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everyday parenting as spiritual practice

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how to pray with baby: up all night

8 Comments

Continuing with the practical side of spiritual practices with newborns, here is the 2nd in this series of simple ways to pray while caring for a baby: all day long, up all night, in fussy moments, and in peaceful moments. 

. . .

wakingWaking up at night

To pray:

I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I put my hope in your words.
My eyes are awake before each watch of the night,
that I may meditate on your promise.

Psalm 119: 147-148

To practice:

Next time you are up with baby at 2:00 am (or 3:00 am, or 4:00 am – or all 3!), think of all those who are also awake at this late hour: employees working the third shift, tired parents tending to sick children, monks and nuns praying the hours.

Pray in solidarity with those who work while others sleep. Pray in thanksgiving to God who is always present, watchful and waiting.

. . .

Rocking

To pray:

… I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

Psalm 131:2rocking

To practice:

As you rock back and forth with your baby, let the rhythm set the pace for your prayer.

Meditate on a two-part prayer that matches your movement forward and back.

A-men. Je-sus. Yah-weh.

Or choose the four-part cadence of the ancient Jesus Prayer:

Jesus Christ / Son of God / Have mercy on me / A sinner.

As you connect with your rhythm and breath and baby, let yourself be lulled and comforted as you quiet your own soul within you.

. . .

Swaddling

To pray:

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7

To practice:

Whenever you wrap your baby in soft blankets to keep her warm or tight swaddlers to help him sleep, think of Mary wrapping her newborn child in love and warmth. Ask for Mary’s guidance to love, protect, and care for your child.

swaddling

. . .

Singing

To pray:

But I will sing of your might;
   I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been a fortress for me
   and a refuge on the day of my distress. 
O my strength, I will sing praises to you,
   for you, O God, are my fortress,
   the God who shows me steadfast love.

Psalm 59: 16-17singing


To practice:

When you sing to your baby, think of someone who sang favorite lullabies to you as a child: a parent, grandparent, older sibling or baby sitter.

Hold their love in mind as you repeat verse after verse. Give thanks to God for the small, simple ways we share love with each other.

And when you run out of ideas for songs to keep you awake while you help baby fall asleep, try a church hymn – an old classic from growing up or a new favorite from today.

Add your voice to the church’s song of praise to God, who is faithful in the morning, all day, and at night.

. . .

Tune in next time: how to pray with baby – in fussy moments!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Fran says

    1 August 2014 at 4:28 pm

    Laura, I am a grandmother encountering these moments again after many years. Thank you for so beautifully integrating a blessed but very busy time of life with our ever unfolding spiritual journey. I am so pleased to have your thoughts to share with my daughter who is also touched by them. Thank you for being this voice for young mothers.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      2 August 2014 at 7:23 am

      Thank you, Fran! I am so grateful that these have touched you and that you’ve been able to pass them on. It’s an affirmation to know that they resonate with you in another stage of life, too!

      Reply
  2. Cheryl says

    30 January 2021 at 4:26 pm

    My Grandson is 8 months old and my daughter has not slept since he was born. I want to help her but she thinks I’m judging her. I pray every night and day to bring peace to both Kim my daughter and Jackson my
    Grandson.
    Please give me some advice and pray for us.
    God bless
    Cheryl Kramer

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. how to pray with baby: for fussy moments « mothering spirit says:
    4 August 2014 at 6:01 am

    […] more mindful with a new baby in your life? Check out two more ways to pray – all day long and up all night – and the complete series on spiritual practices with […]

    Reply
  2. how to pray with baby: in peaceful moments « mothering spirit says:
    6 August 2014 at 6:38 am

    […] last in the series on how to pray with baby: all day long, up all night, in fussy moments, and in peaceful […]

    Reply
  3. spiritual practices with newborns: a new series « mothering spirit says:
    1 September 2014 at 4:21 pm

    […] up all night […]

    Reply
  4. the theology of tired (and a prayer for the sleep-deprived) - Mothering Spirit says:
    7 August 2015 at 4:01 pm

    […] since 2009 I have been weary to my bones. This is the happy side effect of answered prayers and three […]

    Reply
  5. The Theology of Tired (and a prayer for the sleep-deprived) | The Catholic Wife says:
    26 August 2015 at 11:45 am

    […] since 2009 I have been weary to my bones. This is the happy side effect of answered prayers and three […]

    Reply

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About Laura

I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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thismessygrace

Mother, writer, wonderer.
Seeker of God in chaos & life with kids.
Author of Everyday Sacrament & Grieving Together.
Glimpses of grace & gratitude.

thismessygrace
Woke up tired of tears, ready to move, Psalms in m Woke up tired of tears, ready to move, Psalms in mind. Who’s with me?
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving h I am not resigned to the shutting away
of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be,
for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen,
the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Dirge Without Music.”

