This is a honorable goal and can bring joy to the home as long as its not paired with overwhelmed and stress. Here are 5 ways to keep the joy in your home and the stress elsewhere.

• Letting Go of Perfection
• Declutter Your Decorations
• Keep Your Everyday Meals Simple
• Consumable or No Clutter Gifts
• Remember, All Glory be to Christ

Letting Go of Perfection

No matter what trick you use to simplify your home, avoid overwhelm and make the holiday’s less stressful nothing will actually work unless your attitude and perspective are right. Some people call this taking care of your ‘mental health’. I would say this is much more of a heart issue than a mental issue.

When you love something it becomes important to you. Once something is important to you, you get anxious and stressed when that thing is not going the way it should. As a homemaker, we are responsible for the things going on in our home. The cleanliness, the meals, the way the home functions, we are the ones who get to work that out and accomplish it. It becomes important to us.

What do you love?

I love homemaking! Creating a home that is comfortable, hospitable, clean and has the smell of homemade meals delighting the soul is what I love doing. I love when my kids want to be home. When my husband comes home from work with a smile on his face. I want people to feel welcome and at home in my house. This is all good, until it is more important, loved more than my own families well being.

So what do I love more? I love the Lord and the most important thing I can do as a wife and mother is emulate Gods love to my family. Show them love, teach them love. Walk in His way and teach my kids to do the same.

Proverbs 25:24 says “It is better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” It says similar things in Proverbs 21:9 and 27:15-16. If I’m continually stressed over the well being over the home and I’m yelling, complaining and getting frustrated with the kids, I’m in the wrong. My love is on my home and myself more than my family who the home is for. I have become a contentious women.

Let go of perfection

If you find yourself overwhelmed, bitter and contentious over the busy holiday season you need to let go of the perfection of your home and seek perfections or sanctification in your relationship with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Avoid overwhelm by resting in the Lord. Remember His holiness. Be thankful for His sacrifice. Serve you family for His glory. Let go of the ideal perfect home and seek the perfect Lord. Let go of the idea of the perfect holiday experience and see the perfect Lord. Don’t hold onto the standards of the crunchy homemaker but seek the standards of the Lord. Only then will you be able to truly avoid overwhelm.

With that being said, lets get into some of the tips and trick that can help simplify our homes now that our hearts are set.

Declutter Your Decorations

To avoid the holiday overwhelm in your home, simplify you decorations. Now, I’m not saying you have to go all minimalist with your holiday decorations but try to avoid a cluttered look. Not every little angel, nutcracker or snowman has to be out every year. If your decorations make you feel like your house is clutter and uncleanable, simplify them.

A cluttered house can be hard to relax in. During this time of year our schedules are often full and cluttered. Our home should be able to give us all rest and peace. If the decorations stress you out, simplify them to fit your family’s needs.

Letting the kids help Decorate

When you have little kids who want to help decorate things can get stressful very easily. We imagine we will be making wonderful memories with our kids when decorating until they have their own great ideas of how things should look. Then its messy, unorganized, and chaotic.

I want my kids to be creative and celebrate our saviors birth with joy and not memories of mom controlling things and taking the fun out of it. But I also can’t stand the numerous messy, mismatching kids ornaments and cut outs, drawing and such. Its all clutter to me.

In our house, each of the kids rooms get their own tree with their own ornaments. My kids can also display all their arts and crafts and decorate in their own rooms however they want. They get to be creative and make memories. I get a tidy house with decoration that bring me joy and not stress.

Maybe you don’t want a tree or decorations in their room. You can also take same idea and apply it elsewhere in the house. Like a table, shelf or mantle that they get to decorate and arrange. Giving them some boundaries to their creativity is a good for them. When given boundaries they become more intentional with what they do.

Keep your everyday meals simple

The holiday season is all about food (and Jesus). From Thanksgiving to New Years there are so many traditional meals, sweet treats, from scratch family recipes we have to make. There are parties that we are baking for and edible gifts to make all on top of all the expected amazing holiday day-of meals.

For the homemaker it can be a lot of fun or stressful days in the kitchen. This is when meal planning and freezer meals come in handy. I love cooking, but it can be exhausting during the holidays to keep up with all the extra baking and cooking on top of the daily meals. Having a monthly meal plan laid out for the month of November and December help me a lot. Here are more resources on monthly meal planning.

When planning these meals I choose easy, simple meals that my family loves. Meals that can be make ahead of time if needed. In November I often make a few freezer meals for some of the busy days in December. This makes it easy for us to eat a healthy home cooked meal on days we have been out all day enjoy the seasons festivities. Having freezer meals ready also makes it easy for me to relax and not worry about dinner when I’m overwhelmed with all the extra holiday baking.

