All about sleeping through the night..

About 5 years ago, I wrote a post with this exact same title "All about sleeping through the night" , sharing the struggles we had to sleep train Renzo. For Rynus, I almost couldn't recall much details about his first 1-2 years of sleep training experience. I only remember during my confinement after I delivered Rynus, my sister was joyfully sharing her great experience training her new born (my younger niece who's only 5 days younger than Rynus), by following some famous Gina Ford methods. Trust me, I was really depressed after trying the same method but failed again and again. It didn't help at all when Renzo was still waking up once a night during that period. It's totally no fun for a sleep deprived mom to juggle 2 boys at midnight, and not to mention I need to ensure I don't mess up their feeds, yes both are on the same brand of formula milk but different stages, how challenging is that?!

When Rynus turned one month old, Renzo finally stopped waking up but I knew it's still a long battle to fight with Rynus for sure. I was already counting my blessing because he's easy to handle than Renzo, at least he has 2 naps during the day although nightwaking is a must too, of course not as frequent as Renzo. So I told myself he probably will be able to sleep through earlier than Renzo. In any case,  I know many people will suggest the "cry it out" method, I know, I've been there, done that. And though I have absolutely no problem coping with night wake ups and busy work schedule next day (I have this amazing ability to fall asleep fast, by fast I meant "counting from 1 to 6" or "singing from A to S", sounds fun right? Not so when I was asked to count or sing to the boys after lights off time, because they have to definitely wake me up as I never fail to coax MYSELF to sleep with my counting or singing), I do have bad headache (luckily morning coffee helps) after more than 5 years of interrupted sleeps.

I admit that at times I have wondered whether I could continue in my efforts to never sleep train my kids. I don't think we should all joyfully leap out of our beds a million times a night to attend to our crying kids, and I am all for gentle ways to encourage our babies to sleep better (cry it out is not a gentle way under my definition). My kids are left to sleep alone in the cot, I am in the same room with them but I never like to coax them to sleep. And pacifier or rocker are not something for my kids as I simply don't want to use them though I understand they work wonders for many other kids. Just that, I don't think when we sign up for parenthood, we can expect to be excused from our responsibility to our children between the night hours of 7pm and 7am. We spend the whole time bonding and connecting with our kids, so why only test that attachment to its absolute limit at night?

So yes, I am with all the moms whose kids could not sleep through the night. I take it as a great bonding opportunity with kids especially for breastfeeding moms,  and all along I believe it's a stage they will outgrow sooner or later, once they are physiologically and physically ready. I always say, in no time they won't even let you hug and carry, so for now, just embrace and enjoy, what's so bad about that?! But recently I had a talk with my mummy friends, one of them shared about some Primary 1 kid waking up for milk at night, which was a real wake up call to me (I seriously need to thank this friend of mine who gave me candid advice, you will know why shortly).

After that conversation, I talked to Rynus about his night feeds. Well as usual he looked confused and not knowing what I was talking about, though he cheerfully nodded his head and agreed that he's big enough and should not wake up for milk at night.

The first night, I replaced his milk with water when he woke up as the usual 2am+. He threw away his milk bottle and screamed "I don't want this!!", "Milk!! I want milk mummy!!". I pat his back and told him no more milk at night please and he cried to sleep back. The crying lasted for just a few seconds. When he was put on the "cry it out" method as a baby, his cry was prolonged, distressed so there's a huge difference here and that's probably what I meant by "psychologically and physically ready". Yes I took that short few seconds of fussing as a sign that Rynus is ready to be off the milk bottle at night. And he woke up again at about 5am and this time I didn't even give him his milk bottle. A gentle pat on his back made him fall back to sleep again.

2nd night, all I need to do was just to pat him..

3rd night, he didn't even wake up..

So indeed, Rynus managed to sleep through earlier than Renzo, alright 2 years 7 months vs. 2 years 10 months, not much a difference, I know...

