How Do Parents Deal with Babies and Church Attendance?

[Just_A_Guy]

Just_A_Girl has insisted that we wait about 2-3 months for those of our babies who were born during colder weather (aka "flu season").  I'm no expert, but I think it takes a little time to get baby's immune system up and running; especially if baby isn't nursing (we only nursed #1 and, for a couple of weeks, #2.  Don't judge us!!!)

Edited August 15, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[clbent04]

Thanks @anatess2! This is good information for me

[clbent04]

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

 Yes, I've had a kid yell bingo in the middle of a talk.  No biggie 

Haha! This one made me laugh. Thanks for all the examples. You have a lot of good ideas 

[Bad Karma]

I wish my wife and I had just ONE more, if for no other reason then to loose my demon spawn on the people who have done such to me. Oh, to have a screaming red faced lil red neck Baby Karma crawling around and gnawing on other people's knees donning "Real Tree" or "Mossy Oak" cammo pattern diapers. *Meniachal laugh*

Ya'll are in trouble, ya know that, right? 

Edited August 15, 2017 by Bad Karma

[clbent04]

3 hours ago, Bad Karma said:

I wish my wife and I had just ONE more, if for no other reason then to loose my demon spawn on the people who have done such to me. 

[clbent04]

On 8/14/2017 at 8:42 PM, anatess2 said:

Church is fun!  Well, of course, my husband and I both think Church is fun, even when being quiet for the talks.  I didn't really do anything special to make it fun for them.  It's just another one of the fun  things the family does.  Like visiting grandma and watching football.  When they were babies, I would put a necklace or a shawl that has little grab things attached to it - like the color rings.  I can just put them in the baby bjorn and they just occupy themselves with my necklace when they're awake.  When my first born started crawling/walking, I would strap him into his airline chair (we travel so much so I got this stroller that becomes an airplane chair that is FAA approved) for the entire meeting.  He would just sit in the stroller on the aisle next to the pew.  It's about the same length of time as a flight from Florida to Atlanta.  Or a drive from Orlando to Tampa so he's used to it.  If he gets fussy, I just wheel the thing out to the hallway.   Yes, there were times when I spend more time out in the hallway than in the chapel, but he learned reverence eventually.  My 2nd born was never into running off, so I would just plop him next to me on the pew.

When they got older, I started bringing an activity bag.  It's not regular toys.  The bag only gets used on Sundays and FHE.  So, they have puzzles of different pictures of Jesus (they're very common LDS posters, like the First Vision, the one with Jesus with a child on his lap, etc.).  They loved those.  They also have Book of Mormon figurines.  That one is one of their favorites.  The case is the golden plates and when you open it, you can find different characters from the Book of Mormon.  Captain Moroni has this sword and flag so he's one of their favorites.  Helaman is on a horse, Ammon has a sword and a sheep and King Noah has a tiger.  So they love those guys too.  So, they love hearing their stories because they move the figurines with the story.  But, those figurines can cause them to make noises (galloping horse especially!) during sacrament so I have to give them "the look" to quiet down.  They also loved bingo... we would have bingo cards with pictures on them - like Jesus, Family, Scriptures, Prayer, etc. - and when the speaker mentions the word, they would put the magnet to mark  it.  Yes, I've had a kid yell bingo in the middle of a talk.  No biggie.  

Then one time, when I had the missionaries over for dinner, they gave my 2 sons a name tag that says "Future Missionary".  They were about 6 and 4 years old and they wore the name tags to church so they would pretend to be missionaries and sit with the elders and be very still and quiet.  One of the elders love to draw and he would take the entire talk to draw a picture about the talk and give it to one of my kids.  He would then draw another one for the next talk and give it to my other kid.  That went on until the elder got transferred and my kids started sitting with us again.  But those Sundays, I think, was the time when my kids started to just sit still and be quiet during sacrament meeting without having to pull out the stuff in the activity bag.

Anyway, nursery for them was a blast.  There were times when they wouldn't want to leave.  This was about the time that our ward split so our nursery ended up very small so they had tons of attention by the teachers.  Primary was also a blast.  They just loved all the activities and singing time and the stories and their friends.  I was their singing time leader for a while and man, that was the best calling ever.  It was super fun!  And then scouts started.  They were big into that because their dad and grandpa are big time scout dudes.  It just kept going from there.  One of my kids is now a Priest and the other is about to be a Teacher.  They are gung-ho over those callings - we have a small youth program so they both ended up taking their turn as president of their quorums.  So they became very close to their church friends having to support each other in their callings.

So yeah, I really didn't do anything special besides having them join the church activities.

@anatess2 this is my all-time, favorite response from you. It actually got me excited going back to church with my daughter.

[anatess2]

On 12/8/2018 at 4:10 PM, clbent04 said:

@anatess2 this is my all-time, favorite response from you. It actually got me excited going back to church with my daughter.

I'm bummed about 2-hour Church.  But I'm hopeful that good things will come of it and we're gonna build new Sunday traditions.

How's your daughter doing with Church?

[clbent04]

11 hours ago, anatess2 said:

I'm bummed about 2-hour Church.  But I'm hopeful that good things will come of it and we're gonna build new Sunday traditions.

How's your daughter doing with Church?

She's doing great, thanks for asking. Still high energy, but she's increasingly doing better sitting for long periods of time. I just got to make sure I have the right activities to keep her active mind busy. My issue now is I got to help my wife get motivated to go back to church.  It's been just my daughter and I who have been back to church so far. I took such a long break from church, it's been somewhat detrimental to my wife's development in the gospel. She converted when we were dating, we attended church together for 4 years, but then I took my 4-year sabbatical from church, and she in turn stopped attending as well. I never stopped attending as a matter of not believing in the church (more so just not believing in myself), but unfortunately partly due to that period of inactivity my wife has become somewhat skeptical of religion in general. I shared my testimony with her last night while laying in bed stating why I believe in the church, and I felt the Holy Spirit present, but it may take some patience and work to help get us back where we once were.

[An Investigator]

I go with my two kids age 5 and 2 on my own as my husband isn't a member.

I spend a lot of time sitting in the RS room and have the sacrament brought in there.