talk-about-babies [part 2]
[tidurlah sayang ...]
good eating habits - sufficient nutrition and quantity - will help develop good sleeping habits too! we've been "struggling" to put Handzalah to sleep on normal bedtime routine yet his sleeping disorder has been going on for months ... he's always awake when he sleeps at night yet peacefully sleeps in the morning ... and he'll always want to be fed and sleep in my arms ... why?
changing a habit is difficult especially when its tied to another ... the Health Visitor said that he didn't sleep well maybe because he didn't eat well, and a doc said that sleeping together with him and breastfeeding him to sleep won't help either ... everything's interrelated ...
how bad was the sleeping problem? well, I'll say enough to make ummi and abi zombies! staying awake all night and sleeping in the morning isn't my kind of style, not even during my college days- never stayed up to study and qadha' in the morning, nope not me! night sleep is too precious, it has a different feeling ... 8 hours in the morning would not equal a few good hours of night sleep ... as Allah has said in the Qur'an (excerpts from Tafsir Ibn Kathir - surah an-Naba'):
good eating habits - sufficient nutrition and quantity - will help develop good sleeping habits too! we've been "struggling" to put Handzalah to sleep on normal bedtime routine yet his sleeping disorder has been going on for months ... he's always awake when he sleeps at night yet peacefully sleeps in the morning ... and he'll always want to be fed and sleep in my arms ... why?
changing a habit is difficult especially when its tied to another ... the Health Visitor said that he didn't sleep well maybe because he didn't eat well, and a doc said that sleeping together with him and breastfeeding him to sleep won't help either ... everything's interrelated ...
how bad was the sleeping problem? well, I'll say enough to make ummi and abi zombies! staying awake all night and sleeping in the morning isn't my kind of style, not even during my college days- never stayed up to study and qadha' in the morning, nope not me! night sleep is too precious, it has a different feeling ... 8 hours in the morning would not equal a few good hours of night sleep ... as Allah has said in the Qur'an (excerpts from Tafsir Ibn Kathir - surah an-Naba'):
(And We have made your sleep as a thing for rest.) meaning, a cessation of movement in order to attain rest from the frequent repetition and going about in search of livelihood during the day. A similar Ayah has been mentioned previously in Surat Al-Furqan.
[وَجَعَلْنَا الَّيْلَ لِبَاساً ]
(And We have made the night as a covering,) meaning, its shade and darkness covers the people. This is as Allah says,
[وَالَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَـهَا ]
(By the night as it conceals it.) (91:4) Qatadah commented;
[وَجَعَلْنَا الَّيْلَ لِبَاساً ]
(And We have made the night as a covering,) meaning, a tranquil residence. Concerning Allah's statement,
[وَجَعَلْنَا النَّهَارَ مَعَاشاً ]
(And We have made the day for livelihood.) meaning, `We made it radiant, luminous, and shining so that the people would be able to move about in it.' By it they are able to come and go for their livelihood, earning, business dealings and other than that as well.
[وَجَعَلْنَا الَّيْلَ لِبَاساً ]
(And We have made the night as a covering,) meaning, its shade and darkness covers the people. This is as Allah says,
[وَالَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَـهَا ]
(By the night as it conceals it.) (91:4) Qatadah commented;
[وَجَعَلْنَا الَّيْلَ لِبَاساً ]
(And We have made the night as a covering,) meaning, a tranquil residence. Concerning Allah's statement,
[وَجَعَلْنَا النَّهَارَ مَعَاشاً ]
(And We have made the day for livelihood.) meaning, `We made it radiant, luminous, and shining so that the people would be able to move about in it.' By it they are able to come and go for their livelihood, earning, business dealings and other than that as well.
i believe that we should dedicate our morning and day for chores and making a living, and our nights should be spent for rest and maybe sunnah prayers (solah, dzikr, reciting the
Qur'an) ... and i hope to train my son (the way my mother tried as much as she can to train us) to fulfill his duties in the mornings and the nights accordingly (as Allah ordained the human nature to be / sunnatullah) ... so that one day inshaallah, he could realize the meaning of "fursan fin nahaar wa ruhban fil layl" ...
he sleeps in the morning at about 8 or 9 a.m (try waking him up at this time and he'll cry his lungs out without even opening his eyes), and sometimes throughout the afternoon unless we take him out (one tried solution to his sleeping disorder) and he'll take a nap at about 6 or 7pm to 8 or 9 p.m and stay awake until the wee hours in the morning .. he might have a nap between those hours but a very very very short one! maybe for half an hour or less before he's awake
again, smiling and sitting on his back "ummi, its playtime again!" ;)
we had a cot back in malaysia but after 6 months he no longer wants to sleep in it ... was it already too small? and now we don't actually have room for one ... inshaallah, hopefully in 6 months time, we'll get a better house when the contract ends ...
so the solution that i could figure out after reading some materials about this problem is :
1) feed him well. as much as he wants and as often as he would take, for he consumes very little everytime. mama said i should give him a snack when he's up in the morning to make sure he's full and comfortable enough to get back to bed.