And just for the benefits of parents out there who are still struggling with night feeds for older kids, probably 2 years and above, I must say there should be only 2 reasons why your kid is still waking up for milk at night (based on my pretty much failed successful experience with my 2 boys)..

1. Your kid is hungry.
Check if they are eating well.

Mine often don't. Indeed Rynus has been asking for milk frequently during the day. And I always just give in to his request on the weekends as he's in full day childcare during weekdays, and school teachers only give them 1 feed during afternoon naps. My reason is because, he is not taking solid well. But indeed it could be a chicken and egg thing. Because he's taking enough milk that's why he is rejecting solid food. And I think kids like him might all have the same problem, they might be chewing well (I can tell from the way he munching on his apple or biscuits), but they just prefer softer food, and to them, milk is definitely the easiest "food" to handle, not to mention it tastes good (sweet) all the time. So if you can't address their night feeds problem, fix their eating habit first. I resorted to feeding Rynus his dinner (soup with rice as he's still rejecting other food) though he can self feed well since a year ago. I know I am going backwards but hey, at least he's eating again this way and it helps with sleep training him at night, so why not?!

Rynus used to eat very well, I still believe it's just a growing up phase because Renzo experienced the same "rejecting food" period for a year. Of course you can say I am finding excuses for my kids, I am a mom who takes cues from my kids and I am soft-hearted anyway, you know that!

2. It's a habit.
Yes it's a habit of the kid, but probably we parents are the ones who encouraged that.

If Rynus is able to sleep through in just 3 days, likely, he's not hungry, he's just waking up as that's his habit. And since we allowed it, so why not?

By admitting to this, I am not saying let's all start to correct our kids' "bad" habit. I am saying I want to thank my friend who gave me that wake up call because otherwise, I might not even know indeed Rynus is ready to sleep through. And for those parents who think sleep training is not going to work because "I tried that before", maybe it's like our case - tried it LONGggg before. Who knows your kid might be ready to sleep through but just waking up for the sake of waking up? So if you have made attempts 6 months ago but to no avail, maybe it's time to give it a shot again.

And now, it's time for me, an all time sleep-deprived full time working mummy, to enjoy some good un-interrupted beauty sleeps, after a whooping 5 years 5 months, FINALLY!!

life has been all good with little Rynus...

Rynus just turned 2.5 years old! Yes time really flies and he has grown so much in the past half a year, though he still pretty much behaves like a baby.

The decision to send him to full day childcare since July, was brilliant, except for the financial burdens of course, as pre-school education is extremely expensive in Singapore. On top of the extra S$680 school fee we need to fork out every month after S$300 government subsidy for working mothers, we are still keeping our helper though her main duty has shifted from caring for Rynus, to purely household chores. Also, I've mentioned before, we are spending almost S$8 dollars daily on cab fare, as neither my mother in law, nor my helper could manage 2 of them with 2 large school bags for almost an hour of bus journey home. Not to forget this little Rynus could put up a stunt of rolling on the ground anytime, anywhere, yes that includes in the middle of the road! I definitely could, yes trust me that's called mummy power! But after a tired day at work, and with the erratic weather here, taxi is the best(fastest) option though not the most economical.

But other than all these, life has been great! We are greeted with cozy house and warm food daily, and after dinner, I get extra 1 hour (saved from the bus journey, or rather from cooking dinner after work) to spend with the kids.

And the best part, Rynus has been doing well in school, and he has learned so much!!

School life:
We had a nice conversation with his teachers during the "meet parents session" last week. Rynus has fully adapted to school environment. Although he doesn't follow instructions all the time, has short attention span, is rather picky on food and often throws tantrums when things don't go his way (sounds like his korkor? Quite!), he still managed to "survive" well for the past 4 months. And his teacher was rather impressed with his enthusiasm with learning alphabets and numbers (sounds like his korkor? Absolutely!).  

Here's one of the observations from his teacher, the "suddenly, Rynus stood up..." part really cracked me up because that's SO OUR Rynus!!!

