Since I started my blog almost 3 years ago I have been conflicted with whether or not I should share my method of child rearing.  After some prayer and thought I have decided why not?!  I have a lot of friends who are getting ready to have children or already have children and have questions galore.  While I am not by any means a well-educated, know everything there is to know about raising children type of mom; I do want to share how God has blessed my family. 

I also may begin to pose questions to you as well regarding issues that I am getting ready to face…teething, potty training, etc.  I have created a new page called “Got Kids?” and with this page I hope to get questions and/or issues concerns regarding your children or topics for discussion.  Please feel free to visit this page and send me your questions, as I am eager to start creating a community of mom’s & dad’s that can bounce idea’s around. 

First I would like to share with you the story of my children and how blessed I am to be a well rested mother of two happy, healthy babies. 

Owen was born April 7, 2009 and he was a big boy.  8lbs, 21.5 inches.  From the start he seemed to be a pretty laid back little guy; he let us know right away the things he liked and the things he didn’t like.  His favorite thing was to eat, and let me tell you he was a pro from day one.  In fact the lactation consultant at the hospital was so impressed with his eating skills that she had other nurses come in and look at how well he did.  For me it was nice because with Owen I had absolutely NO pain learning to breastfeed not sore even a bit.  His least favorite thing was being swaddled, he had to be free to spread out and take advantage of all the sleeping space available.  After we brought Owen home I immediately started getting him used to some sort of a schedule, but at this point I was letting him kind of tell me what times were meal times and what times were nap times.  It wasn’t until he was 6 weeks old that I started a stricter schedule and routine.    I had been introduced to a method by a friend of ours called Growing Kids God’s Way, most of you are more familiar with the secular version called On Becoming Babywise.  There has been somewhat of a controversy with its methods and whether or not they are beneficial or harmful to children.  But in my opinion I don’t understand how there can be a controversy at all, every parent that I know personally who has employed this method with their children has had nothing but praises for it.  I am happy to say that I am included in that group.   It took Owen 3 days, and he went from waking up every 3 hours around the clock to taking scheduled naps during the day and sleeping for 5 hours at a time at night.  For his age that is considered sleeping through the night.  By 9 weeks he was sleeping from about 11pm to 7am, and since he was sleeping that meant we were too!!!  As Owen began to grow and his schedule changed, he started eating more, staying awake and playing longer and taking less naps during the day and still sleeping 10-12 hours at night.  His temperament changed and he was always smiley, happy to play on his own or with us, and when it was time to eat he was done in 30 min flat.  No fussing, no fighting just eat and get to playing.  When it was time to go down for a nap we would put him in his crib and he would just look up at us and smile then roll over and lay there until he fell asleep.  Sometimes he just couldn’t fall asleep, but because he was used to this quiet time he would lay in bed and talk to himself until it was time to get up, again with no fuss.  Now that Owen is almost 3 years old, sometimes Tyler and I try to keep him up a little later than his regularly scheduled nap so he can sleep at the same time as Evie and so that we can also grab a quick nap.  Owen will be content to play, but occasionally he will come to me and say, “Mommy, me sleepy.  Me take nap.”  I never in a million years thought I would have a 3 year old that would actually request to go take a nap!  My only hope is that Evie will be the same.

July 20, 2011 Evelyn Joelle Knepp came into the world as beautiful as ever.  Tyler and I knew even before she was born that we were going to be using the same scheduling method with her that we did with Owen.   Now, while our hope was that it would be just as easy with her as it was with him everyone knows that no two children are alike.  It took Evie a little longer to get into the groove of things.  In fact, she is 6 months old now and still sometimes cries after we put her down for her nap.  We just had to learn that crying was her way of unwinding and falling asleep.  She cries for a minute or two and then she falls asleep and is out for 1-2 hours.  She sleeps from 8pm to 7am.  She also started sleeping through the night at around 9 weeks.  She too is a very smiley baby except when she doesn’t feel well, and is content playing alone or with one of us.  Evie was harder to nurse and I did experience some discomfort getting her used to it, but after about 5 months she weened herself and would only take a bottle.  Now that she is eating some food as well, she has eating down to an art and is also done in about 30 min.  One of the big differences with Evie and Owen is swaddling.  Owen hated it, Evie can’t sleep unless she is swaddled tight…even still.  Last night in fact, she woke up 3 different times because her swaddle wasn’t tight enough and she got her arms out.  Once she was swaddled again she went right back to sleep. 

The biggest benefit to all of this is that well rested babies are happy babies, and well rested parents and happy and involved parents.  I want to share my stories of success with you and hear your stories as well.  My plan is to have a post a week about one aspect of the Growing Kids God’s Way method and to get feedback and answer questions regarding some of your questions or concerned.   Please visit the Got Kids? page and leave any type of feedback you like.  I am looking forward to hearing from you.