What a Bad Idea!

We can all sense it… Spring is coming. Here in NC, the weather is warmer, and flowers are beginning to bloom. All over, the sun is showing itself earlier in the morning and later in the evening. Children are losing their cool indoors and begging to go out and catch the rays of sun for which they’ve been longing. But there’s just one, tiny, little, baby hiccup about the coming of spring…

Daylight Savings Time. 

Whoever came up with this idea clearly didn’t have a toddler. I used to appreciate a good “fall back” in November. But now that I’m a parent, we all know that falling back just isn’t going to happen. And springing forward? That just sounds like every morning of my life. 

Let me just walk you through what this looks like for us…

Our first year as parents, everyone said, “Oh, it’s not so bad if you ease their bedtime up by 10 minutes the week before. Then they’re pretty much on schedule.” I don’t know if this has truly worked for people, but my daughter, who was almost one at the time, basically laughed in my face. Every year after that, we just sorta started bedtime earlier the night before and hoped for the best. (Side note: It didn’t really work.)

Recently we’ve had some trouble getting our kids to sleep if it’s light, regardless of the time (i.e. nap time or bedtime). We’ve gotten sound machines to drown out daytime noises. We’ve put up black-out shades in their rooms. We’ve streamlined routines, given baths, loveys, snuggles and stories, and come to one conclusion: those kids are gonna sleep when they’re tired. Enter my next task…

Wear. Those. Crazy. Kids. Out. This is tough. On days we don’t have school, it means parks and the children’s museum. It means play dates and picnic lunches. It means that my exhaustion counts for nothing, and I have to muster up the energy to play hard, and crash hard when it’s done. Naps must be taken, because over-tiredness leads to poor nights’ sleep. If I want them to go to bed early, we play extra hard. If I want them to take good naps, I pay attention to their “sleepy” cues, and have a bed available at that moment, instead of still being at the park when the meltdown hits. 

Bottom line? Daylight Savings Time sucks. People with young children should just move to Arizona and be done with it. No one is saving anything, but everyone is losing their sanity.