As expected, he started falling sick more often after he entered full day childcare. Luckily most of the time he takes medicine well, indeed he enjoys feeding himself through the syringe. But he hasn't been eating well at all, he rejects almost all type of food at home, and has been surviving on formula milk, fresh milk, fruit/vege juice and soup most of the time. This is probably the biggest concern I have currently though Renzo had experienced the same phase around this age too. 


And here are more pictures of his wonderful daily life in school..

Home life:
Did I mention Rynus is still having his Terrible Twos? Yes but a rather mild one, especially at home, he's quite an angel. He spends most of his time playing toys and watching TV. Yes I have not imposed any house rule on TV time. I do let them watch daily, especially during weekends. As they spend full 5 days in school every week learning, and playing of course, so time at home is purely fun time! And Rynus has learned such a great deal from TV! He's not interested in cartoons so Disney Junior channel is more for Renzo. Rynus watches Dora the Explorer, Thomas and Friends and whole Leapfrog series.

This is what he did last night while daddy was reading with Renzo, totally out of the blue. He was trying to sing the Leapfrog A-Z alphabet song that sounds like "A says [a], A says [a], every letter makes a sound the A says [a]...", and when he sang "T says [t], Tic Tac, I was rather surprised.

Dora won his heart totally during the past few months and sometimes he shouts Spanish words, such as Azul (blue), Amarillo (yellow), Rojo (red). Renzo loves Dora too when he was at such age, but he wasn't this interactive like Rynus. Even for a brand new Dora disc, it probably takes 15-20 minutes the most, for Rynus to warm up and be able to answer Dora's questions. He learns animals like "Zebra", "Kangaroo", "Jaguar", "Snake", "Iguana", "Rhinoceros", etc all from Dora discs.

I am sure I've mentioned many times that Rynus couldn't really talk much. But for the past one month, he's been mimicking what Renzo says very often. And interestingly, Rynus has quite good sense of humorous like Renzo. When he accidentally stepped on daddy's leg, he said, "sorry Daddy", and when he did it again, he said, "sorry again!". When he instructed me to build his train track, instead of saying, "Thank you, Mummy!", he said, "Well done, Mummy!". He is also as sensible as Renzo to certain extend. On our daily cab ride home, he waves byebye and says "Thank you uncle, see you tomorrow taxi!" each time, but when he notices my conversation with the taxi driver is in Chinese (I do that if the driver is listening to Chinese radio station), Rynus says "谢谢 uncle!" before he gets off the car. And once when I was frowning at Renzo for taking too long to shower, Rynus walked over to me, held my face with his hands, looked into my eyes, then pat my head and said "Don't worry mummy, don't worry!".

Outdoor:
Rynus gets extremely upset when we have to leave him at home with our helper. The last time we had to do that, he refused to talk to us after we returned home. Instead he leaned on my chest and zoned out for a long period of time, I felt that he was angry with me. So recently we've been trying our best to bring him along whenever we go out. He can soon prove to us, it's not the wisest decision because the moment he gets out of the house, he starts running about and it's impossible for him to sit still for a meal even.

We brought him for his little cousin's full month celebration recently, throughout the 3 hours, we had to take turns to run, climb, jump up and down with him outside the restaurant, while Renzo sat by the table enjoying the food. So nowadays bringing Rynus out for grocery or food, is basically a challenge, instead, bringing them for outdoor activities seems to be a much better choice for Rynus. He's not afraid of trying new things and I am sure soon we will need to send him for some swimming lessons as he simply loves water.


So in a nutshell, Rynus has been doing extremely well, except for those occasional rolling on the floor episodes, he's been bringing us so much joy and fun everyday! I shall end this post with the a recent video of him reading his favorite Dora book together with daddy, he finished the story with "The! End!" when he noticed they are at the last page of the book. Little cute cute is a big boy now, and, still just as cute especially his voice!!

it's hard to get angry...

Pout...

hide...

sob...

That's what he does whenever he realizes he's going to be punished for mischievous behaviors.

So, tell me how?! With this innocent face, he can get away from scolding and spanking, very easily...

