They can both make you a creature of the night.

While there’s no cure for a zombie virus, there are ways to deal with the plague of sleep deprivation that accompanies every new baby.  And don’t worry, these tips won’t require any brain-feasting or fantastic choreography.

Swaddling and Sleepwalking

I’ve been through quite a few events in my life that left me really short on sleep.  All-nighters of (ahem) studying in college, overnight hospital visits with seriously ill relatives, long road trips and the occasional need to care for sick children that just can’t make it through the night without you.

However, the birth of a new child offers a unique challenge to parents.  Newborn babies rarely sleep through the night for several weeks, and there’s really nothing that you can do to avoid waking up to feed the little angels every few hours…without exception.

If you have children, then you have surely experienced life in the frazzled, drowsy, confusing state of sleep deprivation.  You know what it’s like to live as a zombie parent!

5 Tips for Dealing With a Lack of Sleep

As you may know, we welcomed our third child (Avery) into our family less than two weeks ago, so I’m right in the middle of life with little sleep.  However, as my experience living as a undead new parent has grown, I’ve found some great ways to cope with a lack of sleep.

Next time you’re faced with sleepless nights, try these tips to keep your head in the game.

1. Team Up

If you want to maintain your sanity and avoid total burn-out, it’s really important that you share the demands of parenting a new baby (and any other children you already have).  This is a time when you can serve your spouse by stepping up and being fully involved in the child-rearing duties, especially those that happen under the cover of night.

In our house, that means that I do all of the overnight diaper-changing and then hand off to my wife to feed our newborn.  This split in responsibilities helps my wife get a little more sleep but, more importantly, it demonstrates that I’m willing to do what I can to help care for our baby and “be there” as a husband and father…even at night.

By the way, single parents simply amaze me, and these experiences make me more aware than ever that Moms in general are incredible.  There’s no way I could handle the demands of parenting a new baby on my own, and I applaud anyone who has been through it.

2. Back Off

If you ‘re like most of us, you lead a very busy life that keeps you hopping between responsibilities inside and outside of your home.  During the most stressful first few weeks of your new baby’s life, you should step away from optional commitments as much as possible.  Your church groups, civic organizations and your softball buddies will surely understand that this is a time to focus on your family and spend your time and energy at home.

For me, that’s meant a little less time writing here at Engaged Marriage, missing a meeting at the Knights of Columbus council where I am usually quite active, and taking a week off of work to be home and get to know our new daughter.  It can be tough to unplug, but there is simply no way to get these special moments with your new baby back once they’ve passed.

3. Exercise Your Body & Your Brain

It may seem counter-intuitive to use up your precious energy by exercising.  However, there is simply no better way to relieve stress and give your body a boost than by following a regular workout routine before and after the arrival of your new baby.

I know that very new moms are limited in their ability to exercise, but many can take an easy walk depending on their health status.  If physical activity is out of the question, it can really be helpful to simply  “exercise your mind” by taking a little time to read, solve puzzles and just stimulate your brain a bit.

This is been a real lifesaver for me over the past two weeks.  It’s tough to find the time, but the regime I follow only takes 30 minutes to complete, it has a lot of variety to keep it interesting, and I can do it at home.  Most days, I’ll take our two older kids downstairs with me while my wife stays with Avery.  The kids only need to stay clear of an about 6-foot by 6-foot area where I workout, and my son actually likes to join me for some of the moves!

4. Embrace Help

In most cases, new babies invite lots of interest and offers of help from friends and family.  You should gratefully accept the assistance of your loved ones, and take advantage of their help, as it will keep your energy levels up.  Plus, it will make your family and friends feel like part of your newborn’s life, which they’ll love!

Bethany and I have been blessed to have several friends bring over delicious meals for our family since we arrived home from the hospital.  Not only does this save us the time, energy and money of buying groceries and preparing meals for ourselves, but we really enjoy the short visits that come along with the food drop-offs.  It sure helps break up the cabin fever.

5. Smile

Above all else, always keep in mind the reason behind your fatigue and lack of sleep.  Remember that all of this sacrifice is needed to care for a precious gift from God.  The struggles of sleep deprivation are temporary, but the joy of parenting is forever.

Sure, Avery is costing us some sleep and probably adding a few gray hairs in the process, but there is simply no better way to spend our time and energy than caring for such a beautiful child.  We are blessed to be parents, three times over, even if we do sometimes feel like zombies in the process.

I’d love to hear your favorite ways to deal with a lack of sleep when a new baby arrives, so please share them in the comments.

I’ll read them later…I need to feast on the brains of the living go to bed right now!

