Daily Archives: September 22, 2009

Day Number Six of 20 Days Toward Being A More Mindful Mother

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Sleep and rest are extremely important cornerstones of Waldorf parenting and education, and one area that it seems many attachment parents struggle with.  Let’s take a closer look at sleep today and see if we can improve things for all members of the household!

First of all, a Waldorf perspective is that a small child may be born without much rhythm to their sleep and wake cycles.  I think that  those of us with what the Attachment Parenting’s movement terms “higher needs” infants, toddlers and children can attest to that many times the lack of rhythm seems to almost carry on through past the point where it is biologically protective.  For example, we don’t want a small baby, or even a baby up until 10 months or so sleeping through the night.  You say, wow, 10 months, really?  Why 10 months?  Because studies have shown that breastfeeding babies at 10 months are receiving ONE-QUARTER of their calories at night!  Many people say their babies “self-weaned” under a year and I think this is due to a highly distractible baby in many cases who is completely wrapped up in gross motor movement during the day and not as interested in nursing – and if they are sleeping through the night, that really cuts down on their calories!  Remember, human milk is the number one source of calories throughout the entire first year if not LONGER!   So I don’t want to shortchange that.  I also don’t want to have a 2 to 5 month old baby who sleeps through the whole night when the risk of SIDS is highest.  However, do remember that many in the medical community do regard “sleeping through the night” as a five-hour stretch, not the seven to nine hour stretch many of  us regard as a full night’s sleep!

However, there is something to be said regarding gently helping your child to establish sleep and wake cycles.   A child who is very irregular and has no rhythm may really need your help in this area!   For those of us attachment parenting with multiple older children along with babies,  many of us have found it easier to have a napping child in a sling while we do things with older children as opposed to “getting the baby” to bed multiple times a day and then work toward that as the number of naps decreases.  Even after a nap is “gone” (and I daresay in the olden days children did nap for longer than they seem to today!), we replace it with quiet time for the children and ourselves.  Especially with homeschooling, one needs this break!  And children need to learn the value of being quiet without someone or something electronic entertaining them!

Here are some posts regarding sleep from an attachment parenting perspective:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/03/16/co-sleeping-and-nighttime-parenting/   including parameters for safe co-sleeping and includes an interesting dialogue about what happens if co-sleeping doesn’t work for you!

And here are some posts from a Waldorf perspective:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/12/bringing-rhythm-to-your-baby/

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/14/part-two-of-a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/

and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/13/a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/

I would love to see a lot of dialogue on this topic; sleep becomes a crucial part of teaching with the Waldorf educational process with the three-day rhythm, so these are important issues to think about early on!

Blessings,

Carrie

Starting Christian Education With Very Small Children in the Waldorf Home

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A few of you have written to me and asked at what age to start doing devotions with small children.  I have thought about this extensively.  We did use “Leading Little Ones to God” (modified for our beliefs) in our family when one of my children was three and a half – but here is the big addendum:  There was a seven-year-old as well (who felt this book was too “babyish”, by the way).  But the point was that the older child was there to carry it for the younger child.  So, if your oldest child is only three and a half you may have to think long and hard how you bring these things.  It may be okay, it may not work.  This is a situation every family must ponder and decide to do what works best for their family. 

Blessings and prayers as part of your rhythm are effective, as are preparing for festivals in accordance with your religious traditions.  We never “explain” a festival to small children, but we “do”.

Children also strongly imitate us, so if we show them how we maintain our own spiritual or religious practices, that is going to be absorbed more deeply than any words will be.

Irene Johanson’s  “Stories For The Festivals of The Year” is a wonderful book for children ages 6- 9 that can be found through Bob and Nancy’s Bookshop and Rudolf Steiner College Bookstore  and contains the perspective of the Christian Community.  She writes:

“A question often asked is how families with children can celebrate Christian festivals in a way that relates to the events described in the Gospels?  The contents of the Gospels can have an influence on our entire life.  The story of the life of Christ Jesus on earth is like an archetype for our own biography.  The destiny of each human being is a variation on a theme recorded in the Gospels.  But young children do not experience themselves as individuals with their own destiny.  Consequently, it is not yet appropriate to tell them Gospel stories as if they were part of a human biography, before they have developed a sense of what destiny is.

“In the religion lessons of the Christian Community these stories are not told until the  children are about twelve years old.  Before this age, children feel completely at one with their surroundings and stories best suited for them are fairy-tales, legends and stories in which creatures talk to each other.”

She goes on to write, “Since pictures for the events of the Christian festivals do exist in fairy-tales, children can be told stories that contain images of death and resurrection at Easter, stories about a change of consciousness at Midsummer- St. John’s Tide- and stories describing courage and conquest at Michaelmas.”

This is an interesting perspective and perhaps one also worth pondering. 

Start slow with small expectations as you bring these things into existence for your small child who has no separate consciousness yet.  One post that may be of interest to you is this one:  ahttps://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/04/18/the-development-of-morality-versus-the-development-of-faith/    regarding the idea that the development of morality is different than the development of faith. 

Happy pondering,

Carrie