For some of the population, the end of Daylight Savings means an extra hour of sleep. For those of us with young children who are either A) unable to tell time or B) unable to understand the need for an extra hour of sleep, this is not the case.
Because I desperately wanted an extra hour of sleep, I devised my Evil Plan. We were going to watch a new Disney movie that none of us had ever seen (Sleeping Beauty, in case you were wondering). We would start the movie at their normal bedtime and we would watch in our jammies all snuggled up on Mommy and Daddy's bed. That way, should anyone doze off, we could easily shuttle them to their respective beds without having to negotiate the stairs with either 25, 40, or 50 pounds of dead weight. Surprisingly, no one fell asleep! It was looking good, but I knew better than to get my hopes up. I've tried similar tactics in years past only to have them fail with a flourish. Usually, Oldest Boy wakes up at the same time - unadjusted - and then is miserable cranky because he actually got one hour less sleep.
I knew I had to be up at 6AM (OK, 6:30, but still) because I had to be showered and ready to go before breakfast so that I could leave for a church meeting by 8:30. I fully expected that Mr. MOTH would have to haul his hiney out of bed to comfort/yell at whichever child was awake so that I could finish my shower. Guess what? IT WORKED! Oldest boy still got up around 6:15, but since that was really 7:15 I could hardly complain. The kid is normally up no later than 6AM, sometimes 5:30!! The others slept until 6:45 or so which meant that I was mostly ready and could deal with them myself. Mr. MOTH still had to chase the boys back to their room, but at least they didn't wake Baby Girl until it was time to head downstairs for breakfast.
So, my internet lurkers, how do you deal with the time change and small children?
2 comments:
I will have to remember your tactic in years to come! I am happy that DSL fell in line with Halloween this year - we let the kids stay up a bit later Friday night, which helped them sleep a little later Saturday morning, meant a later bedtime Saturday night, and got them to sleep until 6:20 this morning (their usual wake-up time.) Thankfully, my kids also seem to have a built in calendar - for the last week they have gone down a little later every night and slept a little later each morning. Spring, however, sucks for this reason.
That should be DST.
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