(photo source)

___________________________________________________

Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Zombie Parenting: 5 Tips for the Sleep Deprived

Tags: Children, Fitness, Time Management

Related posts:

1. Help! What Are Your Top Parenting Tips?
2. How to Get Your Spouse to Talk to You: 7 Tips for Engagement
3. Check This Out: Better Parenting

When you experience something as life-altering as the welcoming of new life, it’s impossible to understand those that oppose life or commoditize it in terms of money, time or supposed independence.

When you witness the creation of something completely new and unique, it’s difficult to give credence to those that don’t believe in God or respect the power of Covenant Love.

When you see the superb power of true femininity in action, it’s awe-inspiring and quite humbling.  We are all indebted to our mothers and their unique capacity for unconditional love.

Welcome to the family Avery Josephine Riechmann.  You made me a better man today.

___________________________________________________

Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: The Greatest Joy

Tags: Children, Family Planning, My Story, Natural Family Planning, Spirituality

Related posts:

1. The “In Sickness” Part of Marriage Really Sucks

Our five-year-old son has recently started throwing out the “I’m bored” line, usually when something he was looking forward to doesn’t work out and he’s “stuck” playing inside at home.  The funny thing is that I realized I was a bit jealous when I heard him say it!

When I was a kid, I probably told my parents I was bored no less than 100 times a week.  We grew up in the sticks, and we were quite poor, so I didn’t get the chance to do a lot of the stuff that my friends from school were doing.  No Little League, no soccer, no Boy Scouts and no neighborhood kids to play with.

Now, this wasn’t entirely bad.  It really helped me develop a love for the outdoors and a pretty wicked imagination.  I guess that will happen when your idea of fun is getting yourself lost in the woods so you can find your way back home, all while pretending you’re a ninja.  But, alas, I was quite a bored little guy for many years.

And I miss it.

No Time for Boredom!

Of course, nowadays there are WAY too many things going on to ever be bored.  I’m sure you can relate to the hectic life of a young married couple, especially if you have little kids looking to you to keep them entertained (and fed).

We work a lot to advance our careers, and many of us continue to grow our education at the same time.

We help out in our community and church as much as we can.

We coach tee-ball and attend every weekend soccer game to support our kids.

We visit our own parents to see how they’re doing and to show off their grandkids.

We take shopping trips to Wal-Mart (that sometimes make us feel like a ninja again), and we work on our family finances to provide the best life we can for our family.

We try to exercise and spend time with our friends occasionally.

We read books to expand our mind and watch TV to help it contract back a little.

We make sure our spouse knows they’re the top priority in all of this craziness by carving out a few sacred minutes each day to spend some quality time together.

And some of us even blog late into the night to help make sense of it all for others (but mostly for ourselves).

Personally, I am a lot of things, but bored is not one of them!

Help Your Kids Be Bored

I have to be honest: when I hear our kids say they are bored, I smile a little.

They are involved in a lot of activities and they certainly are not suffering from a lack of “stuff” to keep them occupied even if, God forbid, there’s a rainy day that keeps them cooped up.  But they do have down time in their young lives to just sit and draw, play together and imagine they are on crazy adventures that don’t require a TV or a schedule.

Our kids get bored sometimes, and that is awesome.

___________________________________________________

Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: The Joys of Boredom

Tags: Children, family fun, Memories, Time Management

Related posts:

1. 37 Family Things to Do at Home on a Rainy Sunday
2. Zombie Parenting: 5 Tips for the Sleep Deprived

But this was not something new for the Easter holiday.  We have actually developed several “rituals” throughout the day where we share family prayer, and it’s become a cool part of our family dynamic.

What is Easter?

That’s the type of question my 5-year-old son is likely to ask completely out of the blue.  He’s also been known to ask things like, “Where is Jesus?” or “Who is the best: Baby Jesus or God?” or “Why was Jesus on a cross…did it hurt?”

I can tell you that answering these queries from an inquisitive kid is both challenging and really inspiring.  It can be tough to explain things on his terms (or to actually know the answers sometimes), but it’s so cool to know that he feels connected enough with his faith to wonder.

Where Does He Come Up With This Stuff?

If you met us on any given day in real life, I don’t think you would peg our family as an overtly religious or deeply spiritual bunch.  We’re normal folks with all of the typical faults and failings that accompany a busy life in today’s society.  Our kids are generally pretty good, but there are certainly no halos floating above their heads.

This makes me particularly proud to have a young son who asks such deep questions about spirituality.  And it got me thinking about why he may be giving these things so much thought.

