“My friend Denise who writes periodic devotionals called As God Pleases - sent the one to follow with a type of apology for the delay on the devotional she had intended for Halloween. Aside from all the other discussion that was taking place during that time period on various Christian websites including those involved with GFI, I believe the timing of this devotional is ‘just right’ - as in truth, the words that Denise will encourage us with has to do with our lifestyle all year round. Hope her words will both admonish and encourage all who read “As God Pleases”. With the holiday season approaching may we be diligent to demonstrate gratitude to our children and all those that the Lord brings across our path, for the great “Gift” Who came to earth over 2000 years ago.” Blessings on your day, Anne Marie

I’m currently studying the book of Ruth from a prophetical viewpoint. In studies like this your mind is drawn to thoughts of the end times. From a Jewish perspective the regathering of the Jews to the Promised Land is an indicator that we are in the end times. A look to our world points to the same conclusion. We have wars and threats of war, famine, an increase in natural disasters, and an increase in lawlessness, which are the birth pangs of what is to follow, given in Matthew 24:5-8.

Timing and signs of readiness for dropping naps is always a question for parents, even those who have done it before. It can be hard to remember all of the details. Here is a synopsis of various naps, timing of when to drop them, signs that your child is ready to drop them, and methods for doing so.

Dropping the Fourth Nap

First, we need to define nap times for newborns. I consider any sleep that happens after 7 PM to be bedtime. So a newborn who eats around 7ish, then goes to sleep (this could be considered a nap by some), and wakes again to eat around 10ish, in my definition would have gone to bed after the 7ish feeding. My reason for this is that baby never drops that sleep between 7 and 10. Baby drops the feeding around 10 at some point.

The fourth nap is the nap that occurs between 4ish and 7ish PM.

AGE: I have found the average age for this nap to be dropped is 4 months old. Some are ready earlier (but really no earlier than 3 months) and some are ready later (but few later than 5 months).

SINGS OF READINESS: For most babies, the sign for this nap to be dropped is that baby really doesn’t sleep well for it anymore. Note the word anymore. This is a typical fussy time of day for babies when many don’t sleep well in general. Don’t assume your 4 week old doesn’t need this nap because he isn’t sleeping well. By four months of age, baby is most likely playing around during “naptime” instead of sleeping. Some babies might sleep for this nap but then have a hard time going down after the 7ish feeding. Others might have sudden disrupted sleep at night.

Another sign would be that your child is ready for a 4 hour schedule. A 4 hour schedule will naturally drop the fourth nap.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: One easy method is to move to the 4 hour schedule if your baby is ready. Many babies will naturally drop this fourth nap as they move to the 4 hour schedule. As you extend your schedule, you drop feedings. As you drop feedings, you drop number of naps. Other babies are ready to drop this nap before they are ready to move to a 4 hour schedule. This was true for both of my children.

If your child is ready to drop the nap but not ready for a 4 hour schedule, you just skip the nap. Take note that the last two feedings might then move closer together because a baby can go longer between feedings if he is asleep than he can when he is awake. He also might need a bit earlier of a bedtime (30 minutes or so), at least for a few days while he adjusts. Some babies will be fussy for a few days as they adjust to the new sleeping arrangement.

One note, if you think your child is ready to drop this nap and is still taking a 1.5-2 hour nap at this time, try shortening the nap at first. Perhaps down to 60 minutes, 45 minutes, or 30 minutes.

Dropping the Third Nap

The next nap you drop is the evening nap. By the time baby is ready to drop it, it is usually a short 45 minute nap. Your baby will be on a 4 hour schedule by this point, so the nap will again be somewhere between 4 and 7 PM.

AGE: According to On Becoming Babywise I and II, this happens relatively young (around 6-8 months).

This can vary from child to child. The youngest it should be will is 6 months. The average seems to be 8 months. My son didn’t drop his until he was about 10 months old. I was reading Babywise and realized he was not supposed to need it, so we dropped it. My daughter didn’t fully drop it until she was 11 months old. one day

This can vary from child to child. The youngest it should be will is 6 months. The average seems to be 8 months. My son didn’t drop his until he was about 10 months old. I was reading Babywise and realized he was not supposed to need it, so we dropped it. My daughter didn’t fully drop it until she was 11 months old. one day

