Playtime & bedtime

I've been wanting to write a post for a few days now but it's hard to find the time!  That and I think the sleep deprivation is making it harder for me to string together coherent sentences around any one topic. Now that our babies are 7 weeks old they're starting to have longer awake and alert periods. This is great, but also a little harder to manage. Before they'd eat, get changed, and get put back down. That still happens sometimes but at other times, mostly early morning and late afternoon/evening, they are pretty wide awake. It is fun that they're more awake because then we get to have some more playtime. They've been hitting toys that we hang near their hands (unintentional at this point, but still teaching the beginning of cause effect), trying to mouth soft rattles placed in their arms, and are starting to track rattles side to side. We're also getting in more tummy time both on the floor and on a boppy and they're doing more work lifting their heads up but it's still really hard.  The trickiest part about awake time is being able to keep a good eye out for those sleepy signals that tell us it's time for bed, especially since we might still be feeding the third baby! And even if we catch them, actually getting them swaddled and in bed at the right time might not happen because of the needs of another baby. Welcome to being a multiple kiddos.

Isaiah showing you everyone's favorite part of the elephant

Avery & the monkey

family story time

Speaking of sleepy babies... We've also started a bedtime routine. Since they still sleep after every feeding 'bedtime' is kind of an arbitrary thing that happens after the feeding that falls in the 6-7 o'clock hours. We've debated and sometimes waited until the next feeding though because the evening sure doesn't seem like sleepy time most nights. Our bedtime routine is short by design so we can be consistent, and involves a swaddle (like all sleeps right now), a story, and a song. Most nights they're just listening to the story, but occasionally someone will be alert and at least looking in the direction of the pictures. :)

Mommy reading to Ellie & Isaiah

Avery & Mama reading a Kate Endle book