Childbearing in the Old Testament

Reading about childbearing and the importance placed on childbearing and the continuance of the family in the Old Testament is fascinating stuff. I first spent time studying some of the Old Testament women when I was struggling to deal with my own infertility problems. There's tons of stories where you see this idea.

Hannah grieved until it affected her marriage, and eventually the priest thought she was drunk.

 Rachel's anguish was such that she thought it would kill her.

Sarah, seeing that she had no children, gave her maid to her husband as another wife to secure the continuance of his line.

In each of these stories, the women not only deal with the grief of childlessness, but they also must cope with the taunting of the women around them who are able to bear, and mock them for their barrenness. The grief of their empty arms is compounded by cruel jibes about their inability to perform in the sacred role of mother.

But there's some other, less familiar, less comfortable stories, and these almost tell us more about the importance placed on childbearing and the continuity of the family line.

Lot's daughters get him drunk and conceive - in our day, drugging someone like this is criminalized as rape. The Bible tells us that they were trying to preserve the seed of their father. It's an extreme that I can't picture in our day. Quite aside from the criminal nature of the act, I don't see our world putting that kind of importance on the matter. Family lines die out regularly, with no fanfare.

That's not the only story of what seems to me like an extreme position to take in order to preserve the family line. There's also the one I was reading tonight, from 2 Samuel 14, with the Widow of Tekoah.

Basically, it goes like this: two of David's sons have a disagreement, and the one kills the other (he's not without a certain amount of justification) and then runs away, fearing that King David will be angry with him. 3 years pass, and David misses his son, so one of the son's buddies gets a Widow of Tekoah to go see the king. She spins this tale about how she had 2 sons, and one killed the other, and now the family wants to kill the survivor, and can't the king do something so that her husband's line isn't ended forever? And the king listens to her! Tells her he'll handle it, and her surviving (murdering) son will be safe. At that point she says, "Uh, king, sir, don't be mad, but I was actually talking about YOUR son that's in exile," the son comes home, and life goes on.

It's amazing to me to see how far the cultural shift has gone in the other direction. This widow asked the king to excuse her son's murder, so that her family line could continue. And he was prepared to do it. No way that would fly now. Now, it's wait to have kids, if you have them at all. I've heard that stuff from folks in the church, even, though it's contrary to what the prophet says. But that's the fashionable thing, waiting. But then, then it was different.

From April Conference 1979: Fortify Your Homes Against Evil

 The importance placed upon children in the Old Testament is amazing. Women now often peg their value to education or other things, but you can see in the stories of Hannah and Rachel and Sarah how they pegged their value on the ability to bear children. (Neither is correct, in my opinion; a woman's value is intrinsic.) The lengths that some of the people went to just boggles my mind. I don't think that the extremes are good, but that's what brought this particular theme to my attention. Maybe that's why some of those stories are in there: to draw our attention to the importance of children. Because it's not just the crazies. Those women we love to hear about, Hannah, Rachel, Sarah, Elizabeth, they knew something about how important children are, too. Interestingly, in every case, those feminine heroes of the scriptures' infertility was resolved, and they bore at least one child. I'm still pondering that; obviously not every story ends so well in this life. But I'm certain that if I ponder it long enough, the Lord will teach me what it is His message is in their stories. I'm looking forward to that.

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Responding to a Feminist's Question

I am a bit of a birth junkie. 

Folks who are close to me are not going to be surprised by this revelation. The oldest of 8 kids, I used to love reading my mom's pregnancy books whenever she would get pregnant. I was briefly apprenticed at a midwife in high school. Now that I am a mother myself, I've read enough that the usual "over the counter" pregnancy books no longer did the job and I started looking for something "prescription strength": so I read midwifery texts for fun. I have yet to get tired of talking about birth. I like birth, and I am amazed and awed by the incredible design of our bodies. They are marvelous creations! 

As a result of this fascination with birth and babies, I follow a number of birth-related Pages on Facebook. One of my favorites is Improving Birth. They talk a lot about research, and what it says about common US birth practices. I like research. Today they posted an interview with their VP. She said some nice things, but there was one thing she said that really stood out. 

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"How can we bridge that disconnect, that feminism is not the antithesis of motherhood, but the embodiment and the redefinition of it?”