SIGNS OF READINESS: It can be hard to tell just when your baby is ready to drop this nap because it is already short. One sign is if your baby doesn’t seem tired enough for bed after napping in the evening. Other signs can be the same as the fourth nap: baby doesn’t sleep for that nap at all, baby doesn’t go to bed well after taking that nap, or baby doesn’t sleep well at night.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: This is a nap you skip. Some babies might be able to go “cold turkey,” or dropping all at once. If you choose this method, expect some fussiness as your baby adjusts. Be ready to be an entertainer. You could get a new toy or book or something to pull out only at that time of day to keep the baby happier. You could also leave the house to keep him distracted. When my oldest dropped this nap, I remember he was cranky during the stretch for several days, maybe even a week, but his body soon adjusted. before her morning nap and still waking her up from the nap at the same time. I shortened the morning nap. I also added about 10-15 minutes to her waketime between her two naps. These actions fixed things and she was back to sleeping for both naps: 1.5 hours in the morning and 2-2.5 in the afternoon. For some children, this morning nap might need to be shortened more than that. As I said, Kaitlyn is a sleeper. She is still taking a long morning nap though it is shorter than it was.

Another method is a weaning process. In this approach, you only give the nap if baby needs it that day. Some days baby takes the nap, other days he doesn’t. This is the method I used with my daughter. We started around 8 months to take it as a weaning process. If we were out in the evening, she didn’t nap. If we were home, I waited to put her down only if she showed signs of needing it. If she was awake and started showing signs of needing the nap 30 minutes before her normal feeding time, I fed her early and put her to bed early. At first, every few days she didn’t nap. Soon, it was every other day. Later, she napped only every few days. As I said earlier, she didn’t fully drop this nap until she was 11 months old.

Dropping this nap might move bedtime up.

Dropping the Morning Nap

When you drop the morning nap, you move from two naps to one. Dropping the morning nap is not as sad as it may seem. You suddenly have a large chunk of time when baby doesn’t have to be home! You baby will also most likely take a longer afternoon nap once the morning nap is dropped, so you have a longer stretch in the afternoon to get things done. This also gives you more opportunity for quality learning opportunities and activities in the morning hours.

AGE: Among the different “–wise” books, the ages for dropping the morning nap range from 14-22 months, and all are possible. Some toddlers do drop the nap as early as 14 months. My son was 17 months. My daughter is now approaching 19 months and still holding on to her morning nap. I am hoping for her to drop it soon, and every so often I try, but she isn’t quite ready.

SIGNS OF READINESS: For some children, this can be one of the easier naps to tell he is ready to drop. For others, it can be a real guessing game.

Classic signs of readiness are when your toddler is ready to drop this nap, he will still sleep really well in the morning, but for the afternoon nap, he will hardly sleep at all. This is when he is ready to drop the morning nap. This is how my son was.

Another classic sign is your toddler might not sleep for the morning nap but sleeps for the afternoon nap.

For some toddlers, things can be trickier. There is a transition time when the toddler isn’t ready to drop the morning nap, but doesn’t need a full nap anymore. My daughter was this way. When Kaitlyn was about 14 months, she started to not sleep well for both naps. This was extremely odd to me. She has always been a really good napper. She loves to sleep. I started to wonder if perhaps she was ready to drop the morning nap. It surprised me because she didn’t drop her third nap until she was 11 months old—I didn’t think she would be ready to drop the morning nap so soon after dropping the evening nap.

She wasn’t ready. Kaitlyn missed her morning nap once a week for church. She would then come home, eat lunch, and go to sleep for about 4 hours–making up for her missed morning nap. She was very, very tired when we got home. Tired enough that she usually didn’t eat her lunch very well. Based on this, I figured she wasn’t really ready to drop her morning nap.

Instead, I started lengthening her waketime

Others might be going through teething or some other disruption, which causes parents to wonder if it is time to drop the nap. Some might be able to start a weaning process from this nap where some days they take the nap, others they don’t. More on this is explained below.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: Your toddler will take his nap after lunch. For us, naptime started at 1 PM. Some toddlers need naptime to start earlier than this, at least for a period of time. You can have lunch earlier if needed and nap start earlier. Once he is back to normal, you can have the nap move to your (and his) optimal time.

With my son, we dropping this nap cold turkey just as we had previous naps. This is one option.

