Getting a good night’s sleep (7-9 hours) daily have been proven to give one a healthier lifestyle.

It is proven that getting enough sleep each day greatly contributed to help improve your immune system, metabolism, memory, learning, and many other vital functions of the body. While studies have shown that for most people, having seven to nine hours of sleep is the norm; but there are a small and rare percentage of people that could function just as well on lesser hours of sleep.

I’ve always considered myself to be one of the few to function normally as long as I get my five hours of uninterrupted sleep, but age has a funny side effect that makes you realize you that your body just don’t function quite as well versus when you were in your twenties…. (deep breath)…. Luckily, since getting married last year I’ve been able to finally getting into a good sleep routine that helped improve my overall health as shown by getting less sick and less allergies this past season.

And just when I feel I’ve settled in with my routine now, it’s all taking an other change with the arrival of Olivia.

With Cat going through post birth recovery period, we have been trying to give her as much rest as possible, which means trying to give her as much uninterrupted sleep at night so that she can recover, regain her strength, and really to recondition her body so that there won’t be any lingering problems in the future. In other words, I’ve taken upon the task of taking care of little Olivia throughout the toughest hours of the day, and taking me out of my regular sleeping routines having to feed her every two to three hours throughout the night.

Like seriously?!? No one told me babies need to be feed every two to three hours!? Not to mention it’s the same throughout the day! Like, don’t they ever need to sleep? What happened to those things you saw in TV or movies where beautiful babies just falls asleep at night and wake up all smiles? I was so not ready for this…

Well… I wish someone was there to have told me that babies can only stomach their food for two to three hours, hence they need to be feed every two to three hours… furthermore, because their digestive system is not as developed, you are most likely looking a full pack of dipper every three to four hours as well… okay then…!

In essence, you fathers-to-be out there, be prepared to literally lose your sleep over your babies. But then again, I don’t think anyone will complain right? Just look at them!

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not here to complain.

On the contrary, I actually really appreciates to be given this invaluable time that I get to spend with little Olivia. This is that special ‘Father-Daughter’ time that you so often hear fathers give such a high praise of, and seriously I don’t think you can fully appreciate it until you actually got to be in the moment. It is that healthy relationship of me trying everything from signing and talking to her to try to get her to go to sleep… and she trying every trick there is in her tiny book of keeping me busy and attending to her needs. I mean, that’s the only suitable explanation as to why everything that can happen happens during this brief hours when I am the only one that can take care of her, right?

Well, actually, just want to say that after a month of sleepless nights dealing with all the baby madness that only past parents will understand, I’m happy to say that I’ve made it! Olivia is now one month old, and praise God that Cat’s recondition have gone as well as one can expect that she is now able to help out with the feeding during these tough midnight hours which have made it somewhat easier for me.

I honestly have no complains about loosing my sleep over taking care of little Olivia. I feel very grateful that God have given Cat and I this tremendous blessing that will push us to strive to become better persons as we take upon the tasks of parenthood, and making us pioneers amongst our friends so that we may be there to offer our support for them hopefully in the not too distanced future.

It’s not easy being a parent, but I would not trade it for anything in the world for moments such as this.

Behold, children are a heritage of Adonai -the fruit of the womb is a reward     – Psalms 127:3 (TLV)

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Camera used: Canon 5D MkIII

Lens used: Sigma 24mm f/1.4 AR

Edited in Adobe Lightroom and custom RNI filters

Images taken September 13th, 2017