A Day in the Life of Ana Hernandez

           Holding and playing with somebody’s baby is fun.  But have you ever taken care of an infant for one whole day and night?  A baby needs a lot of attention and patience, he or she will need a lot of your time.  My daily routine starts at 3:30 A.M. with my 8-month-old baby girl, Mileen.

            My baby wakes up every morning at 3:30 to drink a bottle.  Once she’s done with her bottle, she falls asleep and I go back to sleep, too.  It isn’t long before I hear my baby waking me up again to feed her, change her diaper, and then I start getting ready for school.  It’s hard to dress, put my make up on, and teach her how to eat baby cereal from a baby cup, all at the same time.  My mom drives me to school between 8:30 and 9:00A.M. and she baby-sits while I’m at school.  At school, I take a little brake from all the stress but not for too long.

            Once I get home from school, I go straight to Mileen and feed her vegetable food and a bottle.  She usually needs a diaper change after that.  Mileen’s a pretty, chubby baby so I get her to exercise on her belly to push herself up and I sit her on a flat surface to help her learn how to sit by herself. She gets frustrated after a while and sleepy and takes a nap. 

            When Mileen wakes up, she eats her fruit and drinks her bottle.  She needs a diaper change right after she eats.  Then she wants me to hold her and play with her for about 45 minutes.  Of course, I get hungry too, so I sit her on her walker for her to walk all around the house, while I eat my dinner.  After 30 minutes passed by, she gets tired of working out her legs so she goes to sleep again and I take advantage to do some homework. 

            When my dad gets home from work, he goes straight to wake up Mileen.  My mom is done cleaning the house and cooking and my brother is done with his homework so they all go to carry her.  Mileen is fascinated with all of the attention but after a while she starts getting fussy because she’s getting hungry.  I, then have to get her dinner and feed it to her. We all sit down and watch TV with the baby and then I read her a book.  When I notice her getting sleepy and rubbing her eyes, I change her diaper and feed her a bottle to for her to fall asleep.

            I go to sleep right away after she does because I know that she’ll be waking me up pretty soon. Then at 3:30 in the morning, my day starts all over again with Mileen.  It’s pretty hard taking care of her now but I could imagine how much harder it’s going to be when she starts walking.