In all, to avoid the holiday overwhelm as a homemaker plan our a months worth of meals ahead of time. Choose simply easy meals. Have a well stocked freezer of meals ready to go.

Consumable or No Clutter Gifts

As a homemaker, as your family receives gifts, it can be stressful. As a mother with 5 small children we receive a lot of toys at Christmas time. It doesn’t help that we have November, December and January birthdays in our family. Lots of new things coming through that I must now find a place for in my home and teach my children to put them away properly.

The day after Christmas, about 3 years ago I remember looking at the mess and realizing I had not place to put all these new toy and I cried. I was overwhelmed. That day I made a plan, went to Walmart, bought bins and a new shelf, organized and threw out a lot of old toys to make room for the new ones. Here are a few tips on how to the avoid overwhelm and stress of gift receiving as a homemaker.

Tell your family and friends what gifts are appropriate

You don’t have to make this a joy killing moment of making harsh boundaries. It can be as simple as mentioning “We are getting out kids fun art supplies this year, they would love more coloring books too”. Often times that sparks a good conversation with friends and family as to what type of gifts are joy giving in your home.

In the past, to avoid overwhelm, I have had to give some family members a limit of how many toy and gift they can give my kids. Thankfully we have such good relationships that this was not offensive. When giving these types of boundaries I have often worded them like “We have a lot of toy right now, for Christmas I’d appreciate it if you only got them 1 toy. You can get them as many gifts as you want but can you keep the toys to a limit of 1 per child?” If you need more boundaries you can say something like “We have so much right now, and would appreciate a limit of only 3 gift this year.” Or what ever it needs to be.

What type of gifts to kids that are not toys

To avoid the clutter and overwhelm of toy during this seasons think of consumable or easy to store gifts for you kids. Gifts like sidewalk chalk, bubbles, coloring books are great non food consumable gifts. When they are done they are gone.

Food gifts, like their favorite snack in their stockings is always loved. I always fill my little kids stocking with applesauce, banana, boxes of yogurt covered raisins and fruit snacks and they love it! As they get older treats like, breakfast cookies, chocolate bars, trail mix. You can be as crunchy or not, food gifts are always loved.

For more ideas for no clutter consumable gifts here I have a list of 27 gifts ideas you can check out.

Remember, All Glory Be To Christ

Now that you have decluttered, stocked up on freezer meals, and your gifts aren’t stressing you out, you can remember again, this is all for the glory of Christ. It may be tempting to say what I do is for the glory of God. Christ is honored by my work. I give honer to Christ with what I accomplish. Like a knight saying he will win this tournament for the beautiful lady. Its not about me giving God glory with what I do but doing what He would have me do that brings Him glory.

All glory be to Christ means I seek His will and workout His plan that He has for me. God has prepared work for us to do and yes, doing the dishes, making the meals, wrapping the gifts so beautifully is a part of the life that he has given to us. But the work he desires for us is in our heart attitude towards Him and our neighbors. He desires us to love Him with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourself. Put off sin, confess and repent, giving glory to our Lord.

When you do the work of a homemaker, don’t come to God saying “Look what I did for your glory” but come to God asking “What can I do to give your glory”.

The post How to find joy and avoid overwhelm as a homemaker this holiday season appeared first on Embracing The Home.

We never had to go through the endless sleepless nights of crying children. Or feeling exhausted after 6+ month of interrupted sleep. No waking up to crying, waking up to feed, no waking up the husband saying “its your turn” for months on end. Seems too good to be true, right?

If you think this is unrealistic, I promise you its not. But I will tell you this, its not for everyone. My sister, for example, when I told her my schedule she was stress out by it. This method gave me peace but gave her stress. If a method of sleep training stresses you out, its not worth it. Find something that works for you. Every sleep training method has some aspect of stress but some are harder for some vs others. The idea is to choose the hard that works best for you.

This may not be for you…

First, a disclaimer: This method of sleep training may not work if you baby is under 7 lbs. All my babies have been close to or over 8 lbs. Being over 8 lbs makes a big difference. Once the baby is 8 lbs they can handle an 8 hours night between feeding. Baby’s who are less then 8 lbs typically wake up more often. Most of the internet specialist say a baby must be woken up to eat every 5 hours if they are under 12 lbs or under 6 months old. I personally, from experience, and advice from my midwifes and seasoned mothers, do not agree with the internet specialists. If the baby sleeps 8 hours on their own, they are ready.

Newborn Schedule, Starting Day 1

Congratulations! You had your baby! Your goal today is to nurse. The baby will want to sleep a lot in the first 24 hours and that is good, let the baby sleep. But to train your baby to sleep at night and eat during the day try to nurse every 2 hours. Sometimes it will be a success and sometimes it wont. That okay.

