Moms of Littles – The Baby Years

This idea of a series of posts directed toward “Moms of Littles” has been bouncing around in my head for a while. I’ve hesitated to write it because I fear that it might be taken the wrong way. So let me address those concerns first. My fear is that by writing practical advice to moms, people will think that I am essentially saying, “I’m a perfect mom, my kids are perfect, and my way is the only right way.”

I am certainly not a perfect mom. I was not a perfect mom when my children were little. And my children? Well, they are not perfect either. This series will be a testimony of sorts based on my experience as a mother and an educator. You may be able to take some ideas and apply them to your own motherhood journey and you may not. My way is definitely not the only way.

Now that we have that disclaimer out of the way, let me introduce you to my family. This is us.

My husband, Marc, is an automotive technician. Chaz is 18 and is headed off to Heartland Baptist Bible College in the fall (less than a month…yikes)! He is majoring in Ministry of Music. Harley is 17 and gearing up to start her senior year in high school. I am a teacher, coach, and author. This picture was part of Harley’s senior photo shoot and I LOVE it! There’s a story behind this picture. When Chaz and Harley were little and would see Marc and I hugging, they would run up to us for a group hug and say, “Happy family, happy family!” We still do it on occasion and have a good laugh. I’m glad Rachel from Crossroads Photography (she’s amazing if you are in this area and need pics) thought to have us hug and of course, we were whispering, “Happy family!” 😊❤️😊

Now on to the reason I felt burdened to write this series of posts (which is going to get very personal).

When I was a young mom, I knew how I wanted my kids to be: obedient and respectful. I thought I knew how to get them there. But I didn’t.

I feel like I’m skipping way too much by jumping in right there. Hmmm…

I guess I will have to back up a bit.

The Baby Years

My mom had five children. She also worked in the church baby nursery for longer than I had been alive when my kids were born. Thanks to my mom, I was aware of those first signs of rebellion (fighting a diaper change, screaming instead of crying, etc.) and I handled them with a firm, “No,” and sometimes a light swat* on the leg.

*Yes, I spanked my kids. If you hang in with me in this series, you can read about how I believe there is a right way and wrong way to do it.

Chaz.

He is our rainbow baby. He was a big baby with a hearty appetite. He loved his pacifier. We rocked him to sleep every night. I did not like nursing. That may be an understatement. I hated nursing. That was mostly due to the fact that I had an overabundance of milk. I cannot even go into it on this blog, but looking back I could have made A LOT of money selling my milk. 😳

Anyway, when Chaz was about nine months old, I started weaning him because we had plans to start trying for our next baby in about six more months. You know…the “perfect” two year age difference. Two weeks later, we found out baby #2 was already on the way. I’ll be the first to admit, I may have panicked a little bit.

Poor Chaz.

He had developed a really bad habit of waking up when I would try to lay him down at night. I would then have to rock him to sleep again. The whole process of getting him to sleep at night was taking way too long. I knew I couldn’t continue this. There was no way that I could rock two babies to sleep.

We decided it was time to put him to bed on his own. The first night was so hard for this mama. He cried for 30 minutes. The next night, it was already down to 15 minutes. And the next night, even less. It took only four nights of crying for a short amount of time for him to go to sleep on his own. That was the BEST thing we ever could have done for him and for us. When he started walking, he would literally come up to us and say, “Yight, yight,” and then walk to his room and wait for us to put him in the crib when he was ready for bed. Crazy, I know!

Poor Chaz.

We also started working on getting rid of that pacifier. I had seen older kids with pacifiers and how difficult it was for them to give them up. I had also heard stories of dental problems because of extended pacifier use. Now as a teacher, I am even more concerned they may contribute to speech delay. Anyway, I had my reasons and the pacifier was going to be gone before he turned one. Getting rid of it during the day was the easy part. He was still using it at night and would often wake me up when he couldn’t find it. Remember, I was pregnant with baby #2. Waking up in the middle of the night to find a pacifier was not working for me. I cut the tips off the two remaining night-time pacifiers and that was the end of that.

We often joke about “Poor Chaz.” His life got turned upside down in a matter of months between weaning him, having to go to sleep on his own, and losing his pacifier. However, he was still a happy, healthy boy, and those changes helped make our lives easier as we prepared for baby #2.

Harley.

She never had a chance! We had learned so many things from our experiences with Chaz that we didn’t make some of those same “rookie” mistakes. She actually started going to sleep on her own (most nights—of course, we still rocked our precious baby sometimes!) from the beginning. It was a little weird, but I wasn’t about to mess that up. She didn’t take to a pacifier and I was fine with that!

However, she did find her thumb. We set a goal for that of 1 year for all of the same reasons I listed about the pacifier, but it took a little longer since we couldn’t take it away! I tried the nasty stuff you paint on her thumb. She would suck it, cough, suck it, cough, and continue until the bad taste was gone. During the day, we would simply tell her to stop. She continued to suck her thumb at naps and night time for a while. A couple months later, I tried the nasty stuff again at nap time for a couple days. A few weeks later, I realized she wasn’t sucking her thumb anymore.

As a teacher, can I encourage you to try to stop the sucking of thumbs and fingers early before it becomes so difficult to stop? According to ChildrensMD, “If you wait too long to stop the thumb and finger sucking, your child can have permanent changes to their jaw shape, bite, and teeth. Speech can also be affected, and many thumb suckers will need speech therapy.” I have definitely seen this in my teaching experience. And then there is the germs…when kids come to school still sucking on their thumbs and fingers, they are constantly putting germs in their mouth and sharing those germs with everyone in the class.

Well, that ended up being a long introduction. And I never even got to why I decided to write this little series! Oh well, maybe that will make you want to check back for the next installment. 😉

Hang in there, Moms of Littles! I know there are difficult days, but the Lord has blessed you with those precious littles and He will give you the strength and wisdom to raise them!

P.S. If you have specific things you’d like me to address in this series, use the contact form and e-mail me (or leave them in the comments below). Speaking of comments, I know motherhood can bring about all kinds of strong opinions. Keep it kind. 🙂

Part 2 – Core Beliefs
Part 3 – Terrible 2s or is it 3s?
Part 4 – Discipline