Rynus has officially entered into his TERRIBLE TWOS phase just recently (around 2 years 3 months). I know some parents do not believe in such a thing called terrible twos, which is a period in a child's social development (typically around the age of two years) that is associated with very defiant or unruly behavior. Well, we've blogged about his korkor's terrible twos multiple times before and now, it's finally his turn. 

 

I won't say his temper tantrums are as bad as Renzo's, because in general Rynus is rather a happy go lucky baby whereas Renzo was way more demanding.  And usually Rynus only requests for food, though sometimes we experience other episodes such as, he refuses to put on his diaper and clothes, or he refuses to be carried in the supermarket but insists to wander around on his own,  or he jumps up and down the sofa, bed, playmat, basically any flat surface he's able to find, well yes that certainly includes tables and chairs. 

But overall he's rather a "tougher nut to crack" as compared to Renzo because his attention span is way shorter. It's extremely hard to get him sit still and finish a meal, I definitely blame myself for not cultivating good table manners, but he's not like Renzo who can sit down quietly for hours to play alphabet puzzles on ipad, he might give it a try for the first few minutes, but the moment he realizes that he's not able to complete the puzzle independently,  he will give up and fuss around again. And any scolding or reasoning, thinking corner or time out method just doesn't seem to work on him at all. In addition, if we raise our voice to Rynus, Renzo will stop us immediately by telling us: "Cannot shout at didi! Cannot get angry with didi! Later didi will cry then how?!!".

So as of now, getting angry with Rynus, is just not easy! But that doesn't mean we do not "suffer" often from his terrible twos episodes, just that all we could do for now, is to (again) patiently wait for it to end, hopefully in another 6 months to 1 year time!!

Learning from educational DVDs

I've mentioned many times in this blog about the rather slow speech development of baby Rynus as compared to his elder brother Renzo. After he started full day childcare since July 01, we've finally seen some pretty good progress recently.

Just like Renzo, Rynus has been picking up knowledge really fast through educational DVDs. I confess, I do give them ample TV time at home since they are in school the entire day, and they are not given Ipad or Iphone for apps, games, youtube etc. But most importantly, I do see them learning A LOT from just Disney Junior and educational DVDs.

In fact Rynus is not quite a fan of Disney Junior at this age, Renzo only developed his interest since he's about 4. So they both enjoy Thomas&Friends, Dora the Explorer, Leapfrog series and Hi5 the most, well actually they do not have anything else except for some Chinese sing a long song tracks. We only have 3 Dora, 2 Thomas, 1 Hi5 and a bunch of Leapfrog (maybe more than 7) at home, and they could watch again and again without getting bored at all.

About half a year ago, we realized that Rynus has learned all his alphabets and phonics sounds from Leapfrog. He could read the letters with clear articulation, except for letter W. Sometimes, he mixes up the sound of certain letters and their phonics sounds but that's not too big a concern for now. And he enjoys singing ABC or the Leapfrog alphabet song with us before bedtime. Slowly, but steadily, he progressed on to counting numbers. I seriously think both of my boys love numbers, unlike their mother. I still remember how we taught Renzo 1~10, and then 11~20 with a number poster hanging on our wall, but for Rynus, he picked up 1~20 on his own from Leapfrog, almost effortlessly. And whenever he is in good mood, he counts. Initially he often skips a few numbers like 7(for some weird reason many kids skip number 7 when they first learn to count, including Renzo), 13, 14, 16.. But since about 2 weeks ago, he's been doing better and better, and no more skipping of numbers!!

Here's a clip of him happily counting from 1 - 20, though I only managed to take out my phone camera when he's at number 4, and he repeated 15-17 at one point. 

 

If I say Renzo has amused us by memorizing train names and numbers from Thomas&Friends and talking in British accent like the fat controller when he's 2, then Rynus has definitely amused us by interacting with Dora and Boots with zero communication breakdown when he's 2!! Watching Dora DVD with him is probably the most fun and relaxing bonding experience. One moment you see him sitting next to you on the sofa, hiding his head under your arm while staring at the TV, next moment, he rushed to the TV like a space shuttle and "press" the answers on TV as if he's using a touch pad, and before you know it, he's back to the sofa snuggling under your arms again, waiting for the next chance to run to the TV, pretty busy to be honest...

