Getting up early to pray

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Amac1

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After a bit of a conversion my prayer life really improved, but recently I’m finding it difficult to pray consistently in the evenings, and have found myself falling asleep on occasions.
I work full time, am a mom, and the only time I have ‘free’ is when the kids are in bed at night.
I am so tired then however which affects my prayer life.

I have changed positions, changed type of prayer eg reading scriptures instead of rosary etc. I still am too tired to get the benefit from anything.

I am praying throughout the day and am in constant conversation with Christ. However this isn’t enough and I need to set aside time for structured prayer.

My only option is to get up very early to pray before the kids get up. I know if I want to do this enough it should be easy but in reality I know I will struggle. It’s winter, it’s dark, it’s cold. Also when you have young kids who don’t always sleep it’s important to take the sleep when you get it!
So has anyone any words of wisdom?
Do any of you get up very early to pray? What advice can you give to make it easier and to inspire and motivate?
I know praying to the Lord should be enough motivation, but I just need an extra push!
 
Your life sounds like one big prayer to me. Taking care of a lot of people. Maybe don’t try so hard to have a rigid routine. God understands and knows your heart .
 
I don’t want to try to discourage you from meeting with God in the early mornings, if you feel that this is something that He wants you to do.

But…here’s a few things to think about.

First of all, God created our bodies to need sleep–sleep is not part of the “Fall of Man” or in any way sinful or slothful. Sleep is good for you and for your FAMILY. Sleep is one of the healthiest acts we can practice. If you lose sleep, your mind and body will suffer; one of the worst effects of lack of sleep is having our resistance decrease, leaving us vulnerable to illness and injury. People who don’t sleep enough sometimes end up gaining or losing more weight than they should.

I think sometimes, Christians think that sleep is a “weakness” that they need to overcome. This just isn’t true.

Your life is made up of “seasons.” Right now, you are in a season of “Young Children.” This means that sleep in harder to come by, but more necessary than ever, as you have accepted the responsibility of caring for, watching over, and raising little ones! This is hard enough to do when you’ve had plenty of sleep, but it gets very difficult when you are tired.

Young children do not always sleep 12 hours straight (duh!), which means that if you assume that you can go to bed a little earlier and wake up earlier (for prayer or some other worthwhile activity)–you are making a huge assumption that often doesn’t work out!

My suggestion is that you accept with joy that you are in a season when young children are your “mission”.

As for your prayer life, think of the many times when St. Paul, in his letters to various churches, spoke of “making mention of you in my prayers.”

So–instead of seeking a long private time with God–just “make mention” of various concerns all day long, calling upon God to “remember so-and-so” or “heal my friend,” or … again, just make mention of your prayer concerns and your love for God. If “making mention” is good enough for St. Paul, surely it can be good for us, too!

Eventually you will move into a different life season, a season when your children are not so dependent on you, when they are able to allow Mom and Dad to sleep, and sadly…when they don’t even want to have their parents in the same room as them (hard to believe, isn’t it?). That’s the time when it will help you to have a prolonged prayer time rather than just making hasty mentions of needs and praises.

I hope some of this is helpful to you. I can still remember when a n older woman gave a talk to a group of Christian women (I was in her audience that day) and showed us from the Bible the practice of “making mention.” It meant so much to me with my two toddler girls at home and no time for long “holy hours” or “quiet times.”
 
I know if I want to do this enough it should be easy but in reality I know I will struggle.
I know praying to the Lord should be enough motivation
You say you “know” these things, but I certainly don’t! 😄

In my experience, wanting an outcome and praying are often not sufficient motivation for actually doing something difficult on a day-to-day basis.

I don’t actually have tips for your situation, not being a parent myself.

Just wanted to pop in and say to please not beat yourself up as if you should just be able to ‘do it all’ by a sheer act of the will. None of us can. We all run into our own limitations.

Incidentally I might add that my own limitations are where I tend to meet Jesus. So maybe that’d be my only advice for now? Turn this problem over to Jesus and tell him, “I want to be able to spend X time with you praying in Z fashion. But I’m running into limitations ABC. So if you could please step in and take care of these problems, or just keep accompanying me without Z prayer time? Whatever you prefer.” And then just carry on, for now, until something changes?
 
Good for you. What an exciting place to be in your walk with God!

Personally, I’ve never been satisfied with the idea that taking care of my infant daughter is somehow my prayer, because I’ve taken care of the people around me in many ways for many years, and it’s never been the same as prayer. After the baby was born, I still made dedicated prayer a really serious priority. I insisted. Hard. With God, and within my family. And I’ve been extremely blessed that there are people in my life who are willing to help me make it happen.

I see this desire as a grace. So my two-cents: yes. Get up early to pray. That time you’re trying to spend in prayer at night, but it isn’t working because you’re so tired? Sleep then. Go to bed early, and then get up early. If you want to pray, pray! Offer the difficulty to Jesus. He sees it. He knows. And he loves you.

That said, there are some caveats I pay close attention to, because I will spend as much time in dedicated prayer as I can get away with! (So the word “praying” in the following list means dedicated prayer.)
  • If someone who is unable to feed themselves is hungry, I shouldn’t be praying right now.
  • If something or someone is dirtier than is reasonable, I shouldn’t be praying right now.
  • If someone is overtired and won’t fall asleep in the chapel or church, I shouldn’t be praying here right now.
I’m sure that’s not the complete list in practice, but you get the idea. Also: I always keep before me the thought that my responsibilities as a mother and wife are grave and quite real, so I won’t always be able to pray as much as I want. I try to remain prepared take every moment I can get and give the rest to God as a love-offering.

It’s a wonderful thing to want to pray. God bless you.
 