Day 1 is all about starting your rhythm. Every 2 hours try to nurse for a few minutes. If in about15 minutes you can’t get them to wake up enough to latch don’t worry. Let them sleep for another 2 hours and try again. If they wake up hungry but its hasn’t been 2 hours, feed them. Don’t worry about “the schedule” at this point. Find your rhythm.

If they have gone 4-5 hours without nursing then you may want to try a little harder. But don’t get worried. My 5th baby (who was 8 lbs 13 oz at birth) loved to sleep. I nursed about 20 minutes after he was born and he latch well. After that, it was about 8 hours later till he latched again and I was trying every hour for a while.

If you are worried and are at the point of needing them to eat and are tempted to try a bottle, even thought you really want to nurse, I advise you to try this first. Hand express some colostrum onto a baby spoon or use a dropper and place it in their lips. Let them lick their lips and get a taste. Then keep trying to nurse.

Pro Tip: Nurse right away. Like, before the placenta is out, try to nurse. Baby comes out, cord is still attracted, baby goes to mama’s chest to regulate body temperature. Nurse as soon as possible.

The First 4 Weeks of Sleep Training Your Baby

Sleep training begins with how you nurse during the day. Your milk will come in between 2-3 days after birth. The milk that you have been feeding the baby the first 3 days is called colostrum. Colostrum is full of great nutrients that help prepare your baby for life. When you start producing milk you will feel it. Your boobs will get massive. It can be painful for a bit but soon everything will regulate. It will regulate fast if you keep a nursing schedule.

Start your day at the same time everyday. It may be against everything you thought in the beginning but I highly recommend stetting an alarm clock for the morning. I start my baby’s day at 8:00am. We nurse at that same time everyday. Then we follow the clock nursing every two hours. I know, “Don’t wake a sleeping baby”, in my house, this applies only at night. During the day, wake them up, every two hours.

Bedtime for us is 10:00pm (for the first 4ish week). So throughout the day I’ve nursed 8 times. Now that 10:00pm has hit I don’t wake up my baby. Let the baby sleep as long as they want. When they wake up, feed them. You will notice that they will keep their own schedule during the night waking up at similar times during the night.

Nursing the Baby to Sleep

Contrary to some other sleep training methods I almost never nurse my babies to sleep. If they fall asleep while nursing that’s okay. But I do not nurse my babies to get them to sleep and here is why. Food fuels us. It gives us energy. So most of the time your baby will want to be awake after they have been fed. They may sleep for a few minutes then wake up happy and alert.

If you baby is always sleepy during or after nursing that is also normal. It takes energy to digest and sometimes it can make them sleepy to digest all their food. But what I’m trying to say is, don’t fall into a pattern of your baby depending on nursing in order to fall asleep. Or you will be waking up in the middle of the night, when they are not hungry but need to nurse in order to fall asleep again.

Should I let my baby cry themself to sleep?

Letting you baby cry themselves to sleep is definitely controversial. In our family we have let our kids cry or fuss themselves to sleep. But I do believe you can sleep train your babies without the shedding of many tears.

There are lots of internet exports on this subject if you want to learn more about why you should or why you shouldn’t let your baby’s cry when sleep training. Here I will briefly go over some of the boundaries I give me and my baby’s when it comes to them ‘crying it out’.

I don’t leave them to scream themselves to sleep. There is a difference between screaming, crying and fussing. You will know the difference.

How I let my baby ‘cry it out’

I would let me baby’s fuss or tired cry themselves to sleep for at least one of their naps during the day so that they would get used to falling asleep without any assistance. Not every nap and I was never strict about it but saw it more of a practice. I want my baby to know how to fall back asleep on their own in when the abnormally wake in the middle of the night. Yes, I would do this as early on as 1 month old. Also, again I practiced this when I was well rested and when it was day. It was okay if they didn’t fall asleep right away.

In the middle of the night, I don’t want them to cry so much they wake themselves up more. I will attend to them pretty quickly. If its a feeding time I will nurse. If not, I will not nurse them to sleep but I will hold a pacifier in their mouth till they fall asleep. When needed, I will hold and rock them to sleep. As they get older and If they wake up abnormally in the the middle of the night, I check the clock and time how long it takes them to fall back asleep. I typically don’t let it go longer then 5 minutes sometimes 10, before attending them. If their cry changes from tired and turns to a desperate cry or scream I attend them right away.

Nurse, Play, Sleep, Repeat

During the day, to sleep train your baby, follow patterns to create habits that will benefit you at night. Nurse, Play, Sleep, Repeat.

