Hello, God. It’s Baby.

For this week’s edition of Works For Me Wednesday, sponsored by Rocks in My Dryer, I’d like to share some advice on teaching your baby to pray.

We’re a family that prays before every meal, so we never thought twice about including Baby. We all hold hands and say a common table prayer before we eat, and we thought it would be great fun to hold Baby’s hands, too. It was fun, at least it was until Baby learned to shake his head NO, NO, NO.

Imagine the following mealtime scene:

Mommy and Daddy hold hands with Baby and with each other.

Mommy & Daddy: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest…”

Baby: shakes head NO, NO, NO

Mommy & Daddy: “…and let these gifts to us be blessed.”

Baby: shakes head NO, NO, NO

Mommy & Daddy: “Amen.”

We were starting to wonder if our heathen Baby needed to be baptized again. Thankfully, our Pastor’s wife (a.k.a. Baby’s Sunday School teacher) offered us some great advice that has worked for us.

When we pray, we hold hands and we all clap when we say Amen.

It took Baby about a week to figure out that we would be clapping at the end of our prayer. He loves it!

Note: we use this with Baby’s bedtime prayer, too, but the clapping makes him angry because he knows the next step in his bedtime routine is laying down in his crib. That Baby is a smart little devil!

This is a great way to teach young babies to praise God.

It’s What Works For Me!