Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Scenario 1: It's been a long day and one of the last tasks of the day is to put the baby to bed. After trying for 30 minutes, Baby finally blinks and closes his eyes. Then without warning , he opens his eyes wide open despite being very tired and cannot go to sleep. Then you try to repeat the routine again. After 45 minutes, you are tired and want this to end. So you pick the baby up, rock him in your arms  / carry him around the house / put him in a pram and push him around / take him out for a drive. Then finally he goes to sleep. You conclude that this is a quick fix and is so much more effective. You should have done it upfront.  Scenario 2: After 45 minutes of trying to get the baby to sleep, he still is awake. In fact, he's crying loudly as he's tired and wants to sleep. You pick him up , stop the crying and put him right back into bed. He cries again, and you pick him up, stop the crying and put him back into bed again. This goes on for 30-40 times before he finally ...

Day 1 evening :  Sent helper to airport. Tabao the yummy Seng Kee mee sua home for dinner since we are in the vicinity. Just like an angel, baby slept at 8pm after his milk. Woke up at 12midnight for milk and slept till 6am.  * success *  Day 2:  I've got some company work to do so ah pa and ah gong brought Cayen and Cayson to swim. After that , Cayson managed to sleep for one hour (rare good stretch for his nap). After I finished, we took them down to the pool again for scooting since the kampong was down to play. Then , we went to this Ang Mo Kio industrial park for some good zichar .. Bill was only $111 for claypot herbal chicken, venison in Indonesian sauce, 3 egg spinach, claypot tofu, seafood beehoon which was a little too filling for 6 adults and 1 kid.  By night, I fed Cayson milk and he closed his eyes after his milk. I was silently congratulating myself on the second success when he suddenly rolled over to and fro , and decided to pull himself up....

I went through an exercise with Cayen when I asked him to list down what activities he finds boring and interesting. Idea of the activity is to identify those items and discuss how we can make those activities more interesting so they can focus longer. First thing on his boring list is "Sleeping" , and naturally his suggestion to deal with it is to "wake up". * Gasps*  While I already guessed that this item will come up on his list, since he will tell us every other night that he "can't sleep" and it's boring, it still amazes me that he feels so strongly about it. Nonetheless, I think I can't blame him, because I recall that as a kid, I hate afternoon naps too as I think it's a waste of time. Power of genes.  Anyway, because it takes so much book reading to get him to sleep, I usually try to skive by telling him my own made up stories instead, using random themes.  So yesterday I decided to tell him story of Rupert the cockroach getting int...

His sleep routines used to 1-1.5 hours long. He would have his supper and come in  9pm. We would try to have him sleep by 10pm but sometimes it would drag to 10.30pm.  Recently in the last 2 weeks, the routine changed a little. I allowed him to come sleep on my bed as I was wondering if his constant coughing/phlegm was due to him sleeping on the mattress on the floor near the clothes.  Then, I tried to bring him down to the pool to swim, cycle or play after school for another 30-45minutes to further burn his energy.  Also, we would start his routine at 8-8.30pm before his supper. He would come out at 9-9.30pm in between but that's still fine.  Then, I let him help me turn on the humidifier / night light. And I turned off the other usual bedside light and made the room a lot darker. Lastly, I would ask him to go sleep after 3 books after his supper. Even though I could see that he couldn't really get to sleep, as he was changing positions every 30 seconds, I clos...

Recently he has been very mischievous , and today he was especially naughty. He poured the Ruyi oil all over the floor and he poured out the toilet cleaning powder and attempted to eat it. That's not to mention him hitting Grandma again despite repeated warnings and even caning.  During bedtime, I decided to try a new tactic. I used his soft toys and seat them in a circle . I said they were his students and he's their teacher and he should teach him all the dos and don't. So I used the toys to ask him if he can pour oil and powder on the floor , what he needs to do when he's done with a meal and what steps he need to do in a bedtime routine. He got all the answers right and at least I know the theory is right. So I got all the animals to do these: Step 1: drink milk Step 2: drink water Step 3: brush teeth with toothpaste n no youtube Step 4: sleep  Then , I said he's the last one and he should set a good example as a teacher.  He looked very serious. He went to ask ...

Cayen doesn't like to sleep so night routine is very long and tedious as it involves reading excessively , up to 1-1.5 hour on a bad day. Worse still, in the last two months , he has gotten back to the habit of waking up at night to look for grandma. Sometimes he woke up as he had a bad dream - usually he would be shouting for someone not to take his food or things (I wonder what's going on in school?!) and then he would look for grandma. Some days, he just opened the door, walked in the dark to grandma's room.  Sometimes it happens once a night , sometimes 2-3 times. Needless to say, we are like the walking dead as we have to wake up to work at 6 + am every day.  This week, we tried to get him to sleep earlier - apparently that's quite key in becoming taller. And today , he slept at 10.20pm, and this was how the process went ..  9.25pm: Ah Pa started reading  10.10pm: Cayen finally looked a bit sleepy (I sneaked up to my bed) 10.11pm: cayen said "阿妈看我” and so I di...

Last week , ah pa was helping me charge my  phone and in doing so, the phone vibrated on the bed. This was when cayen happened to be  sleeping on the bed as well. It was quite a shock as he had been sleeping for a while but in his sleep , he suddenly muttered firmly"  不要再讲电話，电话关掉”. Ah pa was very shocked and guilty so he hastily removed the phone. I was super amused.  Well , all I could say is that the boy's command of mandarin is quite decent, even in his sleep.  Anyway, here's a picture of how we cope when we're tired walking and carrying him when he falls asleep. We find a massage palour and try to sneak in some massage while he get a bed to lie on.