You can also try a weaning process. I find this nap harder to do a weaning process for. If your toddler doesn’t take a morning nap, the afternoon nap times are very different from when your toddler does. It can be hard to plan your day. If you have an open enough schedule that you can work around this, weaning is a good first step for you. If not, you will have to wait until your toddler is more ready before dropping it. You can also consider simply being more flexible for a week or two and allowing the weaning process, planning to hopefully fully drop the nap after that.

If you think your child is ready to drop the morning nap, you can always give it a try. My guess is after two-three days in a row, you will have a good idea if he is really ready or not. I suggest having other things to do to keep your toddler preoccupied. Errands to run, people to visit, etc.

I tried dropping this nap with Kaitlyn a few weeks ago. Day one was fine. Day two, she started to fall asleep while eating lunch. I could see she wasn’t quite ready yet.

In my experience, toddlers are not as cranky after dropping this nap as they are for others. When we dropped this nap with my son, the afternoon nap went to 3.5 hours instead of 2 hours and bedtime moved up an hour.

As your child gets older, the nap will shorten and/or bedtime will move back slightly.

Dropping the Afternoon Nap

The afternoon nap is the only nap of the day. Your child will move from the nap to rest time. I haven’t reached this milestone yet (though I believe we are approaching it with my son). I will summarize the information as listed in On Becoming Preschoolwise (page 100).

AGE: This is typically around four years of age, though age depends on the sleep needs of the individual child.

SIGNS OF READINESS: Your child will stay awake through his scheduled naptime.

METHODS FOR DROPPING: This nap should be “dropped” as a weaning process. You have your child lay quietly on his bed. You allow him to have a book or two to look at. You tell him if he feels tired, he should go to sleep.

If your child falls asleep but does so later than usual, wake him at the time naptime would normally be over, not X number of hours after falling asleep. He will likely be cranky from a short nap, so plan on him doing something to transition out of the nap (for example, watch a movie).

Over time, your child will nap some days and rest others. The transition period from naptime to rest time can take six months to one year. He will slowly decrease the number of naps he takes in a day.

If your child is cranky on days he didn’t take a nap, you can put him to bed thirty minutes early.

Notes for Dropping Naps

• Children are often cranky/fussy for a few days or so while their bodies adjust to the nap that has been dropped. Don’t mistake normal crankiness for signs that he wasn’t ready.
• Bedtime often needs to be moved up after dropping a nap, at least for a week or two while your child adjusts. For some naps, your child will move back to “normal” bedtime. For others, normal is now earlier.
• Sometimes the other naps are longer after dropping a nap.
• For babies and toddlers, dropping a nap doesn’t necessarily mean less sleep in the day. They simply rearrange the times they sleep.
• Don’t be afraid to try dropping the nap if you think your child is ready. If you try to drop a nap and find your child wasn’t ready, you can always add the nap back in.

My blog: http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/

We’ve dealt with lying. Boy, and how! We had a child who lied so often, it was amazing! I’m telling you, you just haven’t lived until a Children’s Church leader has called you because your little darling has asked for prayer from the entire assemblage of children and leaders because her aunt (your sister) has died “while giving birth” to twins! Then try to neatly explain that it’s all just a fabrication. All this while you are trying to convince the church leaders that you are the person to head up a new parenting ministry called, “Growing Kids God’s Way!” I can laugh at this now, because it was almost a dozen years ago!

I always give this example to parents who come to us with the “lying question.” You can see in their eyes that after they hear my story, they feel a whole lot better about their child! Then I look at my daughter and smile as I think, “You’ve come a long way, Baby!” Praise the Lord.

So, how’d we get from horror to praise? Well, here are some of the nuts and bolts we figured out along the way.

It is good to first consider the age of the child, the frequency with which he lies and to contemplate the reason the child is resorting to the behavior (imagination, parental unfairness, etc.). Beyond that there are so many factors to consider.

First, how’s couchtime? It’s amazing how many things can be affected without it. It’s always a good idea to look here first.

Next, how much training has gone into teaching qualities like diligence, honesty, personal responsibility (opposite virtue training)? Teaching the value of honesty is vital. Without giving a “fire and brimstone” message, an earnest conversation from a concerned parent about the way God feels about lying, what lying does to an individual and his relationships and his heart can turn a child around by giving them the big picture they never considered. Singer/Songwriter, Stormie Omartian, told her son, “Satan is a liar… All the evil he does begins with a lie. People who lie believe that lying will make things better for them. But actually, it does just the opposite. That’s because telling a lie means you have aligned yourself with Satan. Every time you lie you give Satan a piece of your heart. The more lies you tell, the more you give place in your heart to Satan’s lying, until eventually you can’t stop yourself from lying.”

