To think 4pm is the new witching hour?

[YoureAllABunchOfBastards]

At home for the summer with two kids and a puppy. For some reason as soon as 4pm hits I could quite cheerfully murder the three of them - they become whiny irritating gits and even though I know DH will be home by half five I can see the clock tick every single second as it goes by....

YES!! This is when I have to fight with my 3 year old to get him to stay awake. Then suddenly hysteria hits and he starts scampering about destroying the place. Too early for bed and too late for a nap.

At least two hours before it's acceptable to have an alcoholic drink...

Oh yes, my toddler starts becoming demonic around 4pm which is a shame because it's just when DH gets in from work so it's stressful for DH that all he seems to get is the rubbish 🙈

My mum insisted on naptime at four oclock until I was twentyfive.

yes, this exactly. We get home from school/ camp/ preschool etc- the baby starts crying and needs food immediately. The two big ones both have urgent demands for my full attention. When I can't give it, they start fighting with each other. Everyone is tired, hungry, wound up from school etc. Then I have to think about dinner etc. And we've given up Tv during the week. Nightmare.

Since he was able to walk Ds has always ran laps of the house at 4pm! It’s odd he is 8 now and still does it (autistic) like clockwork!

Yes! This is a thing! Around this time is a natural dip in serotonin which leaves people feeling grumpy / hungry / lethargic. I looked it up once when I was dieting as I always used to find it hard to resist eating junk at this time.

Yes. I could quite happily stick my two behind the wallpaper. 4pm until bedtime is hell.

This was also the time when my new born children would decide they needed to cluster feed.

Definitely!!! 4pm - 6pm mine are fucking unbearable

Oh god I thought it was just us! Teatime here falls at around 4-5 pm for the kids and afterwards they just turn into complete loons running around the house, climbing the walls and bouncing off the ceiling. Pretty much every day I have found myself yelling, "We've got a great big fuck off garden out there; if you want to run around like a pair of wild animals, go outside!"

It doesn't help that I can't sleep at all at normal times for some odd reason which is why I'm posting at ten past three in the morning so when 4 o'clock comes around I'm knackered and grumpy and just want 5 minutes' peace.

I'd keep a bar of Snickers in, just for this time of the day, but I'd end up scoffing them all in one go because I have no willpower!

This is the worst time for me. The kids are tired from whatever has gone on that day, and hungry. There demands for snacks are met with no because I'm about to cook dinner, cue more whining because they are hangry and I am not paying them attention because I am cooking.

Yes! Too late to go anywhere but too early for tea. They are too tired to play nicely together or do anything complicated.

I hate this time and ds doesn’t get in until 7ish. Such a long time and ds is refusing to go to bed.

dh *

18 month old still takes bottles during the night. DD gets enough food, snacks throughout the day I also offer her water in a beaker but she plays about with it an doesn't really drink from it. HV recommended to stop using bottles at a year old.
Is she using to bottles as a comforter to get to sleep she takes 600ml during the night so 2 bottles and how can I get DD to drink from a beaker?
Thank you

Quick snack and a drink. Them not u mum

I wonder if it's similar to 'sun-downing' where people the Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia become agitated late afternoon/early evening? The dip in serotonin is interesting. Both my DC cluster fed at around that time and my DM who has Alzheimer's can get very distressed.

I think low blood sugar contributes. Try having lunch a little bit later and / or giving everyone a snack at 3.30pm (nothing like Coca Cola or Haribo, maybe a glass of milk and a handful of dried fruit and nuts? A few breadsticks or crudités with hummus?)

@jammydodger5 you might get a better response if you start your own thread
Does she have a dummy? You could offer that instead of a bottle? Have you tried different lids for the sippy cups? Mine would only use certain ones but I don't remember what they were. Not recommended on here but I sometimes gave them other drinks in their cups such as milk, milky tea or weak squash. They were then happy enough to drink water out of them.

I never offered them anything at night when they were that age though if they ever woke but that's because they sort of weaned themselves off night feeding and slept through from quite early on.

Penfold007

Yes I was wondering about the sun-down aspect of this, as it is so well known in Dementia sufferers.

LockedOutOfMN

Mine used to get a banana and nuts after school, or maybe just some sliced tomatoes, celery sticks and cucumber, while I got on with preparing an early tea for them.

We used to have an allotment up the road so we would go pick raspberries or strawberries for tea dad would water stuff and I would eat the plums off my plum tree. Now I just look at all the chilli plants aloe Vera's and the lemon tree on the balcony anyone want some chilli seeds we have way too many

Oh lord yes. I take DD for what my friend has coined a UST - Useless Shopping Trip - around this time, to take the whinge outside. 30 minutes in an air conditioned Sainsbury's, at a time that coincides with the yellow stickers coming out, then back home for bath, bottle and bed.

OP seems to be forgetting it's 5 o'clock somewhere , right ?

Hell yes. This is my toddlers 'special time' too, started when she was a few months old. And for some reason my other DCs behaviour goes downhill at that time too now. DH is never home before 6.30 so I get 2.5 hours of it before he walks through the door.