A friend mentioned she’d heard that feedings sessions were times of kedushah

My newborns love to nurse. All day.

I might as well just stay on my bed, encased in my Boppy, because happy baby, happy mom, right?

And my babies are happiest while eating. The pediatrician takes personal pride in them, crowing over their triple chins and strong arms, but on my part, it’s hard to just sit and feed them All. Day. Long.

It’s a good thing I got a tablet after the birth of my first, or I would have gone out of my mind from sheer boredom. Pretty soon, I had an Instagram account, a YouTube playlist, and followed several reality shows. This way, I no longer felt frustrated and confined by my babies ever growing appetites and even looked forward to scrolling the web while they ate.

And then I was expecting my fourth, and a friend of mine mentioned she’d heard that feedings sessions were times of kedushah — a woman using her guf to satiate her child’s basic needs.

I was blown away; it had never occurred to me that the time I spent feeding my helpless newborn could be a time for connecting to my Maker.

That Rosh Hashanah, as my unborn baby kicked and squirmed inside of me, I davened for a wonderful year, an easy birth, a healthy baby, and a pain-free recovery. And I told Hashem that this baby would be fed with presence of mind, with kedushah, with Jewish books and magazines, and tefillah, and that YouTube would have no place in our little circle.

It was hard.

At first, I slept during feedings, catching up on my interrupted nights. But then boredom crept in, and I forced myself not to reach for the tablet. I perused frum magazines, circled recipes for when I was ready to return to making balanced meals instead of serving frozen pizza, and murmured Tehillim over the nursing cover. And I felt myself change, my self-control muscles strengthen. I was more centered, more present.

My baby is now almost two, and she sparkles like the sun. Her pudgy legs attest to good food, and her bright eyes tell the story of a kabbalah worth keeping.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 758)