make it to dinner commences! The Lovevery play gym is the best – wish I had it when Sophia was little! Sophia and I play barbie and Mason is super laid back so he’s just hanging out. I also try to facetime with my mom around this time so she can see the kiddies!

Once 2:30 rolls around, I get Sophia a little snack and you guessed it put on a show for her while I get Mason down! When I come back we read some books and I try to do some crafts – I seriously just don’t have a good enough imagination when it comes to pretend play!

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I wake Mason up at 4:00, get him fed and then come down to start dinner. Gary is home early – hooray! While dinner is cooking, I go and take a shower. We eat dinner around 5:00 and I try to get Mason to take one last little cat nap. Not winning any awards for this dinner- it was just meatballs, steamed veggies & buckwheat! I will say, I just realized that Stop & Shop has an app, so I actually ordered groceries for pickup while we were eating! Sophia has been giving us a show every night to the songs from Encanto!

Bath time is at 6:30 and this is honestly when I feel like I am at mile 20 of the marathon! Gary takes Sophia while I take Mason and get him bathed, fed and ready for the swap. He puts Mason to sleep while I read stories with Sophia and get her tucked in. She doesn’t nap anymore so she needs her 7:30 bedtime – praise be!

I come downstairs and immediately clean the kitchen, get all my pump parts ready for the next morning and put some tea on (old lady status)! I have really loved watching Jeopardy lately and watch that while I finish up this blog post! I also get back to another one of my couples – their wedding is in June at an amazing venue near Cape Cod. Gary comes down and we talk for about 10 minutes until he has to finish up some work stuff. I also research some stuff for a trip we have planned in March – let’s just say I am cautiously optimistic that we will be able to go and it’s the reason we had to get Mason’s passport!

I watch the new How I Met Your Father on Hulu and then get Mason for his dream feed at 10:00 PM. I’m in bed by 10:30 and I wish I could say that I get to sleep right away, but sadly I spend time watching Youtube or TikTok videos…such a time suck, I know! It’s lights out around 11:00 for us and I basically pray for a somewhat solid night of sleep!

This maternity leave has also been so different for a number of reasons but mostly because I’m not alone! I have people at home with me, I have conversations with other adults and also my parents are nearby. Of course the biggest difference – Sophia! It’s not always easy having a toddler at home wanting to be super active in the winter, but she is super adaptive and rolls with the punches with a few meltdowns thrown in for good measure! I do wish that we were able to get outside more, but I do try to find little pockets of nice weather to get fresh air with the both of them!

If you made it this far – then bless you for reading all fo this! HA!