Margaret Susan Fanucci,
2-27-16 - 2-28-16.
Abigail Kathleen Fanucci,
2-27-16 - 2-29-16.

Thank you for walking these days with me. For your love, your kindness, and your generosity.

We will never forget them.
Now you'd be three, I said to myself, seeing a chi Now you'd be three,
I said to myself,
seeing a child born
the same summer as you.

Now you'd be six,
or seven, or ten.
I watched you grow
in foreign bodies.

Leaping into a pool, all laughter,
or frowning over a keyboard,
but mostly just standing,
taller each time.

How splendid your most
mundane action seemed
in these joyful proxies.
I often held back tears.

From "Majority" by Dana Gioia, a poet-father who knows.

2.27.2016.
Always a birthday.
Even when not happy.
I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh tank top hanging off my scrawny shoulders. I am eleven years old, listening to a grey-haired coach with a whistle round his neck.

"Here is how you pivot," he says, grabbing the ball & crouching down. "Plant your foot, solid like a rock. Don't ever move it."

I am trying to learn, because basketball is cool & I am not. I desperately want to be good at shooting, scoring, stealing, anything. But he is teaching me something I will not forget.

“The power of pivoting is you can turn any way you want. You can move where you need to go. You just have to keep this foot planted."

Today I pivot.

One day between birthdays. 24 slim hours to turn from joy to grief.

Yesterday the bouncing babe turned a whole year old. He has seen all sides of the sun by now. He gets to keep going: an ordinary miracle.

Tomorrow his sisters would have turned 5. A ghost of a birthday, shared by twins, lost to us, held & gone all at once.

All I can do is pivot.

Here is my foot planted firmly in the ground of now. I can turn in any direction I want: from joy to sorrow & back again. This is the only power I have, but it is enough for today.

I will wobble. I will feel the frantic rise in my throat of attack coming at me, blocking my view, trying to steal what I hold. For a few desperate moments I will want to pick up both feet & run far away, run fast as I can from what I never wanted.

But my pivot foot is stronger & steadier. It will stay where I have asked it to stay, from when I learned deeper truth.

Pivoting is still movement, still freedom, still control over a small corner of here. You are the one who decides to stop & plant your foot.

And the pivot is not forever. It is part of a move, not the end point. It is an interim, a passage, a survival strategy.

Part of me is forever awkward & eleven, scrawny & uncertain. But more of me is almost-forty, scarred & stronger. Knowing I can stop when I need to stop & go when I want to go, even in a full court press out of my control.

Today I pivot. I never want to forget the strength here too, the potential to turn between all that comes at me. The power of knowing this is not the end.
One day I’ll tell him the story. How after days One day I’ll tell him the story.

How after days of long labor, sick & scary, heaps of drugs to save both our lives, I stared bleary-eyed at the hospital clock: ten to two, clear as night, & made a decision.

How with no midwives in the room—unknown OBs now, nurses we didn’t know, no familiar face among them—and the clock ticking, I had to do what all those strong women I trusted had taught me to do.

How I decided to midwife my own birth.

How with no strength left, I struggled up through fog & pain, fumbled for my phone, scrolled through the dark until I found the song, & turned it up to rise above the beeping & the monitors & the awful alone sounds of awake at 1:50 am in the hospital.

How I closed my eyes & waited for the beat to come & prayed for the strength. To be my own midwife.

Drop beat. Beat drop. Pause.

The battle of Yorktown. 1781.

I cranked one weary smile. Closed my eyes as the song picked up. Turned my clumsy body to the left side to bring on a contraction.

Gotta meet my son.

Breathed through the pain. Timed it. Heaved to the right side to bring on another wave.

The world turned upside down.

Smiled when the night nurse came to check, surprised. Feigned shock when she raised her eyes that things were changing.

How as soon as she left the room, I glared at the clock, hit repeat, turned to one side, then another, kept contractions coming & coming, coaching my body hour after hour to do what I knew it could do.

History will show that this child was born from pitocin for induction & magnesium sulfate for preeclampsia & a failed epidural or two & eight shots of epinephrine when maternal blood pressure tanked.

But I will know that he was born from sheer grit & the strength of every midwife I’ve loved & the back beat of Hamilton at 1:50 am in a lonely hospital room.

The world turned upside down, then 100 more times in the tumultuous first year of his life.

But I did what I had to do & what I could do & I did it all for love of him. That day & every one that followed.

That is a story worth telling.

His birth. (Mine, too.)

2.25.20
A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing huma A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing humans.
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