2) not feeding him to sleep. if he's already asleep i'll get him to the bed ASAP. if he's already sleepy after a meal or breastfeed, i'll get him to bed ASAP, pat his back and sang him lullabies to the dreamland or another "nice" solution is to let abi get him to bed. that works! he loves listening to abi's heartbeat too I guess :) in other words it is an attempt to change his sleep indicator - milk doesn't mean sleep - and to develop a particular sleeping environment/routine - the bed, the dark(with a little light though) ...
3) let him comfort himself when he's awake. if he suddenly cries during his sleep/nap, i won't quickly attend to him, pick him up and feed him - i'll let him find peace on his own for a
while if he doesn't really cry hard, but if he cries a bit louder (because of a nightmare etc.) i'll pat his back, and recite to him Quranic verses or dzikr or sing him lullabies until he sleeps again (abi does this better than i do because the baby won't get anything more than that from his father :D), unless he's really up for just a short feed ...
4) not to entertain him when he wants to play during bedtime. again, its about environment and routine. sleeping time is sleeping time dearest, ummi will play with you again tomorrow ... when he's bored, he'll know that's actually a cue for him to quit playing ...
5) keep him active in the day. if he hasn't sleep at all the night before, you can't never expect him to last until the afternoon. he'll sleep to the comforting morning breeze and even if you get him up and wash his face he'll get back to sleep again with a great fuss. but if ummi and abi takes him out, the environment outside usually is an eye opener to this little one. we've tested for a few times, if we bring him out in the day, he'll be sleeping earlier at night to rise and shine the next morning ... but to get him out everyday is a bit impossible especially in this cold weather, we don't want to take the risk of him getting any cold or fever ...
well ideals are usually easier said than done. not everything works everytime. there were occassions that he didn't sleep much in the day yet he still stay awake during the night. where did he get so much energy from? :) nevertheless, as dr. stoppard wrote, active-less sleeping children/children with sleeping disorder usually don't have any health issues yet could be very rewarding as they are sometimes openly affectionate to people ... and alhamdulillah, i believe that's true as I could see it now in Handzalah's loving character ... he's such a heartthrob!
[my few cents thoughts on parenting ...]
there's no easy way to perfect parenthood (well there's none actually - but we can be good at it). it takes a lot of learning and experience, trials and errors, as every child and parent are unique and different.
babies are one of the most wonderful creations of His. we want to love them and nourish them with every care and goodness in this world ... unfortunately sometimes we think its love but its actually discouraging our beloved ones to have a well-disciplined life from the beginning. and
sometimes we simply do not know what to do not to hurt them yet teach them what's right and wrong. to make it more complicated - there's too many information and resources - from family tradition to health sciences - what you know and what you don't from both and what is applicable from both also matters ... its hard to breastfeed when you didn't know that it shouldn't hurt (with correct methods and positioning), and its hard to remove a dummy/pacifier from your baby if its already a family thing from generation to generation (i don't use it though) ... things we've got used to might not be the things we should do ...
'ala kulli haal, this is another quest and jihaad for us parents - especially mothers - who received this great responsibility from the Creator, the day we conceived ... let that happiness from this great blessing be the source of strength and our motivator to help build another great muslim ummah by producing children in accordance to the guidance derived from the Qur'an and the Sunnah ...
last but not least, a hadeeth to ease and comfort our struggling souls through this journey:
Allah Knows Best.
Qur'an) ... and i hope to train my son (the way my mother tried as much as she can to train us) to fulfill his duties in the mornings and the nights accordingly (as Allah ordained the human nature to be / sunnatullah) ... so that one day inshaallah, he could realize the meaning of "fursan fin nahaar wa ruhban fil layl" ...
he sleeps in the morning at about 8 or 9 a.m (try waking him up at this time and he'll cry his lungs out without even opening his eyes), and sometimes throughout the afternoon unless we take him out (one tried solution to his sleeping disorder) and he'll take a nap at about 6 or 7pm to 8 or 9 p.m and stay awake until the wee hours in the morning .. he might have a nap between those hours but a very very very short one! maybe for half an hour or less before he's awake
again, smiling and sitting on his back "ummi, its playtime again!" ;)
we had a cot back in malaysia but after 6 months he no longer wants to sleep in it ... was it already too small? and now we don't actually have room for one ... inshaallah, hopefully in 6 months time, we'll get a better house when the contract ends ...
so the solution that i could figure out after reading some materials about this problem is :
1) feed him well. as much as he wants and as often as he would take, for he consumes very little everytime. mama said i should give him a snack when he's up in the morning to make sure he's full and comfortable enough to get back to bed.
2) not feeding him to sleep. if he's already asleep i'll get him to the bed ASAP. if he's already sleepy after a meal or breastfeed, i'll get him to bed ASAP, pat his back and sang him lullabies to the dreamland or another "nice" solution is to let abi get him to bed. that works! he loves listening to abi's heartbeat too I guess :) in other words it is an attempt to change his sleep indicator - milk doesn't mean sleep - and to develop a particular sleeping environment/routine - the bed, the dark(with a little light though) ...
3) let him comfort himself when he's awake. if he suddenly cries during his sleep/nap, i won't quickly attend to him, pick him up and feed him - i'll let him find peace on his own for a
while if he doesn't really cry hard, but if he cries a bit louder (because of a nightmare etc.) i'll pat his back, and recite to him Quranic verses or dzikr or sing him lullabies until he sleeps again (abi does this better than i do because the baby won't get anything more than that from his father :D), unless he's really up for just a short feed ...
4) not to entertain him when he wants to play during bedtime. again, its about environment and routine. sleeping time is sleeping time dearest, ummi will play with you again tomorrow ... when he's bored, he'll know that's actually a cue for him to quit playing ...
5) keep him active in the day. if he hasn't sleep at all the night before, you can't never expect him to last until the afternoon. he'll sleep to the comforting morning breeze and even if you get him up and wash his face he'll get back to sleep again with a great fuss. but if ummi and abi takes him out, the environment outside usually is an eye opener to this little one. we've tested for a few times, if we bring him out in the day, he'll be sleeping earlier at night to rise and shine the next morning ... but to get him out everyday is a bit impossible especially in this cold weather, we don't want to take the risk of him getting any cold or fever ...
well ideals are usually easier said than done. not everything works everytime. there were occassions that he didn't sleep much in the day yet he still stay awake during the night. where did he get so much energy from? :) nevertheless, as dr. stoppard wrote, active-less sleeping children/children with sleeping disorder usually don't have any health issues yet could be very rewarding as they are sometimes openly affectionate to people ... and alhamdulillah, i believe that's true as I could see it now in Handzalah's loving character ... he's such a heartthrob!
[my few cents thoughts on parenting ...]
there's no easy way to perfect parenthood (well there's none actually - but we can be good at it). it takes a lot of learning and experience, trials and errors, as every child and parent are unique and different.
babies are one of the most wonderful creations of His. we want to love them and nourish them with every care and goodness in this world ... unfortunately sometimes we think its love but its actually discouraging our beloved ones to have a well-disciplined life from the beginning. and
sometimes we simply do not know what to do not to hurt them yet teach them what's right and wrong. to make it more complicated - there's too many information and resources - from family tradition to health sciences - what you know and what you don't from both and what is applicable from both also matters ... its hard to breastfeed when you didn't know that it shouldn't hurt (with correct methods and positioning), and its hard to remove a dummy/pacifier from your baby if its already a family thing from generation to generation (i don't use it though) ... things we've got used to might not be the things we should do ...
'ala kulli haal, this is another quest and jihaad for us parents - especially mothers - who received this great responsibility from the Creator, the day we conceived ... let that happiness from this great blessing be the source of strength and our motivator to help build another great muslim ummah by producing children in accordance to the guidance derived from the Qur'an and the Sunnah ...
last but not least, a hadeeth to ease and comfort our struggling souls through this journey:
"When a person dies, his action discontinues except for three: a continuing charity, or knowledge which proves to be of benefit, or a righteous son who supplicates for him"
([Narrated by Muslim] Sharh an-Nawawi [11/85])
([Narrated by Muslim] Sharh an-Nawawi [11/85])
Allah Knows Best.
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parenting,
talk about babies
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