The Mother's Lounge

Here's my adorable boy right in the middle of Sunday School. We were in the mother's lounge at church after leaving Sunday School twice trying to calm him down. Of course, I got to climb over people each time with my baby in my arms and the diaper bag over my shoulder. The picture below shows how Cutesome holds his blanket up to his cheek when he's eating and trying to fall asleep.
I am so not impressed with the mother's lounge in our church. Here are the ways it is deficient:

1. Uncomfortable chairs. Only one of the three chairs rocks. One doesn't even have "arms" - very uncomfortable when holding a baby.
2. Nothing on the walls to look at. You're there, killing time until the baby might want to be pleasant, in a tiny little room with not a single thing on the wall. Good thing my baby is so cute.
   
3. There are speakers that allow you to hear whatever is going on in the chapel. This was a good idea, but during the second hour there is nothing in the chapel and during the third hour it's the High Priest's group, which is less than interesting. It would be so nice to have the option of hearing the Relief Society lesson. Unfortunately, the men that design the buildings don't ask the women what they think (an assumption, but I'd be willing to bet on it).
4. The lighting is super bright. A dimmer switch would be helpful when calming fussy babies!
5. No tables. Just a small side table by the chairs would be great because it would give you a place to put the bottle, burp cloth, binky, or anything else you may need close at hand while feeding your baby.
6. You have to go through the bathroom to get to the mother's lounge. The door between the two has a vent in it that makes it so you can hear everything that goes on in the bathroom. Yep, everything.
   

What I'm doing to improve our mother's lounge:

1. I'm trying to convince Rob to donate his favorite chair that is sitting in our garage because there isn't a place for it in the house. It's not ideal, but it rocks and has an ottoman. Of course, I'd need him to deliver and haul away the terrible faux-leather armless chair because there isn't room for four.
   
2. I made a collage of "mother" pictures - mostly pictures from church magazines and calendars that depict Jesus and his mother, Mary, or other mothers with babies on a bulletin board. It's terrible as far as interior design goes, but it has tons of pictures that are thought-provoking, especially to new mothers.
   
3. I'm going to find a little lamp to donate that will allow for softer lighting.
   
4. I gathered a basket of supplies to keep there in case anyone forgets anything. It includes diapers (all sizes), burp clothes, blankets, diaper rash ointment, hand sanitizer, lotion, air freshener, wipes and baby powder. My hope is that when people use something they will replace it when they can.
5. I'm going to take a little side table to go by the chairs. The one I have in mind has a space at the bottom that could hold church magazines or a set of scriptures and other things to read when the High Priest's lesson is boring.

These are simple things I can do that I believe will help our mother's lounge be a little more comfortable for the future mothers enduring 3 hours at church caring for fussy babies while wearing pantyhose and a dress. When I pass other mothers in the hallways or see them in the mother's lounge we often comment that it seems pointless to come to church when our babies don't allow us to stay in our meetings. Bits and pieces of talks and lessons are better than none at all, though, so we continue to go week after week.
I've heard older people comment that it bothers them when mothers don't take their babies out of meetings promptly when they start to fuss. There are a couple of things they may not have considered or may not remember:

1. Young mothers are frequently sleep-deprived, adult-conversation-deprived and in need of spiritual fulfillment and camaraderie. Often new mothers have missed several months of church upon the birth of their babies and are really needing to be spiritually uplifted. To attempt to calm the baby so they don't have to miss out on the lesson or talk seems reasonable to me. Of course the baby should be taken out if it cannot be calmed.
   
2. If a mother takes her toddler out of a meeting at the first noise he/she makes, how will he/she learn to behave and stay in the meeting? It doesn't take long for toddlers to learn that they can have more fun out in the hall if they just make a bit of noise.

(Not at all on the topic of this posting, but...Cutesome's little hand clutching his blanket.)