Monastics and Babies: The Wee Hours

I'm sitting in our baby's room this morning waiting for others to get up. It's early in the morning, baby's asleep, and I feel very peaceful and still. Luckily for us, our son has been a good sleeper and for two months, sleeps through the night (he's 4.5 months now). However, for the first couple of months, we'd fed him around 9 pm, then at 12 am, then at 3 am, then again at 6: every three hours. That schedule made me think about the time-honored schedule of many monastics, such as the Trappists. They get up at 3:00 am to pray. Then what follows is a schedule that includes work, community, and prayer, the latter taking place formally every three hours or so. Interesting. So, it's fun to suggest that maybe one of the reasons why the monks' daily routine was made that way is because, like a baby needing to be fed every three hours, they realized that they must go to God's bosom also every three hours to feed, to grow, and to unite.