Cooper Miles Moore joined our brood of little farm boys on April 28. Eight days later, I was more than ready to get back in the barn and get back to normal life. Here we are, nearly three months later, and Mr. Cooper still isn’t the farming type. I swear, no matter what we try, that little guy is one step ahead of us.
Our barn is littered with strollers, bouncy seats, car seats, baby carriers, pacifiers, diapers and wipes. I’ve tried feeding him before chores, half way through chores and immediately after chores. His older brothers have even gotten in on the act, rigging up wagons for his car seat to fit into and spending hours pulling him around the barn on their trikes. I’ve parked the car outside the open barn door and left the air conditioning running. I’ve tried putting him in a million locations with the video baby monitor capturing his every sniffle.
I’ve parked his stroller in the sand box where the big boys were playing hoping that he would be distracted. I’ve tried to stagger milking with the feeding chores to limit his time in the barn. I’ve given up, halfway through chores, hanging milkers up, turning the milker pump off and dragging multiple screaming children into the house until my husband is finished with his chores and I can go back outside. I’ve stopped telling people about his sleep habits, because of the pitying looks I get when I tell them that he is only up once in the night, but he only sleeps for three hours at a time. Last night, he cried for exactly 86 minutes because I couldn’t pick him up during milking.
And I’m not alone. I keep in touch with other farming mamas through social media and have seen more than one plea for ideas on how to keep our tiny farmers happy during chore time and, thankfully, more than one celebration of a successful chore time with a baby. Here are some ideas that have been shared with me by other moms in the trenches:
1. Babywear
I’ve used various carriers with each of the boys. Right now I have a Baby K’Tan that I use every day when I’m feeding calves, getting the cows from the pasture and doing various other chores. He usually falls asleep in the carrier and will take a little bit of a nap through morning chores.
2. Stagger chores
I’ve mentioned before that my husband is a beef farmer, while I’m the dairy farmer. I start my chores in the morning, and he stays in with the baby. About halfway through chores, he’ll bring the baby out to the barn and start his chores.
3. Baby equipment in the barn
An infant car seat in the barn is a must-have for many farm moms. They are small and offer some protection for baby. Ours often sits in the milk house or can ride on our milk cart. A thin muslin blanket draped over the top helps to keep the flies off his face.
4. Bottles
One thing that I am definitely going to start doing is pumping and having bottles available during chores. The older boys love to help feed him, and it would be one easy way to let me keep working. I also have a camping chair in the barn for the times when I need to feed him.
5. Ask for help
This is the hardest one for me. My mother-in-law will occasionally come to sit with the boys while I am doing chores. It is such a huge relief to not have to worry about anything but the cows once in a while!
And finally, relax. Like the saying goes, the days are long, but the years are short. Someday my baby farmer will be a toddler farmer, then a school-age farmer, then – God willing – he’ll be a grown-up farmer, and I’ll long for the days when his biggest troubles were getting hungry during chore time. PD
Heather Moore is a dairy farming mama herself, raising three little boys with her husband, Brandon. The Moore family has a 50-cow dairy and custom feeds 800 head of beef cattle near Maquoketa, Iowa. When she is not chasing around cows and kids, you'll find her volunteering, cooking and very occasionally, sleeping.
PHOTO: For dairy farmer Heather Moore, an infant car seat for the barn is a must-have piece of equipment for incorporating baby care into chore time. Photo provided by Heather Moore.