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I don't know if she thought she'd get an answer, or if an answer to that question is even really welcome, but I posted my answer. I guess I'll find out how serious she is - and the other women that make up the community as well. As a strict constitutionalist, and a deeply religious Christian woman, I am part of a tiny minority in the birth junky/midwifery community. Or at least, that's been my perception of the situation for quite some time now. We'll see. This is what I posted:

She asks about the "disconnect", and wonders why people think that feminism is the antithesis of motherhood. For me, the answer to that question is this: the FEMINISTS said so.\

 A few years ago I sat in my Ob's office listening to the talk show in the lobby, and the feminist being interviewed said that women who think they want to be stay-at-home moms don't really know what they want. They just *think* they want to stay at home because they've been told they're supposed to want that. Being the mom has been my dream as long as I can remember. As a college student I joked that I majored in Japanese because "they don't offer degrees in Mothering." As a multi-year fertility patient, a woman who just couldn't seem to ovulate, and when I finally did, I finally got pregnant, only to loose that first baby to an early miscarriage, and there I was, pregnant again, and so close to my SAHM dream, only to hear some arrogant feminist claim that she knew better than I what I want. *That* is why I think feminism is antithetical to Mothering. 

But that's not the only reason I want nothing to do with the feminists. That first miracle baby was a son, and my second miracle, 4 years later, is also a son. I hate what feminism says about my sons. Feminism takes some admittedly ugly behaviors of some men and generalizes the blame to all men. My sons are not what feminism says men are. Neither is my husband. Or my father and brothers. In fact, I've met only a handful of men, ever, who behave the way feminists paint men. I have no use for a movement that cannot distinguish between actual jerks and the rest of the men in the world. I don't want anything to do with a group that teaches, even indirectly, that my boys are inevitably going to grow up into something horrible: men. They are already well on their way to becoming good and noble men. The kind of men that a Mother smiles about as she says, "That's my boy!"

I was blessed with a 3rd miracle last January, this time a daughter. I hope she never takes up the feminist cause because I don't like what feminism teaches about women. I don't like the shrill, leftist position of feminism. First of all, shrillness is unbecoming on anyone, at any time. Secondly, feminism is all about a victim mentality. My daughter is not a victim of men, or of anyone else. But should someone be cruel to her, I hope she will choose not to become a victim anyway. Victims live in the past, as does feminism. There's no need for that. Feminism teaches that it's all men's fault... as if the women were not in the least responsible for shaping society, or inactive in building our culture, which is a laughable assertion. I want none of either the passive bystander or the angry, shrill protester that are the two images of women I have observed feminism presenting. But more than that, feminism's leftist ways are abhorrent to me. Rather than advocating for freedom for all, feminism seeks to use the power of the government to coerce men into "better" behavior. At every turn they seek judicial and legislative solutions: they seek to address the "oppression" of women by using government, which is by definition, force. Yet the hand that rocks the cradle hold the future in her hands, including the future of the culture. Freedom would have solved every problem without stooping to the same tactic (force) they claim to abhor. Another reason to hope my daughter avoids this movement: even as they say that those women who want to be a SAHM don't actually know what they want, feminists howl with outrage at the suggestion that murdering our unborn is sick an wrong -- even as research shows that the unborn are learning, tasting, sleeping and wakeful, able to feel pain, in short real people. Yet feminists would teach my daughter that her unborn child is no more than an expendable mass of cells at best, and at worst, a parasite. Yes, I hope my daughter always rejects feminist thought. 

I appreciate the valuable educational efforts of Improving Birth. There is a great deal of educating that needs to be done. But I see this as an issue of freedom, and of education. Our culture teaches some horribly wrong things about birth, and like so much of culture, it's transmitted by women, from mother to daughter. Women will seek change as a natural result of education, and if the free market is allowed to operate, people will be falling all over themselves to offer the sort of research-supported practices this Page advocates. We don't need laws, except perhaps to repeal barriers to the proper function of the free market. And we can certainly make these things happen without feminism. 

My Grandma, not a midwife, but a wise woman if ever there was one, lived to personally witness the triumphs of feminism. Near the end of her life she told me, "Feminists should have stopped with the vote." More and more all the time, I am appreciating the wisdom of her words.





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Weekly Wrap-up: She's Home Now!

So, Baby Girl is home now, and we are absolutely loving having her here with us, rather than at the hospital!

 

 

 

 

She actually came home from the NICU last Tuesday, at 10 days old. Nine of those days were NICU days. This week, the Daddy went back to work and we started trying to figure out how to be a family of 5. So far so good! Sleeping is, predictably enough, unpredictable. That's life with a newborn, though, and it's getting better. We even got a little bit of school done this week. Just the basics, but with all that's been going on, I feel like getting the basics done is huge.