We make it a point to attend Mass every Sunday, and we try to speak openly about our faith within our home.  However, I really think that our young children are connecting on a more basic level.

Praying With Our Kids Rocks

I think it’s the prayer.  Again, we do a few basic things as part of our family routine, including the traditional Catholic blessing before our meals at home.  My wife and I also end every night with a visit to our kids’ rooms to say some more traditional prayers over them while they sleep (Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Prayer of the Guardian Angel).  Of course, they don’t know that.

All of that is well and good, and we find it to be very valuable to take these few minutes each day to thank God in a ritual way.  However, I think the real impact for our children comes from the prayer our kids say each night before they go to bed:

Thank you dear God

For Mama and Daddy

And (sister or brother’s name)

And all my Grandmas

And all my Grandpas

And thank you for having a good day.

Amen.

At the end, we usually ask them to think of something specific that they are thankful for that day.  This could be tee-ball, princesses, chocolate or any other thing that looms large in the minds of young kids.

This prayer actually has a bit of history.  It was the prayer my wife said each night with her parents when she was growing up.  It had enough of an impact on her that she suggested we adopt it with our own children as soon as they could talk.  And I am so glad that we did.

Do You Pray With Your Kids?

So I’m curious to hear about your experiences with this topic.  You may not be a parent and you may not be religious.  That’s totally fine, but feel free to chime in with any words of wisdom that you may have to share from your own upbringing or from others that you know.

Do you pray with your kids?

What kind of prayers do you say?

Do you think this has had a positive impact on them (and you)?

___________________________________________________

Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Do You Pray With Your Kids?

Tags: Ask the Community, Children, Spirituality

Related posts:

1. Kids Enjoy the Simple Things
2. A Wedding Prayer: What Special Memories Do You Hold From Your Wedding Day?
3. You Need Alone Time: Jesus Said So!

With the arrival of children comes a LOT of new responsibilities, fears and frustrations.  You are almost guaranteed to get less sleep, and your personal time will be cut dramatically.

When I reflect on my least-proud moments over the past five years, many are related to a loss of patience or a moment of great frustration where I didn’t like the way I acted around or reacted to my kids.  I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a perfect parent, and it’s tough sometimes.

So, with all of these issues attached to the stork-drop, why in world do we keep having more children?

Because they are best things in the world and they add a priceless value to our lives.  Kids are awesome!

Parents Need Quality Advice

Parenting is probably both the toughest and most rewarding role that we can fill in the world.  To help navigate the waters of father and motherhood, I think we can all use some wise counsel from others who are in (or have been) in our shoes.

And I’m the first in line to the well of parenting advice.  Trust me, I’m thirsty for knowledge on how to both handle and help my five-year-old son, almost three-year-old princess and the little one that’s about six months from joining the family.  Fortunately, I have a wise and patient wife to help lead me along the right path most of the time.

I would certainly not consider myself a child-rearing expert.  So, you can imagine how shocked, humbled and excited I was when my friend Sherri from Zen Family Habits recently asked me for my own top parenting tips.  When you are done with this post, I suggest you click that link and go read her great article.  There is some excellent advice from the other contributors (Samantha from Mama Notes, Tsh from Simple Mom and Vera from Mom Grind) as well as Sherri herself.  And there is some valuable insight provided in the comments, too.

My Top Three Parenting Tips

I have written previously about How Children Teach Us About God, how Kids Enjoy the Simple Things and even the Questions Engaged Couples Should Ask Each Other About Children.  However, I’ve never dared to offer any parenting advice.

I found it fitting that out of the four contributors to the Zen Family Habits article, I was the only guy and (naturally) I used the least words to share my tips.  I’ll use even fewer here to share them in case you don’t make it over to Sherri’s post.

1. Your kids don’t come first.

2. Be consistent.

3. Have fun.

Ask the Community

Okay, so it’s time for the real reason I wrote this post.  I want your best parenting tips.  I know some of you may not be parents, but I’m betting you were a child once and you may be a cool aunt or uncle now.  I think everyone has something to add to this discussion.  And I’m really anxious to gain your insight.  I need your help!

Please leave your best tip or three or ten in the comments.  Thanks for being an active part of the Engaged Marriage community!

P.S. – If you haven’t joined us already, I’d encourage you to check out the Engaged Marriage Facebook page.  We have a lot of fun and share a lot of great times there!

___________________________________________________

Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Help! What Are Your Top Parenting Tips?

Tags: Ask the Community, Children

Related posts:

1. Check This Out: Better Parenting
2. Zombie Parenting: 5 Tips for the Sleep Deprived