It's That Time Again and Another Milestone

Today marks Iyana's first official day of 4th grade. We had her start Spanish last week just as a starter, but today it's the full load. I can't believe we have a 4th grader now. It's just gone by so fast. This will be our second year of homeschooling. We've had our ups and downs and it took most of last year to finally figure out a schedule that worked for us, but we got it done and ended up pretty happy with the results. I love how we're able to really see and work with the area's that Iyana struggles in most. She misses her friends from when she was in school, but we've tried working in play dates to help with that. If there was any one complaint that she had about homeschooling, it would be that...and maybe that she has a lot of work to do on some days ☺. This year besides taking Spanish and doing all of the other typical subjects, she will be learning Greek with BJ and taking photography lessons with me. All in all, homeschooling has been a good experience.  I love having her home with me more often and she has loved being able to experience all there is to having a baby around the house instead of only seeing bits and pieces of her brother growing up. They have become very close as a result of that which makes me so happy. To see the love that they have for each other just melts my heart.

So, here's to another year of schooling and growing. May God bless this year for Iyana and I pray that she learns more about Him daily and that she would grow ever closer to Him.

The milestone...Dayson has never slept for more than six hours in one shot and that has only happened a handful of times. Over the past four nights, I decided to tackle the night weaning. Instead of gradually working on weaning him during the day, I figured since we have so many problems at night, that I would do that one first. Of course, he is not happy with this but I've been assured by his doctor that he really doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night anymore and that he should be sleeping for longer stretches. At one point in time (a few weeks ago) I had gotten him down to just nursing once at night. That changed when he went through his recent growth spurt and he was back to nursing twice during the night. He's very good about sticking to his four hour schedule. I decided that he could go six to seven hours in between a feeding at night to start with...Dayson's reaction to that first night? We stayed up for an additional three + hours that night (he wasn't a happy camper). The second night was a little better, he wasn't as fussy and he didn't stay up near as long. On both these nights (like with many others we've had of late), we ended up out on the mat in the living room because of me being exhausted and him absolutely refusing to go back to sleep in his own bed. On the third night, he still got up at the expected time, but settled down a lot faster with minimal fussing.

Now, for the milestone I mentioned. Last night for the first time in his life, he slept for just over seven hours! I of course did not sleep that long as my body naturally awoke every couple of hours (and in that, I had to get up and walk around in order to go back to sleep). After getting up one to four times in a night for over a year, ones body does not know how to sleep properly. Once Dayson is finally sleeping better more consistently, I'm going to have to retrain my body to do the same. I'm hoping that this isn't a fluke and that he goes back to getting up several times a night. Maybe he's finding that it's not worth getting up at night if he can't get his midnight snack. In any case, I'm just thankful for the progress that's being made and praying for the strength to continue. It's so easy to give in and nurse him at night so that he'll go back to sleep verses staying up and working with him on going back to sleep without his favorite snack. I'll miss our midnight snuggles, but I think I'm ready to start sleeping more normal again.