 

We spent a lot of time doing this:

 

 

 

 





And this:

 

 

Hero practiced his reading, writing, and math facts. And we started doing some Mango Japanese that we can get free through the local library. Just a little bit, but for where we're at, it's still an accomplishment. We're working our way back up to the full load of work. School. Cleaning. Stuff That Needs To Happen.

Singing Praises

My family is reading Ether chapter 6 for our family scripture study right now. They've built the barges, which were the "length of a tree." Even supposing that the trees were the huge sort of trees, that's still not all that big for an ocean crossing. They're dark inside, except for 2 small lights at either end. They're full of people, animals, and bees. We read about conditions in the boats tonight. The scriptures are a little light on the detail, but I got to thinking about what they do say, and what that might look like, to the families experiencing it. It's all pure conjecture, but this is what I thought about tonight.

Being tight "like a dish," there's no draining water that comes in if they open the hatch too soon; deal with the sloshing at least until the next time we come to the surface. Oh, and that bucket of last night's pee? Gonna have to hold on to that. Sorry about the smell. Put it with the dung from the animals. Don't bother the bees.

But that's not all. That's a "furious wind" that's making "mountain waves." Waves that crash on the boat and bury it in the deep until they want for air. You know, hypoxia. Fun stuff that. Headaches, nausea, vomiting. Maybe a seizure if things get really bad. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they didn't die of it, but the scriptures don't say. Maybe some of them did, particularly the very old or very young. And then you'd add a smelly body of a loved one and grieving to the list of things going on in those boats, until you came to the surface again and could put it overboard. It says they cried unto the Lord when they needed to come up. I imagine they did! And he brought them up... into the teeth of the storm driving them.

But that's not all. They built eight barges and got in them. Pushed them into the sea and trusted they'd get there. Wherever there was. I imagined talking to Hero about it, rocking around, seasick, in the bottom of the barge, about day 3:

"How long till we get there?"
"I don't know."
"How far?"
"I don't know."
"Will Aunt Kate and Baby T be there when we get there?"
"I think so. The Lord will take care of them."
"Can I talk to them?"
"No. They're on another boat."
"When can I see them again?"
"I don't know. Getting there takes as long as it takes."
"What if they don't land in the same place as us?"

Turns out, the promised land was quite some distance away: took 344 days to get there. Seems reasonable to me to presume that for about 343 of those, they had no idea how many more days were going to pass before they got out of those boats. And it's not like they had good weather; the winds, which caused "great and terrible tempests" never stopped. For a year. And then there's that word in verse 4, when they're talking about what they ate: subsist.

Sounds like fun, right? Yeah. Hero didn't think so either when we talked about it tonight. I asked him what he thought the people felt about it, and he guessed they didn't like it. He predicted some complaining. So I read him what the scriptures say in verse six:

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And they did sing praises unto the Lord; yea, the brother of Jared did sing praises unto the Lord, and he did thank and praise the Lord all the day long; and when the night came, they did not cease to praise the Lord.

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I knew the story; I saw it coming. Hero was very surprised. Praises? But that's hard! Praises?? Even at night? All day long? Without ceasing?

By this point, my voice is shaking and I'm just fine with it when he says he's tired and falls asleep on me. But I'm not thinking about the Jaredites any more. I'm thinking about my Baby Girl.

I took this picture of her today.

Last Saturday I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Yesterday, I came home from the hospital without her. We left our daughter behind at the NICU. In pain. Stuck full of tubes and wires, some of which go deep into her body. Even when I visit, I can't hold her. My boys can't visit; it's flu season, and they're not allowing children in. We don't know how long she'll be there; it takes as long as it takes. It's hard.

Oh my goodness, this is hard.

The Lord's tender mercies are so apparent, even in the difficulties. Especially in the difficulties.

I need to be more careful to "sing praises." To say thank you to Him. And once I started thinking that way, I started seeing even more to be grateful for.

It makes it easier to bear, and that's huge.

Weekly Wrap-up: a good week

It's been a busy week, but a good one. Our house is on the market, but nobody has come to look so far. On the one hand, that's a bummer; on the other, it lets us get more stuff done so that it should be more ready. And I get time to practice keeping things really clean. I don't love that practice, but it's good for me.

