Tufeil's Routine & 4 Day Sleep Diary

For a lonnggg time, I had been agonizing myself as to how am I gonna structure Tufeil's Bedtime Routine. At Babycenter and everywhere else puts it down roughly like this:

1. Dinner
2. Bath
3. Books
4. Songs
5. Sleep

And this is supposed to help babies sleep thru the night (?).

It was quite diff for me to follow this structure because for us, we can't / not supposed to shower/bathe baby after dusk = cold = weaken the bone or whatever ya know. So his evening bath is at 6pm, dinner 7pm, bedtime 9pm. So there's like a gaping 3 hour hole between bath and dinner.

However, little did i realise that I've actually created a little ritual without thinking or being forced into it. We start the turning down process by:

1. Salam-ing (Shaking hands) with whoever's at home and say goodnight bye bye kiss kiss
2. Or if nobody's home, we will turn off all the fan and lights in the living room together
3. Sometimes I will read him a book but if he's wailing for his milk already, I will jump straight to nursing. Otherwise..
4. Toothwipes. Tufeil now loves his Mango flavoured toothwipes. But its very painful to do it bcos he bites my fingers while trying to chew the tissue. Aiyooo
5. Sometimes when I feel Tufeil is not ready to sleep yet, I will play for him a lullaby from Youtube in my phone. He used to LOVEEEE Elmo & Mr Andrea Bocelli's song. But now he's into Pooh's Lullabee.
6. Nurse to sleep

Youtubing is a bit dangerous to start cos its hard for him to stop. He will cry/scream to get me to repeat again and again and again. So i use this step sparingly. There was once when I was trying to remind Tufeil of his susu with not much success until i pretended that his Giant Pooh soft toy was drinking too LOL. Then he jumped on me and drank to sleep....

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Now... Monday night 2nd Aug, Tufeil had such a good wonderful long sleep that i thought I should better keep track of what was done during the day to give such a results.

Day One: Napped at 10 for one hour, again at 2 for 2 hours. Dinner 1 whole packet of Instant Baby Porridge at 6pm. Yogurt at 8pm and slept at 9pm. Woke at 11pm then straighttttttttt to 5am!!! MIRACULOUS! Then slept again till 7am.

Day Two: Woke up 7am, Napped at 11 for 1hour, no afternoon nap, a few mouthfuls of briyani at 7.30pm, slept at 9pm and woke every 2 hours.

Day Three: I forgot to ask if he had napped but he had slightly more dinner than what i usually give him. 2 cubes of mashed potatoes topped with curry tuna. He was asking for some more but need to wait for another 10-15min to heat up the frozen cube, so i tried to entice him with Jelly to no avail. Again, slept at 9pm and woke every 2 hours =(

Day Four: Woke up 7am, usual 1hr morning nap but NO AFTERNOON NAP. 1/2 cup of cheese risotto + 1 cube of Chicken & egg mayo. This is A LOT A LOT of food! Then afterwards, I gave him 3 slices of peach too. Slept 8.30 for 3 hours. I thought tonight i will nail it. but Nay! He woke up every 2 hours again thereafter.

I'm beginning to think that perhaps he SHOULD nap a lot in the afternoon to be able to sleep thru the night. Let's see how this weekend will work out to. Somebody please help me before i turn into a monster!!

On a happier note, i totally got a grip at being FIRM to Tufeil. Twice already I FIRMLY reiterated again and again for about a min or 2: GIGIT = NO SUSU (BITE = NO MILK). Then i ask him, "Nak susu?" when he said yes and if his cheeky-something-is-up-my-sleeves grin has been wiped out, i will grant him access and Alhamdulillah he stopped after that. Since then, occurence has been rare. (I hope I don't jinx myself.)

Now, I just need to apply this method to when he's hitting my head, or anybody's head for that matter, and throwing things and shrieking when he didn't get what he wants