My favorite time of the day...

These days I’ve got a particular part of my day that I look forward to...BEDTIME. No, this isn’t because I love to go to bed and treasure the few zzz’s that I can get, (although, sleep is something we don’t take for granted around here!) but rather it’s our bedtime routine with Isaiah. I miss him all day while I’m at work, and usually when we get home at night we usually have – AT THE MOST – 2 hours with our little boy before we begin our bedtime routine. And sometimes, he’s so tired from watching the other kiddos at Lori’s all day that he takes a short nap at 5:00!

So anyway, what I’m loving lately is our little moments that we get with him at home at night. Usually Shane and I will trade off playing with Isaiah while the other one makes dinner. Then we all have dinner together. Well Isaiah doesn’t eat or sit at the table, but we do pull his bouncer into the dining room and we talk to him all through dinner. Then it’s a little more playtime after dinner and around 7:00pm we start getting ready for bed. Right now we’ve found that this is about the perfect time for Isaiah to start winding down for the day.

We start with a bath. We’ve been giving him a bath every night and so far this hasn’t bothered his skin too much, and it really helps relax him. He can be really fussy and a bath will calm him right down. Recently he has started to splash more in the bath – not sure if he really knows what he is doing, but I just think it’s cute! Ha!

Mommy...look at all the different faces I can make!

Just try to wrap me up...I'll get my legs and arms out!

Usually during our bath, daddy is working hard to get all of Isaiah's formula mixed for the next day, getting his heal prick ready, and getting his medicine ready. What a great daddy!

After bath time I put on his baby lotion and give him a little massage. Daddy jokes with him that boys don’t need lotion, but it never fails that he loves to cuddle with him after his bath, when he’s all fresh and smells like a “baby”.

I get excited after my baths...kicking my legs and swinging my arms!

After all that is over we move on to his heal prick (if it is the day that he needs it), then his thyroid medicine, then finally Isaiah’s favorite part…BOTTLE.

YUMMY!

He eats and then mommy and him rock for just a couple of minutes…sometimes longer than what he actually needs because this is mommy’s favorite part. After we’ve rocked for a few minutes, Isaiah gets laid down no matter if he’s awake or asleep…usually he is asleep though.

In mommy's arms...

...fast asleep

This is usually around 7:30-7:45pm. And for the last week – we haven’t had to pick him back up at all until his night feeding. This is usually anytime between 2:30-4:00am. And he will wake up, have a bottle and usually fall right back asleep. We’ve been so blessed with our little guy. He’s doing wonderfully! Not that I would mind if he wasn’t sleeping this well, but with both Shane and I working it makes it easier on us that we are able to get a little sleep too! Of course we both are still sleep deprived from waking up in the middle of the night to feed him, waking up to pump, waking up early to make up his bottles, waking up early to get ready for work, waking up early to get Isaiah ready to go to Lori’s, pumping again before work, the list just goes on! I’ve been reading the book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” and this is where I started to understand that Isaiah needed to have an early bedtime. This book was recommended to me by at least 3 different people and so far I’m a fan! Isaiah is definitely happier when he has gotten good sleep! And mommy’s happy to get to spend her evenings with such a special little boy!