Newly Discovered Bedtime Fun with Renzo

3 weeks ago, we experienced probably our toughest night with Renzo while trying to coax him to sleep. He is able to sleep on his own without us carrying him to sleep since quite long ago. But recently we are trying to establish an even better bedtime routine, by telling him the time and letting him sleep at 9:30pm daily.

We were pretty successful for a few nights initially, but on that very night, he started by screaming and insisting that we leave the light on. So we tried turning off the light for 3 times and even carried him out to living room in order to bring his toy trains into the room to play in his bed. And in the end, we had to turn on the TV and play his Thomas&Friends DVD so that we could finally off the light in the room. But unfortunately, he started screaming and crying all over again when we turned off the TV about 1 hour later. He was extremely tired and while I was trying to let him drink water from his milk bottle, Win took away his toy train and that's it, he cried non-stop for nearly another half an hour with his eyes barely opening and finally went to lalaland with tears all over his face.

After that incident, we discussed about all possible root causes since it's pretty abnormal for Renzo to behave this way. Could it be that he's scared of the darkness? Could it be that he was over exhausted after a full day of activities outside? Could it be that we bought this new Thomas train toy in the morning and he just wanted to play with it? Could it be a growth spurt? etc..

Whatever the root cause might be, we decided to get ourselves more engaged with Renzo's bedtime activities and instead of a variety of options like reading books, solving puzzles, playing ipad and watching TV, we decided to stick to books only. At around 930pm or when we sense that Renzo is tired, whichever is earlier, we will turn off the light and lie down with our boy and chat together till he falls asleep.

So here comes the fun part. When we lie down together in the dark, we started asking Renzo all kinds of questions, most of the time we focus on his school life though. Renzo is able to converse with us in full sentence, but for questions and answers, sometimes he just needs extra efforts to put his thoughts into words properly. Some interesting things we heard from this little boy recently are:

"Hayden scream, and Hayden cry!" -- Hayden is the new 19 months old boy just started school for not long..

"Renzo cry, and Zandon hug hug, Joy Joy hug hug!" -- Such sweet friends in school!!

"Teacher Joyce give Renzo bread, and cheese!" -- Now we know why he likes Teacher Joyce..

"Teacher Lily, can I have some more fish porridge, please?" -- When we ask what if Renzo is not having enough lunch and still feels hungry..

"Mummy's favorite color is Purple! Daddy likes Green! And Renzo... ergh ergh, Renzo one is also Green!" -- Told him I love purple like months ago and he smiled proudly when I commented he still remembers it..

"Daddy's favorite number is 9, mummy's favorite number is 7, and Renzo, Renzo take.. ergh Renzo take number 1!!" -- I suspect he likes 1 because he always press story 1 in the lift, or because of No 1 on Thomas train..

"Renzo sit on yellow chair, Cherry jiejie sit on yellow chair, eat cake, happy birthday!" -- He remembers Cherry's birthday celebration in school..

"Ye Ye Nai Nai go airport, take aeroplane, go Da Buo Fu and Aunty Lu Lu house, holiday!" -- Yes my in-laws just went for a holiday in Abu Dhabi

"Renzo is so busy!!" -- Not sure what is he busy with though..

The funniest one so far is:
"I like ergh Yi Yi, and Cherry jiejie, and, ergh, ergh, ergh NEXT PAGE!", haha apparently he must have a long list of favorite people that he kept in a book, which requires him to turn to NEXT PAGE.. LOL..

Our new routine now includes having read-along sessions before bedtime...



But the best part of this new routine so far is, we finally have a well behaved boy who can sleep on his own happily, and all of us have so much fun and truly enjoy our bonding time in the dark..

三轮车，跑得快

上面坐个老太太

要5毛，给1块

你说奇怪不奇怪

小猴子，吱吱叫

肚子饿，不能跳

给香蕉，它不要

你说好笑不好笑