we have entered the twilight zone

otherwise known as the dreaded "4 month wakeful period"... I was really hoping to avoid this rumored event as it seems that Malakai is always pretty "wakeful" at night. What came as a surprise was that he was sleeping longer stretches, but wanting to play at oh...4 o'clock in the morning. Not to say that I don't feel blessed that the house is filled with his squeals of delight instead of torturous screams, but being awake at all at that hour can feel dreadful.

We've been keeping up with our pedi's recommendation of having Ben be the night time soother, including bottle feedings if he just won't go down due to hunger. I don't really luck out and sleep through his wakings though. First of all, it takes ALL of my self control to not go in and help. It's not that Ben doesn't know what he's doing...he's amazing, but I'm just so hands on all day, every day that it feels weird to not be able to even peek in the doorway (pedi's recommendation, but I break that rule often).
Second, I can't fall asleep when Kai's not asleep so I hang out and listen if I'm needed in our room.
Third, depending on what time it is and if he's hungry I'm up getting a bottle ready and/or pumping to relieve the discomfort of no longer nursing at night.

It's only been about a week of this as well as adding rice cereal at dinner and before bed. We've been putting him to bed around 9pm and he'll wake an hour or two later. At first it would be every 2-3 hours, then we had two rough nights of every.single.hour. The past three nights he's been a champ at the 4 hour stretch between midnight and 4am or so and it is great to get that much consecutive sleep...but then he's wide awake.

This morning at 4am when Ben went to soothe him back to sleep he was greeted by a loud squeal of delight and the biggest smile. How is our child so cute, even at 4am? So we knew we were in for another couple hours of what we call "wakey time" (cause yes, we are those people who use disgusting baby talk more frequently than we probably should). Since Ben has to get up for work at 5:45am or so, and he's been working 10 hour days with no break to make up for the upcoming holiday I told him I'd take care of it. I knew I'd probably get some sleep later in the morning and he only had about an hour before he had to be up anyway.

So...way too early this morning I was up with my precious little Kai listening to him blow raspberries and trying to be alert enough to interact with him. The sweetest boy went back to sleep at just before 6am.

 I'm sure as soon as we get ourselves used to this, he'll change it up just to keep us on our toes, like it's his job...which I'm pretty sure it is.

I leave you with the latest photos and will be back after Thanksgiving to post photos of Kai's first big holiday and our Christmas tree outing that is planned for Friday.

Just after a bath

sitting in the bumbo and his first time in the stroller w/o the carseat

discovering the scruffy texture of Daddy's chin