Another common factor, is that the child has too much unsupervised time. Sin can breed a type of unhealthy independence that encourages lying. For instance, if the child has been sent to his room to do his homework and he has spent one of the two hours playing around daydreaming, the time of disobedience has fed a false sense of independence. Then when confronted with his sin, his natural inclination is to cover it and because he has already been feeding his sin nature, it doesn’t cause too much discomfort to his heart to lie. Face it, sin is pleasurable. If a child has had a grand time in disobedience, he will continue. Try keeping a bit of a tighter reign on the child - no extended periods of time alone when an instruction has been given.

Another piece of this puzzle is harder to explain, but so consistent, it is impossible to ignore. It is the spiritual factor. If a child has issues with abandonment, they very often lie. This is not to say that children of divorce or adoption are inherently bad * certainly not! However, it seems that something is violated in their hearts that causes them to feel they need to lie. Perhaps they are angry; perhaps they are afraid of losing anyone else and so they cover their mistakes. Whatever it is, it is essential to remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood. We must fight on the spiritual front with our spiritual weapons. Praying over this child and declaring that he is not a liar is essential. Stand fast on your child’s behalf against any lying spirit that would seek to destroy your child’s life.

So, your child has lied. Now what? After evaluating the reasons honestly, how will you react? It is hard not to take lying personally. It hurts! And while it is okay to show your child that you are hurt, disappointed and less likely to trust them as implicitly as you would like to be able to, it is not okay to allow them to feel that there is no forgiveness, no hope for relationship or you will never think of them the same again. God never does that to us no matter what we do.

Naturally there will be consequences. It depends greatly on the pattern of lying and what the lie was about. In our home, if a child lied, it was an automatic chastisable offense. If the child would have had consequences of any kind for the action they are lying about (not doing homework, disobeying, etc.) they received those consequences along with the additional consequence for lying. It is important to separate the offenses. A child must see that he would have been better off to just tell the truth no matter what.

In addition, a time of looking over his shoulder to make sure of compliance and honesty is appropriate. If a child is lying about things outside your home, restrict his activities outside the home. The logic is simple, “If I can’t trust you outside the home, you will have to stay here.”

We had a child look up and write out different verses that reveal how God views lying. It was very eye-opening. It is important that children understand what is at the core of lying.

Lying is no small thing. Few behaviors we confront as parents strike so close to our hearts and threaten our children’s lives and spirits the way lying does. It is important to not underestimate the implications of having a child who lies. And though some issues we face can be met head on and conquered, lying is a battle that we will need to fight on many fronts. It is best to surround the enemy of lying with all your forces and attack wholeheartedly. Remember always that it is lying that is your enemy, NOT the child who is lying. So gather your forces. You’ll need a frontal attack of determination and refusal to accept lying. You’ll flank the sides with training in honesty, virtue, integrity and obedience. You’ll attack from the rear with swift consequences that won’t permit any escaping enemies. And with every move, you’ll make unconditional love your battle cry, reassuring your child that no matter what they do or how much you are hurt, you will always love them. Together, you and your child can route the enemy and have the relationship you want.

Permission granted by Tim and Ami Loper of Miracle Books.  The original version of this article can be found in the Summer 2005 edition of “Oh Yeah”.

Our Ministry Center, which houses the church offices, has been a hive of activity and energy this week! We have been blessed to host a youth missions project. Over the past few days, they have taken on several projects, the biggest of which was the task of building a wall, or, as the local building inspector informed me, a ‘decorative bulkhead’. What a blessing this team consisting of three adults, seven students, one babysitter, and two young children has been! In their time with us, they have not only completed the wall, but have also painted two of our ‘Conex’ storage units and cleaned up the area around the building. There are still several more projects planned for Friday.

As we were outside pulling stumps, clearing ground, and moving brick and fill materials, I couldn’t help but think of Nehemiah. Of course, our 60-foot wall is nothing compared with the project that he and his men tackled, but it is teaching us some of the same lessons that the nation of Israel learned many years ago.