And, once I saw him washing his hands in the washroom and Dora was asking, "Which path should we take, blue, yellow, or purple?" on TV further away in living room, he shouted, "YELLOW!!"... Trust me, he got it absolutely right!!

Though he's been trying to "participate" in the 5-A-Day-Books routine we set up with Renzo every evening, Rynus is still learning most of his stuff through educational DVDs, he can say words like "Icy bridge", "Purple", "Circle", "blue mountain", "mama duck", etc, and some Spanish words too, all thanks to Dora & Boots!!

Expert Parenting Advice vs. Actual Parenting Reality..

Rynus is 2 years 3 months old already, wow!!!

Honestly I have not been realizing how time flies with his growth. We are not paying much attention to his development milestones, maybe because he's the 2nd child of the family and we still have so much to go through with Renzo, who is just 1.5 years away from entering primary school. But today, when a friend of mine shared this "Expert Parenting Advice vs. Actual Parenting Reality" chart on facebook, I find it extremely interesting and tried to relate my own experience with Rynus' upbringing.

You see, expert is not THAT WRONG after all!!

The expert's advice might sound like "mission impossible" to many, but if you understand that your action is going to benefit your kids, you would then agree with the experts, majority of the time. The only few items that I could not agree with, are more because I know our kids will soon outgrow those stages and once they are able to communicate well, there's higher chance you could change them for better behavior with proper reasoning.   

I often say each kid is uniquely special and there's no parenting formula that works for all. But with my 2 boys having totally different characters and personalities, I noticed that our principles of parenting do not change much except for a bit of twisting here and there, although their reaction/response are often different.

For example, when Renzo was around this age, he had many requests as he was able to express himself very well. Of course he cried a lot more as majority of his requests were not reasonable, and when we refuse to give in, he often ended up with throwing tantrums. We had to prevent him from throwing tantrums by preempting him with what to expect, and giving him options to choose from. He's not easily distracted because he's very certain about what he wants and in a way, he expects things to go his way, all the time. So "alternatives", is not a solution. He has to be presented with different options, and if possible, way before he even makes his request.

As for Rynus, he is a happy go lucky boy in general, he doesn't cry or throws tantrums for no reason. His usual requests are not much (generally about food only), except for things like: going out for a walk often, when the sky is dark at night; changing to his swimwear to get a dip in the pool, on a rainy day; turning on the TV to watch his favorite Dora or Leapfrog DVD, right before bed time; unlocking daddy's car door each time, without knowing how to slot in the car key properly, etc, etc.... But unfortunately, or I should say fortunately, he's not able to communicate that well like Renzo, so instead of preparing him with what to expect, we react to his "unreasonable" requests by distracting him with other alternatives. He will definitely cry and whine just like any other kid, or most of the kids I should say, but that usually lasts for an extremely short period of time only.

If I say I've learned enough tips to turn Renzo into a tantrum free boy over the years, then Rynus is probably a tantrum free boy to begin with, erh, or maybe, just not yet... LOL...

 LINKING UP WITH: 

1 month into full day childcare

In the blink of an eye, Rynus has been attending full day childcare for a month since July 01!

The 2nd child syndrome has hit me really hard this time when I read our blog posts about Renzo's experience when he first started attending half day childcare, and eventually moved on to full day care. With our first child Renzo, we were exuberant and did everything right (or at least tried to do everything right), naturally we felt everything is new, every experience is unique, we were driven to capture every moment, to applaud every achievement, and to generally create most beautiful memories with the apple of our eyes. Then, when Rynus arrived, the experience isn't so new. We've been there, done that. Though we seem to have taken more pictures of him (for the very fact that he's more photogenic and the megapixels on our phone camera doubled since Renzo's time), the every first of his was not as joyful and exciting as Renzo's, somehow.

