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My son and I shared some early morning hours together…us and Baby Ellia. Watching her funny antics–one of our favorite things to do, he said:
“I’m glad God made babies and didn’t just send us here big.”
He asked me if she had let me sleep last night, and I explained her typical waking up about 3 times–par for the course almost since she was born. We’re working on it, but for the moment, God has given me supernatural energy to combat the lack of sleep…mostly.
“Even losing sleep isn’t worth not having her”, he said with a grin.
“You’re so right, Ashton.”
I pray that I would maintain such a child-like, eternal perspective in life, rejecting the jaded thought of the world that something hard is something to avoid.
18 comments
Love his comment! And I pray the same thing!
“Something hard is not something to avoid.” Great quote. True. It speaks volumes to this American worldview of “convenience”.
Love your last sentence. Alot.
What a wise son!
Sweet words of wisdom from such a young soul. Children definitely see things thru God’s eyes, don’t they?
My kids,all 10 of them..boys,girls,teens,preteens,elementary age…are all thrilled beyond belief when a new baby is coming and after their arrival. They’re anxiously awaiting their newest sibling any day and have been enjoying their newborn cousin and infant friend at church. I am so blessed to have these blessings surrounding me.
I have really enjoyed your blog! I am a young mother of two, we have no family near us and I was wondering what did you do when YOU were sick and had all your little ones to take care of, I am sick today, and it is difficult. Thank you!
Now, I just think it would be so nice for one of the families with 8, 9, or 10 or…children should move close to me in Marianna, FL. so I could help them when they needed and wanted me to. Ummmmmmmmm that would be so wonderful. I miss that ministry. Well, maybe we should move close to one of them. :o) Love to ya’ll.
Kelly, I hope you won’t think me presumptuous (or having missed the heart of the post, which I appreciate and agree with), but I was wondering if you have ever tried any type of infant sleep training such as Gary Ezzo’s Babywise or the Baby Whisperer (by some English lady, can’t remember the name), or are you philosophically opposed to these techniques? Not to brag, but I’ve had (only) three children (so far :)) and have successfully trained each of them (with Babywise) to sleep through the night (8 hours) by 3 months of age, and it has been an incredible blessing to me personally and wonderful for my marriage. Just wanted to throw that out there in case you hadn’t heard of it (I’m sure you have, since you seem pretty well-read), or curious if you think there’s something wrong with such training.
Amanda,
I appreciate you asking. I am familiar with the Ezzo’s, though I’ve not read their book myself. From hearing about it, there are things I agree with and disagree with.
The sleeping through the night thing…mixed feelings. I’ve previously conceived very closely between a few pregnancies and wondered (after reading about “feed on demand”) if I was trying too hard to sleep through the night when I should be cooperating with God’s built-in plan for spacing children. So this time around, I decided to just “go with it”.
Though now, I’m reaching a point where I don’t want to go anymore 😉 and would like to have some sleep, although I can honestly say it hasn’t been as bad as it sounds. I really do feel like I’ve been given “special nursing energy” during the day.
So, I may begin to look into some night training, which we are doing a little anyway, though up until now, I’ve pretty much welcomed the night feedings, if that’s not too confusing 😉
Kelly, thanks for answering what turned out to be a very personal question. I was just curious and figured you had a good reason (since you do for everything you advocate). I hadn’t thought about that as a natural spacing method, but I should have, since my first two were 14 months apart!
yes, Amanda, night-nursing provides your body with the hormone signals telling it that your current infant still needs your energy and breastmilk 🙂 Once you start night-weaning, often your cycle comes back, because the body figures you’re ready for another baby! Amazing how God created the body, isn’t it?
*mother to none, midwife to many*
Hi Kelly, I just wanted to add that I also have only three children, and also successfully trained them with the Babywise approach. The authors start with the right premise theologically (that children are born fallen sinners), as opposed to the Attachment Parenting method which states that children are born inherently good. There are Christian parents in both camps, but I studied both approaches and philosophies and discovered that the theological roots directly affected the whole approach. There are also disputable medical facts, and always will be between the contrasting groups. You have to do what works for your family.
Anyways, I wanted to let you know that the book were a real blessing to our household as well. All three babies – 8 hours by 12 weeks plus predictable naps! I can’t imagine how I would have coped otherwise – especially being a mom who doesn’t deal well with stress.
Oh Kelly, that is so sweet.
My 15 year old daughter is to the point where she can hardly stand her 9 month old brother. She says she needs her own space to get away from him when he cries. He rarely cries, but we are going to move to a larger home this summer just because her negativity is affecting us all. If he crawls into the bathroom in the morning when she is getting ready she yells at him, picks him up and plops him in the middle of the living room, goes back and slams the door. I try so hard to let her sleep in on weekends (those that she does spend here) and once baby is up, I remove him from the house so she has no noise. Just him playing angers her if he wakes her up.
I had visions of a happy family but that will never seem to happen. She always tells us how her life is ruined since her brother was born. The thing is, I RARELY ask her to help. The one or two times I have, she screams that he is MY baby, not hers, and I need to deal with it myself because she never asked for him to be born. She simply does not understand why life has changed since her brother came along. She was basically an only child, and she liked it.
Carmelita,
I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, and ignore this comment if it does, but it sounds like your daughter is dealing with anger from another source and projecting it onto the baby as her outlet. I’m so sorry you are dealing with that. I would just encourage you to dig down into her heart, tie some “friendship strings” and try to get to the root of what’s really bothering her.
Kelly,
There are some MAJOR abuse issues from the past that just came to light in the past few months. The moment I found out it was off to counseling.
I love and love on her though most days it is hard. I try to show her love using her love language, etc. but I don’t know how good of a job I am doing. 🙂 From the day to day of life, I would say, “not so good”, though she tells everyone I am a great mom.
It doesn’t help we are a military family and we will have to move next year. She doesn’t want to move, is refusing to move, etc. I, on the other hand, have only one person here I know, and am more than ready to move. 🙂
Carmelita,
I am praying for your daughter’s full restoration and deliverance from what was done to her. Also for you and your husband to have wisdom and discernment on the best ways to parent her.
What a sweet thing for him to say. 🙂 I was JUST thinking about this as a lady at the soccer field (homeschooling Christian) told me this weekend that they only had three b/c it was hard without sleep and she remembered how hard it was. I went home and thought for a while about how people avoid what is hard.
Jackie Gacad