Settling In...

We are now in Colton's third week of life (wow!) and we are finally starting to settle into some sort of routine as a family.

This past week was a tough one, as Colton had his nights and days turned around.  He would sleep during the day, and then be up crying between 8pm-11pm, and then again from 2am-4am.  He also had trouble going to sleep after his night time feedings unless I was holding him, which meant that I didn't get a lot of sleep!  Additionally, he has had a bit of a stuffy nose, which gave him a harder time sleeping while lying on his back.  He would get so fussy that he would be too burpy to either eat or sleep!

I'm not sure if it was people's prayers, the good advice of friends to follow the suggestions Baby Wise, or a combination, but we turned a corner Saturday night!  I slept in our bed for the first time in many nights and Colton actually slept after his nightly feedings!  YAY!

I have experimented with several different ways/orders of getting both Colton and Summer bathed, fed, down to bed etc...without getting anyone too hungry or too overtired, etc.  I finally settled into a routine that has worked well two nights in a row.  Here it is!

7:00pm: wake Colton from his evening nap, and feed him
7:30pm: Give Colton a bath to get him some good awake time so he is tired for bed and get him nice and awake for a final bedtime feeding
7:45pm: Feed Colton a final bedtime feeding
8:00pm: Colton's bedtime
8:00pm: Give Summer a bath (Colton can cry himself to sleep a bit and it won't keep Summer awake, and then Summer gets one-on-one time with Mommy)
8:20-8:30pm: Summer's bedtime

With Paul's test looming next month, he needs evenings to study, so this bathtime/bedtime routine allows me to get the kids in bed before I tutor (which I start back up again tomorrow).  My availability is a bit changed for tutoring, as I used to tutor between 7pm-10pm.  Now I will do between 8:30-10pm.  Because both kids are such great afternoon sleepers, I will still tutor between 2:30-5pm in the afternoon.  We will see how it goes this week!

Summer is also settling into a routine of having a baby brother.  She is doing a great job of independently playing when Mommy needs to nurse Colton and being patient when Mommy can't do something right away.  She has learned what it means to whisper and talk in a "quiet voice"!  She has helped mommy give Colton a bath, pick out Colton's PJ's, count Colton's toes, and put Colton's pacifier in his mouth.  I love having her around!

Here is a little video of her "helping" to rock Colton in the swing tonight....

Other Summer things I want to remember from this week...

-She loves to say "Howda bout dis" (How about this.....)

-She had the cutest grin on her face when halfway through mowing the lawn, I saw her "spying" on me when she should have been napping ;)

-She will often start "reading" a book by saying, "Let's see...."

-She learned "sun came out" when the sun came out while we were playing at the park and loves to say that whenever we refer to that particular park!
-Summer will sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" but in place of "down came the rain" she always says "down came the waterfall" ????
-After we read her Bible story in the morning she always says, "Find an angel!"  So we flip through the pages of her picture Bible and find all the pictures of angels.  Not sure why she has such a fascination with them, but this "find an angel" thing has been going on for over a month!
-Summer was sitting on my lap this morning and my stomach gurgled and she said, "Mommy pooping"!
 -Summer now really likes the cereal "Frosted Mini Spooners" (Malt-o-meal's version of Frosted Mini Wheats).  She woke up this morning requesting "Mini Wheats"!