Even when they are just a few days old you can create this habit with them. Nurse, burp, do a few simple arm and leg stretches, give lots of kisses, change diaper. At first, this maybe takes 5-10 minutes then your baby is ready to sleep again. As the baby gets older their awake time gets longer.\

Changing the Schedule

Once your baby is staying awake for about 1 hour or longer you are ready to start nursing every 3 hours. This will allow your baby to still get a good 2 hour nap between feeding. This always happens for me earlier then I expect. Around 4-6 weeks has been normal for my kids.

Now my daily schedule has changed but my start of the day and end of the day has not. I still wake up my baby around 8am and end the day around 10pm. My nursing schedule ends up being 8:00, 11:00, 2:00, 5:00, 8:00 and then sometime between 9-10pm I nurse again and put down for the night.

Around 3-4 months old this schedule changes again as your baby starts staying awake longer and longer. When your baby is staying awake consistently 2 two in-between naps you will want to give the opportunity for 2 hour naps. That’s when I start nursing every 4 hours. 8am, 12pm, 4, 8 and 9-10 bedtime.

I typically don’t change my schedule after that until I’m introducing solids foods between 6-9 month.

Nursing at Night

During the day for the first month its important to wake you baby up every 2 hours to nurse. This is going to train your baby them when its day versus night and keep them well fed. With this schedule at night they will easily sleep 3-5 hours during the night.

Nurse your baby and put them to bed around 10:00pm, do not wake them up. Wait until they wake up to feed them. You will find they will create their own nightly schedule. A typical schedule that my kids have had has been approximately 2am, 5am then 7am. Even if they wake up 7am, I wake them up and feed them again at 8:00am to start our day.

Transitions

Eventually your baby will start to sleep even longer during the night. So instead of waking up at 2am they may wake up closer to 3 or 4, then again at 6:00, and then start the day at 8:00am. This takes out one feeding.

If your baby does this 2 or 3 nights in a row, or multiple times during the week, you know they are ready to change their night time rhythm. Now they they are down to 2 feeding during the night, 3am and 6am and we start our day at 8am. If your baby wakes before 3am, I give them a pacifier till it is closer to the normal nursing time.

During these transition times you might have a few long nights here and there or really early mornings, but believe me when I say it doesn’t last long. Take your cues from your baby. When they want to sleep 5-6 hours straight help them by not nursing them during that time. Give them the pacifier to help them go back to sleep, if they wake up.

Follow the baby’s lead, then reinforce the longer sleep patterns they have proven to you. With this sleep training structure I have had all 5 of my kids sleep 8 hours by 8 weeks old! Ending my day at 10pm and going until 6:00am, then waking them up at 8:00 to start our day. By 12 weeks most of my kids have been sleeping 10 hours. No more nursing at night. We go to bed at between 9-10pm and wake up at 8am.

Mistakes I see other Moms make When Sleep Training

I have heard from so many other moms how well their baby is sleeping through the night. They say things like “this last week they didn’t wake up to 3 or 4am, but last night they woke up a 1am to nurse”. If they are starting a habit of sleeping long nights and then randomly wake up or regress, don’t nurse them. Help them self sooth, give them a pacifier but do not nurse just to get them to go back to sleep.

Another mistake I see mom make is creating the bedtime too early. I talk to a mom who’s baby was a month older than mine saying she was still waking up every 2 hours to nurse. When I asked her what time she put her to bed she said 7pm. Then the mom would go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 1, 3 and 5am to nurse. Her baby was sleeping from 7pm to 1am. That is a wonderful 6 hour stretch but the mom was unable to take advantage of it because it was to early in the evening.

Nursing before every nap is another mistake. If during the day you nurse before every nap you baby will not know how to go back to sleep without nursing. Teach them during the day to fall asleep with out nursing. Rock them in a rocking chair. Give them a pacifier. Wrap them in a wrap and walk around with them but do not nurse to go to sleep. Nurse to give them energy.

The last mistake I see mom make when sleep training their baby is letting them sleep to long during the day. Don’t be afraid to wake them up during the day if they are sleeping longer than 3 or 4 hours. We want those stretches to be at night so you can also sleep 3-4 hours straight.

Sweet dreams!

I hope what worked for me works for you when sleep training your baby. I have been blessed by my children and their sleeping habits and I hope this knowledge is helpful to you.

Like I said in the beginning, this structure of sleep training may not be for everyone and that is okay. My goal was to have good sleepers so I structured my days to making that possible. Waking up at night to nurse may not bother you, some moms have even expressed to me that they like waking up at night to nurse. If that is for you than sweet dreams! Enjoy your baby, do what works for you and your family. Have peace with the decisions you make and sleep well at night without anxiety over if you are doing it right or not.

Sweet dreams!

The post How to Sleep Train – The Newborn Sleep Schedule appeared first on Embracing The Home.