We're getting closer to being ready for the baby to come. I need some socks and a few long-sleeve onseis (the boys were both summer babies, so I don't have any with long sleeves), and we'll be set for newborn clothes. I don't have a dresser at this point, but if the house doesn't sell we have hatched a plan to have a bedroom for our baby. It'll mean that the kids are upstairs and we are downstairs, and I hate that, but if we can't sell then we'll have to do something. In the mean time, I'm starting to think about what needs to go into my bag for the hospital and onto my playlist for labor. And I need to decide on a going home outfit. Such a silly, unimportant thing, but I care anyway.

School has gone reasonably well too. Hero got cashed in his coupon for November's Book It! pizza early on this week (I didn't think to take pictures, but he was really happy with it), we made cookies, we did a bunch of math and finished off the Math Expressions 1st Grade vol. 1 book and started the second volume. I gave him the unit test as a pretest for the next unit and he tested out of about half of it. Happily I have the Grade 2 books on hand and ready to go. It'll be a bit, but if he continues to test out of half the materials it won't be that long.

We have been reading from Beowulf, and the boys both love it. I think that Dragon likes the rhythm of the words, but Hero is able to follow the story with a little explanation of some of the big words. We also have this narration to show for the rest of the week's history:

 

 

One of the reasons that school was such a success this week is that we actually managed to do both History and Science... in the same week. So we've got a really nice narration from Science as well. We've been working our way through Seymour Simon's book, The Solar System, and I'm having Hero narrate on each object that they cover. We'll continue to work on this narration next week. The pictures are ones that he's selected from the internet.

 

 

Hero is suddenly flying through the lessons in All About Spelling, and while the writing is still challenging, the words are spelled correctly.

We're still working on writing, and it's getting better. I keep reading that reversals are perfectly normal for six years old, so I am carefully not worrying about them. All the drawing that he's been doing is helping the fine motor skills, but I can see from the spelling work that we need to do more handwriting practice. And that's fine. Once we finish this trip through the alphabet my plan is to do a combination of copywork and more focused practice on problem letters. We'll continue like that for as long as it takes to get the letters solid.

Of course, what the big guy does, the little guy needs to do as well, so he had a spider paper that he worked on too. I was really quite surprised at how well he did. Dragon watched carefully to see what Hero was doing, and then he tried to do the same. He didn't quite manage to make an S, but he did make something that looked very much like a 6. He then colored in and around it, but you can still kind of see it. I was impressed.

 

 

 

Find out what other families have been up to: 



 

Weekly Wrap-up: the miscellaneous one

One thing that doing these wrap-up posts does is it makes me aware that we don't have all that many "regular" weeks. Still, there is learning in every week, and good overall progress, so what we're doing seems to be working, even if it is a bit crazy from time to time. And that pretty much describes this week too. A little crazy, but some good things happened.

One of the awesome things going on is that Hero is getting so much better are reading, and it's so exciting to me! Just this afternoon, he got out his box of easy books, sat down, and started to read. He still likes the security of having someone next to him to help with hard words, so it didn't take him long to ask me to join him, but I was so excited that he was taking that initiative to start the process in the first place! Seems like every book he reads, he starts out uncertain because it looks "hard" but by the end he's got it handled and it's no problem. We're well into All About Spelling 1 now, and finally getting to the point of having words to learn, and it's so fun to see him laughing because "You can't even fool me, Mom! These are easy!" That works for me. We'll buzz through the easy stuff and slow down a bit when we get to something that's more challenging. And in the mean time, it's offering a nice review of the CVC words. After all the work on vowel pairs we've been doing, revisiting CVC words is a both a needed break and a valuable review.

The boys are getting along so well. This picture is actually from last week, when I was feeling sick and the Daddy was out of town going to our new nephew's baby blessing. I really wanted to have the house tidy not wrecked when he got home, but just the bare bones was all I could really do. So I offered Hero a couple dollars to clean the living room, and he not only did it, he did it well, and he let his little brother "help" with the vacuuming. What an awesome kid!

Another thing that we did since my last "wrap-up" was we made bread again. A friend of mine was complaining that the hard cider he made in his home-brewery tasted like bubble gum, and was trying to figure out what happened. He mentioned that he'd gotten the "pitching rate" wrong, and me being incurably curious, I asked what is a pitching rate. He told me it's the amount of yeast you use. He also mentioned in passing that when you use cold yeast it doesn't rehydrate properly, and you get deformed yeast cells that can't do their job. So I tried warming up my yeast before I bake to see if it makes much difference in bread. Wow. Does it ever. I got 2 loaves instead of one, and the crust was perfect, and the bread was soft and light, and my kids raved over it. All I did was measure my yeast onto a saucer and then ate half a bagel with Nutella before I put it in the warm water. Definitely going to add that little bit of delay to the routine. And, yes, that's bread dough around Dragon's mouth. For whatever crazy reason he thinks it's tasty to eat raw bread dough. Ick. But it doesn't seem worth it to fight him on it. He calls it "cookie dough" and it can't be any worse than eating that stuff!

