Here’s a detailed look at how, in the first two weeks of breastfeeding, I begin gently prioritizing sleep… so that our whole family (parents, older siblings, and baby included) achieves sanity, sleep, and contentment ASAP. This is the way we’ve done it with all 8 of our babies. Video outline: 1:00- What method we follow…
So, I just had our 8th baby. Which means… I don’t know everything, but I know some stuff. There was this time, 14 or so years ago, when my first baby was just two months old, that I went to a birthday/blessing party for a young lady in our church. Right when it was time for each of…
Let me start out by saying this: I am pretty sure I have done it all. I’ve slept with a baby on my chest or in the crook of my arm– on the first night, in the hospital, in my bed at home after home births, and (accidentally) in a chair when I was trying to stay…
DEAR TIRED MAMA: I’m not writing this to shame you, or make you feel guilty about your parenting choices, as if this fact of life makes you a “bad mom.” But I’m a mom of 7 (going on 8) who spends a lot of my life analyzing problems in my own parenting and coming up…
At a counseling conference my husband and I attended in October, one of the trainers made an interesting statement: “If one of my counselees comes in with general depression-like symptoms, one of my first questions is how much sleep they’re getting.” He shared that his personal policy is to tell them to get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep…
One of the posts here on JessConnell.com that receives continual attention is this post, from 2016: Few people write about what it’s like to fast, while pregnant, nursing, or taking care of little people, and whether or not it can be safe, or done at all. Similarly, it is rare to examine the modern phenomena…
Lately I’ve been on a gardening kick, seeing the good outcome of building our compost pile last year, and multiplying the fashions and forms of botanical life in our patch of earth. Spring offers such a profuse picture of hope! Last week I found myself, feet atop cinder blocks, stooping and carefully examining long trenches…
So. The first time I went camping, I decided we’d do it with 7 kids in tow. Ages: 13 to 6 months. Yup. To those of you who aren’t campers, that probably sounds CRAY-ZEE. To those of you who are adept at camping, you’re probably all googley-eyed and thrilled at the mere sound of it. It…
In Part 1 we discussed- the unreliability of basing our identity on seasons, or characteristics about us the way we are all geared toward identity idolatry (feeling that what we do/choose is the same as who we are) and the way God – in kindness – seeks to shake us loose of that. Ultimately, there…
On Twitter, (in April 2016) New York City Pastor Tim Keller was asked: “What are the false gods of our society?” Part of his reply was– “the myth that you can choose your own identity.” He is absolutely right. Sister, this is the one of the great lies of our age: “you get to pick…