To Schedule or Not To Schedule

So, in case anyone is wondering...parenting is not easy! :) Getting pregnant demanded our trust in God; a safe, full-term pregnancy demanded our trust in God; now raising our child(ren) will demand our trust in God. God is the reason that all of our petty parenting foibles are ok...Miles has a perfect Father who will never make mistakes or let him down. Now, God is not deciding whether to use cloth diapers or when to introduce solids. There are lots of decisions that parents make in the hopes that they are serving their children well.

One of the first questions we get from other parents, and one of the first huge parenting-style decisions Matt and I have had to make, is whether or not we are going to put Miles on a schedule. There are many books supporting scheduling, and many books supporting demand-parenting (watching and responding to your baby's cues). So far this has been an easy decision for us because we are not very scheduled people. It would stress me out to watch the clock all day. We love being able to leave the apartment to run errands, go out with friends, or enjoy the Fall weather without needing to worry about how these things fit into Miles' schedule. What we have started to do, however, is get Miles into a bit of a routine. We didn't discover this routine (I forget which book(s) it is from--thank you Sarah for the suggestion!) until a few weeks ago, and until then we were always guessing at what Miles needed when he started to cry. The routine has helped us to really get to know Miles' cues, and we rarely have to question his needs anymore. (Part of the "ease" is due to the fact that he is getting more expressive as he gets older, and the fact that Miles seems to be a pretty easy-going baby.)

The routine is this: eat, play, sleep, repeat. If we stick to this, we know that when Miles wakes up he will be hungry. We also get to enjoy Miles being happy while awake, since he'll have just eaten. When he starts getting fussy again, it's a pretty good bet that he's tired. This is no science; we have a lot to learn yet, and his cues seem to change as he grows, but we wanted to share some of his cues with you:

(Two disclaimers: First of all, don't watch video three if you don't like watching babies cry:) Second of all, we apologize for the quality of the videos. We are currently using our point and shoot camera to catch these short clips, and they usually end up really dark.)

At this point, we rock Miles to sleep for a few minutes and then put him down in his swing for his naps. He usually starts getting tired about 1.5 - 2 hours after waking up last. Often he'll start yawning, and his eyes will look somewhat red. He also seems really confused, and goes in between happy and sad a few times. After a few yawns, I went to get the camera, and caught the confusion:

When his cry doesn't really stop, but gets quieter/louder/quieter/louder, he is usually uncomfortable in some sort of way. Here he is hating his car seat as we stop for gas on the way back from Chicago:
For almost every need, there are early signs, middle signs, and late signs to let us know. When Miles is hungry, he starts with sticking his tongue out over and over, as you'll see here. If I don't see this, or if I don't get around to feeding him right away, it turns into rooting. He starts trying to eat whatever is in front of his face (blanket, his hand, my arm...). Missing these signs ends in the late signs: crying with high-pitched screams peppered throughout!