Sleep and Awake Like An Owl!

After the long holidays, the boys came out from the daycare with red eyes. At 5.30pm, when I fetched them, they were sleeping!!! OMG! This is terrible! I almost never let them sleep anytime after 4pm or else they'll be awake the whole night! And I'll be the one with nightmares and looking like a zombie to work. No! No! 

Usually, the kids sleeping schedule is:

Their Schedule

7.30am - Wake Up!

(8.30am during weekends).

12.00noon - Nap Time! (1 hour)

9.30pm - Sleep!  

By hook or by crook, they have to follow their schedule. This is where the parent's "military force" come in. (Yeah! It's just like boot camp!).  If they change their routine, everything will go all haywire.

Haywire schedule (when they feel really exhausted)

5.00pm - Sleep (for hours)

7.00pm - Wake up with dizziness! (This is really not a good time to sleep.)

1.00am - 2.00am - Sleep

9.00am - Wake Up

To avoid and "cruelly" force them not to sleep at the haywire hours, my husband and I will bring them to the park or to the pool for fun and refreshing activities. That way, they won't fell sleepy PLUS they'll be doubly tired. They'll end up sleeping by 8.00pm. This has been our routine all this while, but maybe because of the Raya schedule and restarting the daycare time, they became too tired and slept during the "No! No!" time zone. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, if they feel sleepy and drowsy on the "No! No!" time zone, avoid the car. They'll fall asleep immediately with the cool air condition.

They've been a good, trained and disciplined sleepers. Alhamdulillah. Actually it could be difficult at first (give it a week), but then they soon to follow it. Their body and mind know it and reacts automatically. You should just maintain it. It goes the same for adults. That's why there's even a term "jet lags". It's a routine! You've got to train them when their young because without you noticing it, they'll soon be ready for kindergarten then school. You'll be in larger burden, when the waking up tantrum is in the air, the same you're getting ready for work. They'll be late for school. You'll be late for work. And it goes on and on, every day. It would just be too tiring (for me).

* Jet lag, a physiological condition which results from alterations to the body's circadian rhythms resulting from rapid long-distance transmeridian (east–west or west–east) travel on a jet aircraft. It is classified as one of the circadian rhythm sleep disorders (Wikipedia).