Malam ini saya terjaga sekali lagi apabila lampu berkedip dan bayi itu menangis dalam buaian.

Malam ini is a time expression, and in Malay, time expressions are very often placed at the beginning of the sentence to set the scene.

So:

• Malam ini = tonight
• then the rest of the sentence tells what happened

This is very natural in Malay. You could also move the time phrase later in some contexts, but starting with it sounds smooth and common.

Not quite.

• bangun usually means to get up / wake up
• terjaga often means to become awake suddenly or to find oneself awake

In this sentence, terjaga suggests the speaker was asleep and then woke up, probably because of the flickering light and the crying baby.

The prefix ter- here can give a sense of something happening unintentionally or unexpectedly. So saya terjaga feels a bit like:

• I woke up suddenly
• I was awakened
• I found myself awake

It is slightly different from just saya bangun, which can sound more neutral or deliberate.

Yes, sekali lagi means again or more literally one more time.

In this sentence, it emphasizes repetition: the speaker woke up yet again.

A learner should notice that Malay often uses:

• lagi = again / more
• sekali lagi = once again / yet again

Sekali lagi can sound a bit stronger or clearer than just lagi.

Apabila means when.

It introduces the clause that explains what was happening at the time:

• apabila lampu berkedip dan bayi itu menangis...

Compared with similar words:

• bila = when; common in speech, often less formal
• apabila = when; slightly more formal or written
• ketika = when / at the time when; also somewhat formal
• semasa = while / during

So apabila is perfectly natural here, especially in written Malay.

Because berkedip is the verb form.

• kedip is the root related to blinking/flickering
• berkedip means to blink / flicker

The prefix ber- often forms intransitive verbs, meaning the subject is doing the action on its own, without a direct object.

So:

• lampu berkedip = the light flickered / was flickering

You would not normally say lampu kedip in standard grammar for this meaning.

In Malay, demonstratives like ini and itu usually come after the noun.

So:

• bayi itu = that baby
• lampu itu = that light
• rumah ini = this house

This is different from English, where this and that usually come before the noun.

So bayi itu is the normal Malay order.

Both can be possible in some contexts, but they are not exactly the same in feel.

• dalam buaian = in the cradle
• di buaian = at/on the cradle

Dalam emphasizes being inside or within something. Since a baby is physically lying in a cradle, dalam buaian sounds very natural.

Di is more general for location. It can sometimes work, but dalam is more precise here.

Malay does not mark tense the same way English does. Verbs do not change form for past, present, or future.

Instead, time is usually understood from:

• time expressions, like malam ini
• context
• optional time/aspect markers such as sudah, sedang, akan

In this sentence, the events are understood from context. Even without a special past-tense verb form, the listener knows the speaker is describing something that happened during the night.

That is very normal in Malay.

Malay does not use articles like a, an, and the in the same way English does.

So:

• lampu can mean a light, the light, or just light/lamp, depending on context
• bayi itu is more specifically that baby

If Malay wants to make something more definite, it often uses:

• itu = that
• ini = this
• context alone

So lampu berkedip can naturally mean the light flickered if the context already makes it clear which light is being talked about.

Saya is a standard and neutral word for I. It is very common in careful speech, writing, and general standard Malay.

Other possibilities exist, depending on tone and region:

• aku = more informal, personal, and casual
• beta = royal/literary
• gua/gue = very colloquial in some varieties, especially influenced by Indonesian urban speech

So saya is a safe and natural choice, especially in a textbook-style sentence.

Yes. The basic structure is very natural:

• Malam ini — time expression
• saya terjaga sekali lagi — main clause
• apabila... — subordinate clause explaining the circumstances
• lampu berkedip dan bayi itu menangis dalam buaian — two linked actions

A very rough structure is:

[Time] + [Subject] + [Verb] + [adverb] + [when-clause]

This is a common and clear way to build a sentence in Malay.