Russell Dickerson's 5-Month-Old Son Is 'Already a Fan' of His Music: 'Turn It Up and He Stops Crying'

Russell Dickerson is loving life as a father.

The country music star, 33, and wife Kailey welcomed their first child, son Remington Edward, in September and the pair are finally "getting in a little rhythm and routine with him."

"So far it's been pretty easy because we're not back in full swing touring. I don't have to fly all over the country, which definitely helps with the time at home," he tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I've just enjoyed being able to slow down for a minute and learn how to be a dad. Then once things start picking back up, we'll have the swing of things, [then we can get into] being parents on the road, which has got to be absolute chaos."

Despite the parents not being able to squeeze in a full night's sleep ("a thing of the past"), Dickerson reveals he wouldn't trade the experience for the world.

"Whenever he sees your face and his face lights up, that's the greatest feeling in the entire world," he gushes. "Everybody told me that and I'm like, you lose a lot of sleep and you're always changing poopy diapers. But man, once that child looks up at you and smiles, it's just like, dead. Absolutely. Just smitten kitten!"

The musician has been grateful to have the help of both his parents and Kailey's, who all live near the couple's Nashville farmhouse. The pair, who wed in 2013, try to make time for themselves "a priority" on the rare occasion they can.

"It's not every week, but maybe a couple times a month we get out to have a nice little date night," he admits.

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The pair have discovered one trick for getting some quiet time with baby Remington: Daddy's music. "Whenever he's getting super fussy in the car, I'll put on the title track of my album Southern Symphony and it is immediate. As soon as it starts, we turn it up and he just stops crying. It's the craziest thing."

"He's already a fan, which is good. I've got my son's approval. It was kind of up in the air for a second, but definitely got a No. 1 fan here," he jokes.

Dickerson's other biggest champion remains his wife, who he says has been involved since day one. "She came out on the road with this, she set up all the merch, she was my videographer and photographer during the shows."

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Now the singer-songwriter is honoring his plus one with the release of his latest music video for "Home Sweet," a euphoric tribute to their relationship. The clip features intimate home videos of the couple and raw footage self-shot over the years.

"We had all this amazing footage and then the song came and it was one of those things that worked out so perfectly together," he says. "The first verse talks about getting back from our honeymoon being absolutely broke, the second verse is about being wherever we are together, and third verse is about having a baby. And so it was too perfect not to use all of this early footage and even having baby footage too."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oPZ1iL5LjAE

The "Love You Like I Used To" singer says the pair were emotional seeing the final product and "just seeing and reflecting on the early days. And then when it got to the footage of us being in the hospital and having our son, I mean, we both were in tears."

"I didn't expect it to hit that hard, but it's just the way that the footage was all clipped together," he adds. "To see the footage of us on the road early on and to see how far we've come and all the hard work just made us all in our feels."

For Dickerson, "Home Sweet" perfectly encapsulates how life has changed for the lovebirds since he first proposed eight years ago.

"We went from making $12,000 combined a year when we first got married to now having this beautiful home in the woods and all of the success we could have ever dreamed of," he reflects. "It's almost a daily thing where I look at Kailey and I'm just like, 'Can you believe our life right now?' We have the cutest little angel baby and we always look back with gratefulness."

He does admit to running everything by his wife before it gets released ("I literally play her every song I write") to get an honest sounding board. "I trust her creative process and her eyes so much," Dickerson says. "Even with 'Love You Like I Used To,' the first time we wrote it, she was like, 'the title is better than the actual song, so you should probably rewrite it.' And she was right! We all knew it, we just didn't want to admit it."

"She will always shoot me straight. I can always count on that. It's like having the best secret weapon ever," he adds.

As for romantic Valentine's Day plans, the new parents just want to be able to get out of the house. "Usually we would have been on the road and would just want to stay home and cook. But this year it's like, man, it would be so nice to just be waited on and not have to worry about cleaning anything and not have a baby to worry about. I think we might try to find a restaurant that's safe and do that."

Romance or not, Dickerson says they're just trying to "enjoy every minute" with their baby. "I feel like we just had a baby and today he's 5 months old. Our kid is already huge! We were just going through old videos and mourning the fact that he's like 25 pounds already. It's like, 'Where did this little baby go?!'"

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