Since we’ve been attending a church where no one looks at us like we’ve lost our minds when we bring our children in to the service.  And since I don’t want to be running around with a newborn in my arm and chasing Ceili Rain during the service, we’ve started blanket training.

Blanket Training was a concept I’ve heard of a long time ago but learned a little more about by reading the Duggars book, 20 and Counting.  A couple of weeks ago, I researched a little more about how to do it.  Apparently there are various ways to do this.  This is how I did it.

First day, I sat her down for about five minutes with two to three toys on a blanket.  If she tried to get up, I told her, “No, it’s blanket time.” and sat her back down.  The second time she got up, I told her the same and disciplined her.  I actually don’t think I had to tell her twice the first couple of days.  Her attention span is pretty good so she got up to 10 minutes pretty quickly.  So…basically the goal is to increase the time she can sit on the blanket.  My goal is 30 minutes since that is a typical sermon (I haven’t “timed” our preacher but I’m just guesstimating).

She loved it from the beginning, and like I said, she sat on it for a long time for a 16 month old.  I’ve been impressed with her stamina.  I’ve also been able to walk out of the room for brief periods and she remains on the blanket.

The goal, however, is to do it consistently so that it becomes routine.

We tried it out at church on a Wednesday night after three days of working on it.  She did amazingly well.  Our Sunday worship was not as great…but I had not been consistent over the couple of days leading up to worship for her to do it correctly.

I’m  loving it though and hoping it will help not only with worship but also when I’m feeding Bryant!