 

Let's see. Other fun stuff we did. We watched some YouTube videos about the space station. I didn't keep track of which ones this time, so I can't share them. Seems like we never get history and science to work in the same week, so there's not much going on in history right now. But we learned about the shuttle and the space station and even bumped into the Hubble telescope. Always fun. We're supposed to do some moon stuff next week. And we're supposed to finish off Rome in history. We'll see what I actually make happen.

I had another ultrasound this week, and this time I actually got some pictures digitized so I can post them! She's getting bigger, and looking more and more babyish all the time, and it's so exciting! Both my sisters have had their babies now, and I'm getting close to the beginning of the third trimester. For whatever reason, this time I'm just ready to be done and have the BABY already. But she's got to finish baking and it's sort of driving me crazy. Such is life. I don't really want her to come early (she threatened to do that; it was stressful). I read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, and it starts with all these lovely stories about people coming to see Ina May and then going on walks in the woods while they labor, and I was thinking, "That sounds great! I wonder if I can convince the Daddy to take me to the park to wander around when I'm in labor, before we go to the hospital?" And then I remembered: this baby's due in February. And we live in the North. And suddenly laboring in the woods didn't sound so lovely anymore. I guess I'll just stay at home where it's actually cozy until it's time to go. Maybe next time the baby will be due in a season that is Not Winter. Cuz I still think that the woods would be an awesome place to do the first parts of birthing.

Let's see. Other interesting stuff with school. We didn't do much history, but we did a bunch of science. I have the worst time getting those two things to coexist in the same week! But this week we learned about the space shuttles and the space station, and we even bumped into the Hubble telescope. Next week we're supposed to do some fun stuff with the moon. I've got a fun art project in mind; hopefully I can be organized (and the family can be healthy!) enough to get it done. And also finishing up Rome. We're starting the Middle Ages in history, but it's turning out to be a pretty slow start. However! My books are getting organized, bit by bit. I'm hoping to give them their own post here shortly.

 

My friend CH came back from her trip to Europe a few days ago (it was a sort of study abroad thing, and she had a great time), and her family and ours got together for pumpkin carving. Of course, there has to be a photo like this one. So she kindly posed for me. And then we got down to the serious business of carving cool pumpkins. I spend too much time on Pinterest, so I knew just what I wanted to do: those big pumpkins eating little ones are hilarious. So I did one. And Hero had to do one like mine, so he and the Daddy did his. And the Daddy did one. And poor little Dragon wasn't allowed to touch the knives, which he thought was meanness. But we did let him pull out pumpkin guts, and he liked that. Did you know that pie pumpkin guts are considerably ickier than carving pumpkin guts? I didn't ether, but they are. Ick.

 

 The other big thing we did was go hiking. (When I'm planning school it's called "nature study".) And that was awesome. We were traveling with the Daddy while he did some work in a neighboring state, and when we do that we like to visit their state parks. This was a particularly successful outing. The Daddy took Hero and they went on a long hike. Sadly, I don't have the pictures they took, so I don't have any of Hero for this event. But I took a couple of Dragon on the little hike we went on, after he was done playing on the swings we found. We had a great time! We listened to chickadees and nuthatches, and then we hiked down to the little waterfall -Dragon's first- and on the way back he discovered moss. He wasn't so sure about touching it at first, but after he'd tried it once we had to make several more stops to investigate moss. Along with rocks. And sand. And logs. It's so fun to see the little things that are fascinating to little kids. Reminds me to be amazed.

 That's pretty much our week. If you'd like to see what other folks are talking about, you can find more wrap-ups over at Kris's place!

Play With Your Food

I keep hearing that you're not supposed to play with your food, but it's just so much fun! We've done a lot of playing with our food lately.

When they were in the planning stage, these were going to be beetles. I was a little concerned that Monkey was going to want dung beetles (gross!), but when it was time to pick a bug, he went to a nice dragonfly. I've since discovered a tutorial video, and I'm anxious to try fancy pancakes again, since I'm certain I can do better now that I know what tools to use. I used peanut butter & chocolate to color the bug parts, and there were no complaints!

