Excessive baby rocking and bouncing?

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I don’t mind a bit when children are noisy or active during Mass. It is the adult swaying, rocking and bouncing that annoys me.
 
tjfitz said:
I don’t mind a bit when children are noisy or active during Mass. It is the adult swaying, rocking and bouncing that annoys me.
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There are lots of distractions at Mass. St. Therese used to get very annoyed with a sister who would rattle her rosary beads during silent prayer. She said she offered it up as a present to God.

Here’s a chance to make a present for God!!!

I get distracted easily by the silliest things. There have been Masses in which I have had to take off my glasses (I’m very nearsighted) just so I would stop be distracted by things around me.

If it is really, really distracting and you can’t concentrate, I suggest you get to Mass early and claim the front pew, so you have less distractions.

And, I’ve had collicky babies that have kept me from Mass–I’m so happy for moms who can come to Mass with their babies. It’s hard to be home on a Sunday Morning, holding a crying baby, wishing you can be at Mass. 😦
 
tjfitz said:
Last Sunday at Mass there was a youngish mother a few pews ahead of us, and while we were standing, she began to sway back and forth and bounce her baby in arms. It got a little distracting, I thought.

I’ve seen this kind of over-zealous baby or child rocking before (it generally seems to be done up in the front pews) and wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just take the baby to the back of the church or to the crying room.
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I have a son who has autism. He’s now 19 and highly functional. But when he was a child he was the most unpredictable child I ever knew. I remember that he would not stop screaming at mass or anywhere else unless he could see what was going on, because people who live with autism don’t understand words the way we do. If we sat at the back of the Church, even if he could hear, he would not have understood a thing. We had to sit in the front.

Now, here’s the kicker. People with autism, even high functioning ones like my son who is now in college, soothe themselves by rocking. So my son used to rock and still rocks at mass, at the university at his job, at the dinner table. He can rock as he’s explaining the laws of Newtonian Physics.

The average person in the pew would find him distracting and would not understand why he’s rocking, because he is very intelligent.

It goes to show that there are many reasons why things happen and unless they are materially sinful, we have to learn to live with them, unless we can change them.

I for one am not going to tell my 19-year old son not to go to mass or to sit in the back where he cannot see and won’t understand. He needs the double (name removed by moderator)ut, the visual to understand the words.

Sometimes we just don’t know why things happen and we must do like St. Therese, take a deep breadth and say to ourselves, “Small things with great love.”

Fraternally,

JR 🙂
 
If the excessive baby rocking and bouncing distracts you, why not close your eyes. Anyone who has attended mass for a length of time should know the responses by heart.🙂
 
Assume the mom was doing her best to keep her baby from being fussy and more distracting. There are distractions everywhere.
 
tjfitz said:
Sorry to annoy the rockers and swayers, but I would prefer to see a little child walking in the aisle or sitting on the altar steps (I’ve seen it often) than see a grown woman swaying like a metronone or frantically rocking a child. It just seems overdone and over-mommy-ed to me.

(An aside: why don’t I ever see a daddy rocking and swaying?)

Granted, it is hard to get out of a pew and go to the back of the church or to the crying room if you are stuck in the middle, but a small bit of planning ahead for the inevitable disturbance by picking a convenient escape route could make things much easier. I** also know it is annoying to have people without children take up all the back pews or insist in the aisle spot in the other pews.**
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I have a friend who arrives early so she can get a seat on the end near the door. That helps to prevent her anxiety attacks and if she gets one she can easily leave.

I have a bad back and find it more tolerable if I can lean against one end of the pew (although I always move in for others).

The point is that we seldom know why others do what they do so we might as well be tolerant and assume the best. Getting to church early and sitting in a front pew near the wall works for me, when I manage to get there early which is rare.
 
Claire_from_DE said:
I have a friend who arrives early so she can get a seat on the end near the door. That helps to prevent her anxiety attacks and if she gets one she can easily leave.

I have a bad back and find it more tolerable if I can lean against one end of the pew (although I always move in for others).

