Yep, it’s true. I hate Daylight Savings Time. I think that most parents of young children would concur. Not only does it truly jack up the kid’s sleeping schedule, it gets light earlier in the evening, shortening our outside evening playtime, and gets light earlier in the morning, shortening their chances of sleeping in.
We have a child under the age of one in our house, and I feel like the first year of a child’s life is a constant learning platform of how to sleep. They start to get things figured out, and then, BAM!, let’s add or take away an entire hour of the day.
And then there’s the toddler, who thrives on our daily routine. He becomes quite irritable when he’s tired and by 4:30 yesterday afternoon, I found myself asking Brady if it was bedtime yet.
For whatever reason, the extra hour gained or lost, effects the kids completely different than if they just go to bed an hour earlier or later. I don’t know what it is, or how it happens, but it does.
I absolutely dread when the time changes. I’m sure a lot of people love when we “fall back” and gain an extra hour of sleep. An extra hour of sleep?! The thought of that for a parent with young children would typically be a very welcome idea. But children have zero sense of time, and they don’t care how much sleep you get. All they know is that they slept for their x amount of hours and they are up. Regardless if it’s 5:00 am or not. That extra hour becomes of an extra hour of awake time. Which is an extra hour for them to get grumpy.
I work with the small children at our church and I will tell you, we definitely felt that grumpiness at church yesterday. There were cranky, sad, tired kids who all needed a nap. So I know that it’s not just my kids that are impacted by the time change.
Let’s just cross our fingers and toes that the adjustment only takes one or two more days and we can all get back to our normal schedules.
Daylight Savings, go away. The end.
-Marcel