Replies

We have only one son (so far) and he is six months old. So far, he has been pretty good during Mass, although I work hard at keeping him that way.

We don't have a "crying room" at our small church. If he does act up, it's out to the narthex (well, I know we're not supposed to call it that, but that's what everyone there calls it).

And, of course, you can hardly be blamed for referring to EEMs as EMs, as that's what is hammered into our heads all the time.

We took our son to Mass until he was about 8-9 months. He was fine most of the time. But WHAM! once he was confident of his mobility, it was impossible to keep him restrained without him hollering at the injustice of it all. And, this ALWAYS happened during the Homily. I'd go to the vestibule, or the crying room, but then I couldn't really listen to the Mass and I felt I wasn't being reverent enough, or getting anything out of Mass. We had a great lady running the child care for awhile, but then she took on other responsibilities, and it became hit and miss.

We have a large parish, and a friend of mine with four kids (five on the way) and I (three kids, with #4 on the way) have been talking about a co-op where parents agree to take one mass per month and we rotate. 9:30 and 11 are the two most crowded masses, so we thought if we found 8-10 families we could cover each one.

I just know my son is far too active to expect to sit in a pew for an hour and not make a sound or crawl under all the pews and run up to the altar.