The point is that we seldom know why others do what they do so we might as well be tolerant and assume the best. Getting to church early and sitting in a front pew near the wall works for me, when I manage to get there early which is rare.
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I agree with you. We have a need to practice more charity and demand less justice.

Last night I watched the program on GK Chesterton on EWTN and I was struck by something the host said. I’ll try to paraphrase.
  1. We have renamed intolerance, justice;
  2. Disobedience, assertiveness;
  3. Condemnation, charity;
  4. Self love, self respect;
  5. Wants, needs
  6. and self-will, freedom.
I thought that was very interesting.

Just sharing.

We can often do that in Church when we see something that makes us uncomfortable.

The cross does not call us to be comfortable. We come to mass to celebrate the sacrifice of the cross, but we have to be open to share in the sacrifice in a very real manner in time and space.

I’ll never forget when our holy father St. Francis gave away the friar’s missal to a woman who needed to buy food. He told her to sell it in the market place and feed her family. The friars asked Francis how Brother Leo was going to celebrate mass for them. Leo was the only priest among them at the time.

Francis said that the mass was a participation in Calvary. Just as Christ walked to the cross, they would also walk the five miles into the next town to hear the mass.

Interesting stuff. The mass sometimes demands that we suffer in the body and mind, just as Christ did.

JR 🙂
 
leonie said:
There are lots of distractions at Mass. St. Therese used to get very annoyed with a sister who would rattle her rosary beads during silent prayer. She said she offered it up as a present to God.

Here’s a chance to make a present for God!!!

I get distracted easily by the silliest things. There have been Masses in which I have had to take off my glasses (I’m very nearsighted) just so I would stop be distracted by things around me.

If it is really, really distracting and you can’t concentrate, I suggest you get to Mass early and claim the front pew, so you have less distractions.

And, I’ve had collicky babies that have kept me from Mass–I’m so happy for moms who can come to Mass with their babies. It’s hard to be home on a Sunday Morning, holding a crying baby, wishing you can be at Mass. 😦
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I close my eyes a lot in Mass. It helps me concentrate on the prayers and it blocks out distractions.
 
I’m about to give birth to my first baby any day now and I’m hoping I won’t have to use the crying room. It’s so difficult to hear the priest in there… Of course I will use it if the baby is being too fussy, but if a little rocking is all it takes to keep the baby calm and happy I’d much rather do that. Plus I think God likes keeping the kids in the church w/ the rest of the fellowship. 🙂 Seems kinda mean to insist on separating them. 😉
 
I have frequently thought that, if God ever gifted me with a baby, that I might use the old Sioux technique for keeping a baby from crying. This is just to put my hand on his/her mouth, forcing her/him to breathe through their nose. I’ve seen it done, and it works… but…

I don’t know if I could do it if my theoretical baby really struggled, or if I could do it at all, if I had my own precious bundle of joy.

Aside:
Well, we’ll see how I feel about my twin nephews, scheduled to be born by c-section on the 24th. We’ll be seeing them on the 26th. My first experience with newborns! I’m just all fluttery! I’ll be the closest thing to a maternal grandma these babies will have, and I hope to fulfill the role adequately. I wish we lived closer…

Ruthie
 
Wow- that sounds kind of cruel!!

I don’t think I’d do that ever… but that’s just me.
 
tjfitz said:
Last Sunday at Mass there was a youngish mother a few pews ahead of us, and while we were standing, she began to sway back and forth and bounce her baby in arms. It got a little distracting, I thought.

I’ve seen this kind of over-zealous baby or child rocking before (it generally seems to be done up in the front pews) and wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just take the baby to the back of the church or to the crying room.
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Our Lord, I think, talked on this very subject…

Matthew 19:13-14: *Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” *
 
tjfitz said:
I don’t mind a bit when children are noisy or active during Mass. It is the adult swaying, rocking and bouncing that annoys me.
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I guess I don’t see the difference between the two.
 
Ruthie said:
I have frequently thought that, if God ever gifted me with a baby, that I might use the old Sioux technique for keeping a baby from crying. This is just to put my hand on his/her mouth, forcing her/him to breathe through their nose. I’ve seen it done, and it works… but…

I don’t know if I could do it if my theoretical baby really struggled, or if I could do it at all, if I had my own precious bundle of joy.

