It’s that time of year again. Daylight saving ends at 3am this coming Sunday 7 April. As always, in the lead up to any daylight saving time change we always lie awake calculating the number of hours that we gain or lose in sleep and ultimately get very confused. Which one is it??? One of the daylight saving changes is a potential lifesaver – early risers will naturally wake a whole glorious hour later and shift workers get paid to work for an hour they didn’t actually work. But wait, it’s NOT that change!
Clocks go BACKWARDS by one hour this Sunday morning. Pre-kids this was the good one as it meant you got an extra hour’s sleep. So getting home at 3.30am was really getting home at 2.30am – bonus! But this one is a shocker post-kids, as they simply don’t appreciate the extra hour’s sleep, no matter how many times you explain it. So if your little monkey/s get up at 6am like clockwork – hello 5am! And if you’re a shift worker, come 3am it’s actually 2am, so you’re effectively working an extra hour but not getting paid for it.
So can you prepare? Usually we would suggest the following. To avoid massively over-tired kids in the evening maybe try putting them to bed 15 minutes later each night in the lead up. i.e. a 7pm bedtime would be 7.15pm Thursday night, 7.30pm Friday night, 7.45pm Saturday night and finally 8pm Sunday night (which will soon be 7pm).
And as for those early morning wake ups – remember if they wake at 6am at the moment, then on Sunday it will be 5am! And unfortunately there’s not much you can do about it. But take some comfort knowing that families all over the Hills are in the same boat! Just log into the Hills District Mums Facebook group and you’ll find you’re not alone.
Good luck – it always seems to go pear-shaped for a bit but then rights itself somehow.
