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Hush, Daddy

I recently witnessed a young father trying to calm his 9 month old. The baby had been fed, changed, and was fighting her sleep.

She cried and cried, but she wouldn’t calm down. We encouraged him, but he simply could not get her to sleep. “I’m trying!”, he exclaimed. He’s 16 and frustrated.

We gave her to her young mother, and supported her for the 20 minutes that it took to soothe the baby and to eventually cuddle her to sleep.

As Men, we sometimes don’t realize that our pleasure is to nurture our children. Sure, we’ll teach them how to ride a bike and throw a football, but what about when she can’t speak and tell you what’s wrong?

Inner peace, confidence, and assurety are cornerstones to manhood. We are teaching this young father that the only way to calm a baby is to be calm yourself.

Fatherhood is about steady quickness; the ability to survey, determine and resolve on sight.

Children do not have experience as a frame of reference. A crying baby does not realize that they may be, in fact, sleepy. So we assess them: we’ve fed them, changed them, taken their temperature, etc., then we calm them.

As fathers we have the experience of knowing when to panic and when panicking and frustration are unnecessary. A well fed, healthy, crying baby is never a reason to panic; she is a reason to rejoice!

Of course it’s natural to become frustrated when our babies won’t calm down. We, however, have no need to remain in a state of irritation. We can calm her because we can calm ourselves.

Our children demand our growth. What a wonderful journey this is!

Be encouraged Fathers, you got this.

Thanks for listening.