Ask your Guardian Angel to pray your evening prayers on your behalf.
 
Wow. Thank you so much to all who responded. Every single message struck a chord with me, and really made me think differently about things.

I still have the desire to pray more. And being fairly new to the faith (properly) I also have the desire to learn more. Learning is not something I can do throughout the day as I walk through life (have to physically set time aside to sit down and open a book).
You have all made me think differently and maybe I need not to be so hard on myself, and I will try to think of my role as a mom as a prayer in itself.
However that desire to pray and learn will probably still be there.

Does anyone here pray in the morning? Bonus point if you’re also a parent who prays in the morning - How do you do it?
 
I need not to be so hard on myself, and I will try to think of my role as a mom as a prayer in itself.
This, most definitely. God wants you to do this job of being a mother. He did not put you in a cloister as a contemplative nun.
 
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Pray when you can. Don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t able to work it all in, unless you’re binge watching TV all night.

You kids are little, and your are right to focus on them. They’ll grow up soon enough, and then you will be able to have a more structured prayer life.

I’ve lost count of the nights where I’ve fallen asleep in the middle of praying the Rosary. I’ve read here on CAF that your Guardian Angel finishes your Rosary if you fall asleep - it’s a very comforting thought.
 
Here’s a suggestion–when you sing to your children, sing hymns (ancient, modern, gospel, Latin–doesn’t matter). Sing acapella (no accompaniment).

Babies and little ones love to hear their parents sing! And at the same time you’re giving your little ones pleasure, you are praying!

EVERY NIGHT until they were in their teens, my husband or I would sing “14 Angels” to our daughters when they were in bed ready to go to sleep. It’s from Humperdinck’s opera “Hansel and Gretel.”

When at night I go to sleep
14 angels watch do keep.
Two my head are guarding
Two my feet are guiding.
Two are on my right hand
Two are on my left hand
Two who warmly cover
Two who o’er me hover
Two to whom is given
To guide my steps to heaven.

It’s a prayer!
 
recently I’m finding it difficult to pray consistently in the evenings, and have found myself falling asleep on occasions.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. I wouldn’t stop praying in the evening just because I tend to fall asleep from time to time. Wake up, finish your prayer, then go to bed.

I try to pray in the morning & the afternoon, and of course spontaneously throughout the day. I don’t always get to finish, but I always try.
 
Oh I hear ya, sister! I have six kids and the oldest is10. The youngest is not yet one. I am up 6-10 times every night with a very fussy baby. I homeschool the others and they are with me all day. I have no one who takes the kids so I can shower or brush my teeth. I have to put on a movie for them all to watch so I can shower. Sometimes it’ll take a couple days of trying before they all actually settle down at the same time to watch the movie, so I never know when the shower will actually happen. Prayer?? It’s even trickier!

Here is what I do: I say a morning offering when I wake up. I love that because it really DOES make the day a prayer with all its frustrations. Then at 3pm the kids and I pray the rosary. We do this with an EWTN movie that shows scenes from the Holy Land as you pray. (Check out the EWTN app if you’re interested.) Some of my kids find that cool. The rest play with legos on the floor. Not infrequently I’m changing diapers as I pray. Sometimes I’m breaking up squabbles. But the rosary goes on and I keep saying the Hail Marys as best I can. Then in the evening we pray as a family. And that’s really it. If I pray more than that, it’s little bits of prayer as things come up “Mary, these two keep bickering, help me figure something out so they form a friendship!” Or “Mary, be with me. I’m sick of cooking dinner for everyone yet again. Teach me how you served your family lovingly.” Or of course prayers of thanksgiving when the kids enjoyed the school topic that day or the toddler brought me dandelions or everyone was really helpful and sweet to each other that day.

And that’s really it. I’ve been trying to see my kids interrupting me as Jesus interrupting me. I’m not sure what I think of that though. I really hate being interrupted. I partly feel it’s good to offer this up & partly that it’s good for me to train the kids not to interrupt so much. But babies, toddlers, and special needs kids don’t understand that, so I try to see their interruptions as coming from Jesus. It’s a work in progress…

If you ever find a way to pray more with small kids, let me know!! I think it’s impossible without help &, well, you can’t make people help you! :woman_shrugging:t2:

As an aside though - I notice you mentioned that you work. Do you have a commute? Maybe you could say the rosary while you drive? A cd of someone praying the rosary could help so you don’t have to worry about keeping count on the beads as you drive.

Regarding learning more about the Faith, can you listen to courses from the new st Augustine institute while you cook dinner or cleanup the kitchen? They’re really good! Some of their stuff is free through Ascension Presents & some are graduate level courses and there’s a monthly fee for those - totally worth it to us though! After the big kids are in bed my husband will put it on and scrub the dinner pots and pans for me while I bounce the baby until she falls asleep & we listen/learn. Its been great for our marriage to do it together& discuss at random moments.

I wish my words could be more encouraging. The truth is, our path to holiness is IN mothering, not in getting away from mothering. I do truly believe God meets us here.
 
What a great response. Thank you so much for taking the time to write that, in your obviously very busy day!

You sound like such an amazing woman, 6 kids and home schooling, I don’t know how you do it. I don’t quite have 6 kids so I really take my hat off to you.

You’ve really provided me with some great practical advice, which is what I needed. Before reading your post I actually prayed the rosary on my work commute today, so much more fruitful than in my bedroom at night.

The suggestions of listening to courses is an excellent idea and I’ll definitely try that.
I think I have it in my head that I need to sit down at night/early morning and pray/learn but it’s really Notvery practical, so I may have to intertwine prayer with life more.
Good for you with all your family prayer, that’s excellent, very admirable 🙂
 
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