Kimber's Navy Family

Having four children does not equate to being up four times as much in the night. I'm always telling my first time mom friends who are worried about ever sleeping again, "You will sleep again. The newborn phase is a phase ." When your sleep is interrupted it feels like it will last that way forever, which it doesn't. It can feel like children will forever wake you and so I try to reassure my friends that their kids will sleep, it won't last forever, and-- hey, see?-- my kids sleep great. Last night was not one of those nights. 6:30 pm Since my hubby has weird hours right now with the Navy, the kids and I went to a friend's house for dinner. Before we left, I had put the children in pajamas so I wouldn't have to wrestle them by myself into pajamas when they were tired and excited from doing something different. I felt very proud of my cleverness when we got home around 6:30 pm and let the boys watch The Croods while our asthmatic toddler did his ...

C holding sleeping O's hand saying, "Brother night-night!" We just transitioned our 26-month old twins to toddler beds. I posted a blog about the first time our twin toddlers slept in a real bed, which happened to be on a family vacation (read " Impossible "). They had actually been climbing out of Pack'n'Plays long before that. Before they were just climbing in and out of each other's Pack'n'Plays during our visits to my parents' house. The room they sleep in there has circular door knobs, not handles like where we stayed on vacation, and they didn't realize they could escape. I would just overly baby proof the room they slept in at my parents' house and pray that they didn't apply this behavior once we got home to their cribs. When we got home from our family vacation, they did make the connection that since they could climb in and out of their Pack'n'Plays, they could climb in and out of their cribs. We ha...

Whenever I look at must-have lists on the Internet, I'm usually surprised to find that I own little of what is on them. So consider this Kimber's Must Have list. What is something that makes it a Must Have for me? For one the cost must not outweigh the amount of time we will use it. I have always wanted a Nap Nanny (like, really, really, really wanted a Nap Nanny... well, two Nap Nannies...), but I could never justify the cost of something that is so easily outgrown that costs over $100 a piece, plus the cost of additional covers-- not to mention the later recall of the product. As long as the cost isn't just totally over the moon, I don't mind an expensive product that is worth  the investment, especially when I can use it from 0-2 years. I heart convenience. Many of the products on this list are overlapped with my past lists. Here are the links to my previous must-have lists: My all-time most viewed post, " I love my stroller ," posted when the twi...

"All of the people, So many people, Go hand in hand Through their parklife." -Blur What snuggling the boys looks like It has been awile since I posted a blog about our schedule. Scheduling a family of five is difficult. Some days we do better than other days. There is a lot that goes into a family schedule. Before I decide on a schedule for us, I think about what our family needs. My husband is busy and needs to be able to have time for his studying. Because I can't count on him to always help with bedtimes or dinnertimes, I like an easy schedule that I can do by myself. This works out well too because on those nights that my husband is home, it is nice to be able to leave him to do the bedtime routine by himself so I can have get out of the house or curl up in the fetal position on the floor-- er, I mean-- have a minute alone to read or unload the dishwasher. I really do think about the needs of myself and my husband before I start thinking about the needs of t...

This blog post on our bedtime routine was inspired by a post I read last night on "Mel's 2 Belles" called Bad Habits . Bedtime is probably the most challenging time of day. By the time bedtime rolls around, your mind is wandering to the bottle of wine you have chilling in the fridge and your body longs to collapse on the couch (with chocolate). Here was our old bedtime routine: Dinnertime sometime between 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm, depending on when I started cooking. After dinner, playing outdoors with the boys. 7:00 pm: bring the toddlers in for bath and pajama time (pajama to the left, pajama to the right, jamma, jamma, jamma, jamma, P! J!) Toddlers then meltdown through entire pajama routine. 7:15-7:30 pm: Toddlers go to bed early because Momma is done listening to meltdowns. 7:45 pm: Momma hollering outside to Husband and preschooler that it is probably time to possibly think about coming inside, maybe? 8:00 pm: Husband wrestles with preschooler through b...

Yesterday I had a conversation with a woman who has one child, a singleton 16-month old little boy. She kept telling me she doesn't know "how I do it" with two 16-month olds, all that waking up in the night. Truth is, our toddlers sleep through the night. We put them to bed at 8 pm and they wake up at 8 am. Sleeping through the night is a hot topic with young children. The first year, sleeping through the night is a relative term. A newborn needs to eat more frequently than a 10-month old. After the one-year mark, I want to sleep through the night, fully. I don't want a relative term. Sometimes I find that other moms use "sleeping through night" when they don't mean it. I have heard moms say their children sleep through the night when 1. they co-sleep 2. they "only" go in the nursery once or twice or 3. they have no set bedtimes. My first "slept through the night." We usually put him to bed around 8 pm. After a year old, he usually ...