URxvt not pulling from .Xresources when starting X. Issue with .xinitrc?

I have my DWM Archbox configured to launch a URXVT terminal when X is started. I have URXVT configured just how I like through my .Xresources file. Below is my .xinitrc

#! /bin/sh

exec xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources &
exec dwm &
exec ~/.fehbg &
exec urxvt

When X starts, the wallpaper through .fehbg appears fine but the terminal doesn't have any of the .Xresources settings (to include appearance and perl scripts) with the weird exception of the font (loading Inconsolata) If I open another terminal, the .Xresources settings load fine and I get my desired terminal look and functionality. Anyone know what the issue may be? **Update:** After getting rid of all the execs except for the last one (moved dwm to last) I still had the same issue. I added sleep 1 after loading the wallpaper and URXVT finally loaded correctly. Curious as to why this worked.