But still, I took 3 days of annual leave to accompany Rynus to school, and tried to figure out a daily routine for everyone in the house. After about 1-2 weeks of experiment, and adjustment, the boys start to wake up daily at about 6:30am, Daddy Chan then drives them to school and our helper sends them up and stays a little longer with Rynus in the classroom till he settles down. At night, I rush down from my work place to pick the boys up, and takes a taxi home together. This is not the most economical solution for sure as the short taxi ride during peek hour usually costs S$7-S$8 bucks daily. But we are glad that we can handle them without involving the grandparents and helper, so that they could focus on their own stuff and have more time for themselves instead. And most importantly, the boys are having a better daily routine now, which allows them to have their dinner prepared by our helper right after school, and spend more time in the evening to play and study together with us.

So how did Rynus do in school?

Well let's first take a look at teachers' feedback about Renzo 3 years ago.
Teacher's feedback: "Pretty good, getting better, on and off cries for his auntie Ayeaye, but plays well with his friends and enjoys music & dance time to the fullest. Learning to eat on his own at the same table with other kids but very quiet and do not speak much."

And now for Rynus (I feel awesome to have received feedback about Rynus from the same group of teachers, who still remember about their experience with Renzo in the past)
Teacher's feedback: "Really enjoys music & dance time to the fullest. Eats well on his own, doesn't cry much but doesn't like to be touched by others. Behaving ok as long as he's not throwing tantrums."

It seems that I have 2 pretty "anti-social" boys who are not independent, and indeed, quite a handful. And being in the same school as his brother isn't to his advantage because he doesn't become any easier to manage when Renzo is around to play with, or take care of him.

I know most of Rynus' classmates (including his 5-days-younger cousin) are adapting well in school. So he's probably the only one giving most of the headaches to his teachers. But I still feel very proud of him for being able to stay in school for a whole day now and nap there daily while snuggling his little penguin. To think the transition period from half to full day was a few months for Renzo. And most importantly, Rynus didn't really fall sick (at least not very sick to the extend that he needs to stop school for days) like Renzo did during the first month. The fact is Renzo started school at 19 months whereas Rynus only started at 25 months, so his immunity system should be stronger anyway. Unfortunately, he still caught some bugs and was having diarrhea and runny nose recently. He's not fully recovered yet but he didn't skip a single day of school for a full month, yeah!!!

After all, I've already seen great improvement in him since he started school. He's still not able to express himself much, but he likes to follow whatever we say nowadays and his articulation is almost as good as Renzo's!! And seeing both of them holding hands together and skipping to me in joy every evening at school, is really the best reward I get after a day of hard work!

when will Rynus didi start talking?

This is the question I have been asking myself many many, many many times for the past 2 years. It's quite a challenge to answer a question like this when our elder boy Renzo, started speaking in short sentences since 1.5 years old. In terms of speech development, Our almost 2 years old Rynus, is probably at the level of our 11 months old Renzo, I am not kidding!

Although recently he's been babbling a lot more, the fact is, he's been babbling like this, alright probably slightly less, since he was.. 6 months old? And we were anticipating "baby is going to talk soon" for the past 1 and half years!

I am not too concerned after hearing from many mummies that some kids start talking after 3. Indeed I find Rynus extremely adorable with his "inability to communicate in proper language".

He must be feeling extremely satisfied, or maybe even proud, with the fact that he could understand all of us 100%, but none of us could understand him. And I've probably mentioned this before, his "TERRIBLE TWOS" symptoms are rather mild as compared to Renzo's, or, probably it's not even started because that's the stage kids throw tantrums often because when they try to express themselves, we adults do not understand them well enough. "Express themselves"? Rynus? He's not even willing to open his golden mouth so nope, we do not have much concerns, at least not often.

But this time round, I must give him some credits for being able to sing along the "Leapfrog alphabets song". I've been singing this with him almost daily for a month and his progress makes us feel extremely proud!! Time like this, I can't bring myself to believe that this baby still cannot talk!!