Back in the fall, we made the unpopular decision to bring our two children, then 1 and 3, to a funeral. I say unpopular because none of us were really sure about how my older one would do with seeing an open casket, not remembering she’d met her before, and then seeing a lot of relatives and adults crying.

I saw an article today on Facebook that alleges our obsession with infant growth charts may be fueling childhood obesity.

This is an interesting point. I felt recently like I needed to feed my youngest more because she weighed at 18 months what my oldest weighed at 9 months! Both were exclusively breastfed by me, so why the difference?! Because they’re different babies on different curves with different needs: and both ate because (and when!) they were hungry!

BREAKING DOWN A COMMON BARRIER FOR YOUNG FAMILIES GETTING INVOLVED IN CHURCH MINISTRY PROGRAMS

As a family with young kids, I can attest to the importance of joining a small group at church. But the challenge of finding childcare can make it seem like it’s not worth the effort!

I’ve touched on our lack of childcare before — we live in NC, and almost all of our family is in NY or PA, so we don’t have a default grandparent to help us out. We’ve had to modify our plans, bring our kids along, or borrow childcare from friends at church.

To say it has been “challenging” finding childcare is merely the tip of the iceberg for us. In this post I’m going to be discussing:

• How childcare is a “barrier” to entry for some
• Challenges we face when trying to find childcare
• FAQ and creative solutions for childcare during church events
• How we requested caregivers for our small groups ministry to try and build a database of names
• A sample online request form we used to help parse through who needed childcare 
• Interview questions for vetting volunteers/caregivers interested in joining the database
• Next steps and what we’ve been able to do that’s worked for our small group and my neighborhood Bible study.

Christmas is almost literally right around the corner. I say this with joy and excitement because I LOVE this time of year. I love giving gifts, I love shopping for the right gift, and I enjoy the expectant excitement of the preparation of the season.  I love celebrating Jesus’ birth and the season of Advent is even more fun with little children. Their excitement and innocence is yet untainted by the commercialism of our culture.