Since we learned about puffins, Monkey keeps telling me I'm his "pet puffin." And Raven is my "baby puffin." I reasoned that puffins eat fish, so I'd better be feeding the family "puffin food." Monkey wasn't so sure what he'd gotten himself into at first, but he loved helping make the fish and asked for more "puffin food' the next day. There wasn't any leftovers, so we made another batch. Only by that time we were studying owls, and I wanted an owl cookie cutter. The only one I could find was in a set of 50 animal cookie cutters... yeah, I've got quite the collection of cookie cutters now. The good news is, this cute bread is easy! It's pizza dough, rolled out and cut with a cookie cutter, then baked about 10 minutes at 450F. When it's done we "paint" it with some garlic butter. Sometimes there's parmesan cheese in the garlic butter. Yum!

And we also fed Raven spaghetti. He had a good time. I'm really not sure much went in the baby, but he had a good time. And devoured a fish bread. That kid loves his bread. Smart boy!

Raven

Links Links Links

We'll start off with an unexpected birth story: An Open Letter to the Nurse at Cedars Sinai that Called me a Failure.

I swiped this love song from my cousin's blog. My favorite part is the couples at the beginning, but the song is also great.


The Headmistress posted this Bizarre Depression-Era Recipe. I'm so NOT trying it!

This one is from the message boards: apparently she had a BEAR living under the porch... all winter long?!? She even put up pictures from when it climbed their tree, and the realized it wasn't a mouse.

This is a great post about using manipulatives in math. I'd love to get some more of those - and the blocks they were using in her pictures looked awesome!


I think this guy, if the claims about him predicting a previous earthquake are real, looks a bit too credible for my comfort. In any case, his theory is very interesting.

Raven Rolled!

Babies don't like tummy time. Apparently, Raven didn't get the memo. He loves the stuff. I regularly try a little tummy time to calm him down. If he's not too upset, tummy time and some butt-pats work wonders. Have you ever met a baby that calms down on his tummy? This is certainly the only one I know! We've seen him almost roll a couple of times, but his arms were in the way; they were holding him back.

Today, that wasn't a problem. He rolled. He was pretty snoozy; I doubt it was on purpose. But I'll bet he figures out how to do it on purpose soon.

Not bad, for 7 weeks.

Now, repeat after me, quickly: "Raven rolled. Raven rolled. Raven rolled..." That oughta tie the tongue into a knot or two!

One Month Old

We're starting to get the hang of being a family of four now. Raven is growing all the time, and starting to plump up a bit. He was pretty scrawny when he was born, but now he's getting some creases and cute little chubby cheeks. All that brusing from being born so fast is finally gone; no more "blueberry baby." Now we call him our "tomato baby" because he gets so red when he's upset. He actually likes tummy time - so much so that he's fallen asleep there a couple of times. I'm still getting used to that: Monkey was inconsolable on his tummy from day 1, and I don't remember any other baby I've spent time with really enjoying it. I think I could spend an awful lot of time baby-gazing, given the opportunity. We're all pretty smitten. Yesterday, I walked into the living room to see Raven sitting on Monkey, and Monkey was sitting on Daddy. Truly a kodak moment!

Tutorial: Very Esay Baby Blankets

My babies have both been tall, and they are quickly too long to swaddle in the little receiving blankets, so I use these square flannel blankies instead. At 2 1/2 weeks, Raven is already needing the larger size, and we've somehow lost nearly all the ones I made when Monkey was born so I'm making a few new ones. These are simple double flannel squares, and they're a great size that works for swaddling now and dragging around when the baby gets older. I do squares because I prefer to swaddle in a square, rather than a rectangle.


Materials Needed:



2.5 yards of flannel
Matching thread

The idea is to have a piece of fabric that is twice as long as it is wide.

Fold your fabric in half right sides together.



For the most part, I use a standard 5/8ths seam. However, flannel often has a "don't use this for children's sleepwear" warning, and on that side I use a larger seam to make sure that the warning is completely hidden on the final blanket.



Start sewing about 8 inches from the fold. Go all the way around the open edges of the fabric, until you come back to the fold.



Clip a triange off the corners to reduce the bulk of fabric there when it's finished. Turn your blanket right-side out through the opening you left in the seam. Make sure your corners are fully turned as you go. Iron the blanket flat. When you iron, make sure to iron the open spot with the edges to the inside of the blanket, so that it looks closed as it sits there. Then, when you go back to your machine, start with the open spot.



Topstitch all the way around the blanket, which should close the opening you left. I like to make this seam as wide as my machine's foot.



That's it, you're done! Swaddle your baby in your new blanky!