Aside:
Well, we’ll see how I feel about my twin nephews, scheduled to be born by c-section on the 24th. We’ll be seeing them on the 26th. My first experience with newborns! I’m just all fluttery! I’ll be the closest thing to a maternal grandma these babies will have, and I hope to fulfill the role adequately. I wish we lived closer…

Ruthie
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Please don’t do that to a baby, esp an infant. They don’t breathe all that well just through their noses!!! You could easily SUFFOCATE a baby doing that!!! Plus, do you want their earliest memories of you to be shoving your hand on their mouth because they were hungry, thristy, needed changed, or needed comforting? I don’t think so…
 
I think mama should have moved out to the cry room.
I agree it is very distracting and not our place to “move”. The cry room is “for” that purpose.
DISTRACTION is not good!

One sunday a mama was practically bouncing / jumping up and down to keep baby quite. It was VERY distracting.
I did mention it to my priest and the next week it was mentioned in our weekly. That “Mothers who try to keep their infants quiet by bouncing and making large motions should sit in the last 3 pews or the cry room to avoid distractions to others”

I was not the only one who complained.

ETA: At our sunday mass “families with children are supposed to sit on the left side of the church” but it dont always happen.🤷
 
Thats child abuse.
Ruthie said:
I have frequently thought that, if God ever gifted me with a baby, that I might use the old Sioux technique for keeping a baby from crying. This is just to put my hand on his/her mouth, forcing her/him to breathe through their nose. I’ve seen it done, and it works… but…

I don’t know if I could do it if my theoretical baby really struggled, or if I could do it at all, if I had my own precious bundle of joy.

Aside:
Well, we’ll see how I feel about my twin nephews, scheduled to be born by c-section on the 24th. We’ll be seeing them on the 26th. My first experience with newborns! I’m just all fluttery! I’ll be the closest thing to a maternal grandma these babies will have, and I hope to fulfill the role adequately. I wish we lived closer…

Ruthie
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NancyBlue said:
Thats child abuse.
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So is the cry room! Well, not child abuse… but parent abuse. It’s noisy, smelly and hot.

At least mine is.

You said: ETA: At our sunday mass “families with children are supposed to sit on the left side of the church” but it dont always happen.

How rude that they aren’t following directions!!! Perhaps if people bonked them on the head with missals they’d get a clue?

Does your parish make people who sing off key sit in a designated area? How about grown men who jingle their change in the their pockets… do they have their own pew? How about scantly clad teenagers…they can be very distracting… I’d like to be able to sit seperate from them. Oh, and people who forget to turn off their cell phones… I think they should be forced to sit in perhaps the last row of the cry room? Or maybe the parking lot? They really bug me. In fact, there are all sorts of people who bug me… and it IS all about MY comfort, right? :rolleyes:
 
yellowbird said:
So is the cry room! Well, not child abuse… but parent abuse. It’s noisy, smelly and hot.

At least mine is.

You said: ETA: At our sunday mass “families with children are supposed to sit on the left side of the church” but it dont always happen.

How rude that they aren’t following directions!!! Perhaps if people bonked them on the head with missles they’d get a clue?

Does your parish make people who sing off key sit in a designated area? How about grown men who jingle their change in the their pockets… do they have their own pew? How about scantly clad teenagers…they can be very distracting… I’d like to be able to sit seperate from them. Oh, and people who forget to turn off their cell phones… I think they should be forced to sit in perhaps the last row of the cry room? Or maybe the parking lot? They really bug me. In fact, there are all sorts of people who bug me… and it IS all about MY comfort, right? :rolleyes:
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Then maybe you should talk to you church about that!

I DO NOT want to sit in front of a kid who bounces around and pulls hair and kicks the seat.

NOT everyone wants to sit next to noisy brats that parents cannot control!
OR be distracted by mama’s who dont know how to parent.

Yes it happens. Its the “Not my angel syndrome”.

My angels stay at home until they can comprehend what Is going on or old enough for sunday school.

ETA: Chill pill?
 
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