Do Your Kids Get Messed Up By the Time Change?
We've got to spring forward one hour this weekend, and that has a tendency to mess up family life.
The experts have some advice for parents on how to help kids deal with the beginning of Daylight Savings Time on Sunday.
The smart phone will change automatically and so will computers, but we'll have to set the microwave clock ahead one hour. And the coffee pot! Lord knows we'll need that on Sunday.
We'll lose an hour of sleep and we may be a little tired on Sunday, but nobody gets more screwed up by time changes than the kids. Especially infants. Their little body clocks don't change, and that means they'll be up an hour later this Sunday. If they're used to waking up at 7am, it will be 8am this Sunday, and you might be late for church. And they'll want to stay awake longer on Sunday night, and then they'll be tired for school on Monday. Parents know how it goes.
To get around some of the trouble, the experts say we should wear the kids the heck out during the day on Sunday! Games of tag, send them up trees on a climb, anything to make them exert themselves. Then they'll go to sleep earlier on Sunday night and be more adjusted for school on Monday. That's nice in theory. But that might just wire them even more.
Other advice includes using blackout curtains to make the room darker, and then opening up the windows to natural light first thing in the morning to help them reset their body clocks more quickly. Sounds kinda scary to me.
The bottom line is the weekend is an hour shorter this time. But the weather looks great! Have an awesome weekend.