Adventures in Babysitting

In my last post I mentioned that I just started keeping a friend's baby during the day yesterday. I will have her for the next month until she starts at the day care. My friend is a teacher in another county. Evidently the daycare where she is going to be going doesn't start until school starts in our county. My friend had to go back yesterday, so she needed a sitter for about a month until school starts here. I will be keeping her for about 7-8 hours everyday. She is 4 months old. At first I wasn't sure if I'd be up to it. I was afraid that Taylor would be jealous because she is already clingy with me at times, but so far she has done really well with it. I decided to go ahead and commit to keeping her because I thought it would be good preparation for when we decide to have another child. We are not planning on getting pregnant soon, but I thought it would give me a good idea of how it will be to have two.

Although things have gone fairly smoothly, let's just say that I am glad that I didn't have mine 14 months apart. After all the trouble we had getting Taylor to sleep and dealing with all the crying, my nerves just aren't ready to deal with that full time again. Anna Kate does go down a lot easier than Taylor ever did, but she doesn't seem to stay asleep for long periods at a time. I don't know if it is the new environment or what. She is supposed to be on a 3 hour schedule, but her napping has been a little eratic and so her schedule has been more like every 2 to 2 1/2 hours. I am sure that the longer I keep her the better she will settle back into her regular schedule. I tried to get her to sleep in the bassinet of the pack 'n play but she only slept there for about 30 minutes. I then progressed to the bouncy seat since it is probably the most similar to her seat that she sleeps in at home. The longest she has slept there is 45 minutes. Both of these were placed in a quiet part of the house - my bedroom. I put her in her car seat with Praise Baby on while I put Taylor down for a nap. I was just hoping that it would keep her happy while I tended to my own child. Would you know that when I came back in I found her asleep? It wasn't even time for her naptime again. Oh well, I am sure she needed it since she hasn't been napping very long. I guess we will see how long she sleeps this time. At least I can get some quiet time in and relax myself while they are both sleeping. This is nice. :)

Oh, by the way, here are a couple of pictures of the two girls together: