With the long holidays, we sleep at 3am in the morning. And wake up at 11 am. A complete 8 hours sleep. Very healthy indeed.
I remember my eldest son had a question in his Pendidikan Moral exam paper. It was a right and wrong kinda question (where you marked with a tick or cross). The question was:
If it is a holiday tomorrow, what does your father let you do?
a) Go to bed at the same time.
b) Go to bed late.
Of course, my son has good moral because his parents have very good moral mah. And sure enough his choice is (b). Habislah, salah. Well, poor kid came home confused. That is what his papa allowed him to do, go to bed late, as late as way past midnight. Sometime, we even go out for teh tarik, soup lembu, roti tisu, nasi kandar at 1am. Usually, our family stick out like a sore thumb. This couple with 4 kids of all ages, as young as a year old child tucking in at the mamak stall along with the hip and happnening crowd from the pubs and karaokes from Upper Penang Road.
Back to my kampung lifestyle, I don’t remember any specific time I should be in bed. The only bedtime routines I read were from the Enid Blyton story books where children go to bed by 8 pm and fairies and toys became alive. 8 pm? Are they out of their mind? Why would anyone wants their kids in bed so early? What are they going to do in the next 4 hours (usually adult bedtime is 12 midnight, no?) without the kids romping around, filling the house with their laughters? Some people may say the kids are an annoyance and best put to sleep? Horrors, isn’t that like wishing the kids to be dead and permanently leave the house peaceful and noiseless?
I don’t know about other people. But my husband only gets home from work at 7 pm. I would want my kids to spend at least 4-5 hours with him each day. So, there is no such thing as bedtime routine for me or my kids. We hit the sack when we are sleepy.