Routine / Ritual / Schedule - A Rose By Any Other Name...

Some of our friends laughed when we raved about Sophie's daily routine, but when they knew how serious we were about it, they became very sympathetic. It must have seemed like an overkill of parental selflessness and sacrifices. However, we strongly believe that Sophie has benefitted from our efforts even though I often complained that we only had pockets of time here and there for ourselves. Indeed, routines are important to young children... even more so for active ones like sophie. And the use of routines, schedules or rituals (whatever you want to call it!) is hardly a recent fetish conjured by experts in the field, just to coerce you into a specific form of parenting. In fact, people have been using it without realising it...

My mum's neighbour takes care of her granddaughter the traditional way. She probably have not read any child-rearing books or once followed any forum in the Internet. However, she uses "routine" and it works brilliantly for them everyday. Each evening, she would put her granddaughter (toddler) on a stool and tell her to be "good" and "let" her cook dinner. She also assures she will take her to the playground near their HDB unit after that. And true enough, her granddaughter would sit patiently on the stool, watch her grandmother cook and wait for her playground trip. A couple of learning points here -

1. Her grandmother has unconsciously created a routine for the toddler, so she knows exactly what comes next and what is expected of her.


2. Her grandmother also uses the playground trip as a form of reward for her "good" behaviour; and she keeps her promise.


3. Her grandmother talks to the toddler about it, thus helping the toddler understand choices, consequences and delayed gratification.

In a childcare centres, schedules are quite similar across. For instance, for toddlers, lunch is often at 11.30 am, followed by routine care (wash up and shower) and naptime from 1 to 3pm. Thus, I am currently trying to synchronise our routines. So far, I have not been able to wean Sophie off her morning nap. Somehow, she cannot sleep longer than an hour in the day so she needs 2 naps. I have yet figured out the reason why she cannot nap for long. The conditions are pretty much the same except the daylight, so maybe I have change the curtains to block out the light completely. In any case, I think she will be able to handle the schedule at childcare (half day) by the time she is 18 months old.

Weekday Routine

Before anyone goes "Wow... so good ah..." etc, I must admit that there are often glitches in her schedule. Sophie goes to bed on OUR bed and when she is asleep, I transfer her to the cot bed. There, she wakes up every now and then so I have to make her go back to sleep on OUR bed before moving her back to the cot bed again. We do this because we do not sleep as early and we have to take our dinner and do some chores before bed. When it is finally our bedtime, she will be moved over to co-sleep with us. I usually change her diapers then so that she can sleep better. That is not the end of it all though; she still wakes up occasionally in the night so I will have to pat her back to sleep. At around 5 am, she will wake up for milk and go back to sleep (not lately, but we keep her in bed) until 6.30 am.

So despite all efforts, Sophie still does not sleep as well as we hope. However, she does seem less cranky than before we started using a schedule. Compared to our neighbours' kids, she cries much less and play a lot more... She has also got quite secure attachment to me and that gives her courage to "cast" me aside while she explores the world. Sophie knows that all she has to do is to call out for me (maybe that is why she does not cry often) and I will be there for her asap. In fact, she cries and kicks a fuss when I try to restrain her from gaining her independence and freedom (far too often lately). Guess I ought to make it part of our daily routine to set her free...