God raised up Nehemiah to lead His people in a reconstruction process that would secure the city from outside threats and would support consistent worship of God at the rebuilt temple. In 539 BC, God began the work of restoring His people to the land from which they had been removed 70 years earlier. God used a decree by Cyrus (king of Persia) to allow Zerubbabel to lead the first group of Israelites back to their homeland to rebuild the Temple. It would be another 82 years before a second reformer, Ezra, would lead a group that actually completed the temple. Finally, 13 years later, Nehemiah led a third group to rebuild the city walls.

As one studies the history of God’s faithfulness in returning His people to the land given them, there are many lessons to be learned. In light of our wall project, the one that stands out from the book of Nehemiah is the power of teamwork. Certainly, a project does not stand on teamwork alone; the first four chapters of Nehemiah remind us that any successful project must first include prayer, then planning, partnership, and finally perseverance.

Many, in reading their Bibles, view Nehemiah 3 as one of the ‘boring sections’ of Scripture, like those that contain genealogies. And yet Nehemiah, in his ‘grocery list’ of families and their responsibilities, reminds us of how important it is to work together. While not one family was responsible for the entire wall, each was responsible for one section, that directly in front of their own home. It is amazing that what could not be accomplished (building the wall) in over 90 years of living in the land, was completed in 52 days! “So the wall was completed… in fifty-two days” Nehemiah 6:15.  And the benefits of this partner are highlighted in the next verse “When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.” (Nehemiah 6:16)

I encourage you, if you are not already involved, to roll up your sleeves and get ‘plugged in’ to your local church. Your involvement will lighten the load for others, allow much more to be accomplished, and also provide a testimony to the world of what God can do through His people when they work together!

- Pastor Joe Parkinson

Post Script from Anne Marie Ezzo - After reading Pastor Joe’s encouragement and reminder that the responsibility of rebuilding of the wall was not placed on just one family, the long time theme for GFI:  reaching our Nations “one family at a time” came to mind. As each of us diligently apply the Truth God reveals to us through His Word in our individual homes, accompanied by prayer, partnership with likeminded families and perseverance, we can, together make a difference that others can see. “Realizing that this work had been done with the help of our God.” (Nehemiah 6:16)

In early 2004, we learned that our daughter Alyssa has Celiac Disease. Celiac Disease is genetic condition where the body does not know how to process Gluten, the protein found in wheat and other grains. In the body’s attempt to digest the gluten, it actually begins to destroy itself. The body absorbs nutrition through small hair-like elements in the small intestine called villi. The villi of a person with Celiac Disease becomes damaged by the body’s mis-processing of gluten and the body’s enzymes attack the villi instead of digesting food. Now that Ami and I have learned that Alyssa has Celiac, there is but one solution - she must stop eating Gluten! That solution is no small matter. Gluten shows up just about everywhere. Bread is an obvious no-no, but there is also Gluten in things like some salad dressings, shredded cheese, french fries, mayonnaise, soy sauce, etc.

Why in the world am I writing about this on a GKGW blog? Well in the midst of it all I learned a lesson about myself and it applies to parenting. I found some rebellion in me. When we heard that we must seek out and eliminate all Gluten from Alyssa’s diet, I rebelled. I thought, “That sounds really hard, and like an overreaction.” I wanted to just avoid bread and not worry about the little sources. I voiced my thoughts to a Celiac expert and he challenged my thoughts. He described how every little bit of gluten would damage the villi and keep it from growing back. In a sense, there would be no point in cutting the large amounts of gluten without getting the small amounts out as well - all the work to make new recipes and avoid the big gluten would be wasted.

As I dwelled upon those thoughts, I believe the Lord showed me that as parents we often work hard to address the large blatant defiance and obedience issues while we ignore the “smaller” issue of attitude. The reality is that if we really care about training the heart, then we must be diligent to address all issues of the heart or we will watch our other efforts fall away worthless. One way I personally struggle in this area is being alert and watchful for attitude. The Celiac must watch everything they eat, read every label, being diligent and careful to recognize and avoid hidden gluten sources. We must “read” our children, know their hearts, sense their attitudes and then be bold enough to say and do something about it.

Reworking our buying habits, redeveloping the recipes and submitting to a new menu and diet was a daunting task, taking a lot of effort to make all the changes needed. But we did it (actually Ami did it). Just as with Celiac Disease, your child’s health and life is at stake. Make the effort to reach every part of your child’s heart and leave no attitude unturned - and watch health, peace, joy and moral strength of character grow in your child!

Permission granted by Tim and Ami Loper of Miracle Books.  The original version of this article can be found in the Winter 2004 edition of “Oh Yeah”.