Support thread for those dreading the clocks changing in the UK. Sign in here!

[smackapacca]

Just realising that we're in for a few dreadful days/nights.... Clocks changing, fireworks and stinking trick or treaters.

Fireworks upset the dog, but we can keep the TV on. I take the batteries out of the doorbell on Halloween (again - can't be doing with the dog barking) but then there is THE CLOCK CHANGE.

My DC are just under 2 & 4. The 4yo has a sleep clock which works OK but not perfect. This week they have started the day at 6.30am but not come into us until 7 which isn't too bad. They can entertain themselves noisily for 30 minutes.

But next week I can't hope for anywhere near this kind of pattern.

Anyone got good ideas/plans? What does everyone else do??

I don't find the morning bit that hard- because (in theory) you've had the same amount of sleep as the night before. It's psychological because the clocks say 1 hour earlier and before kids you were able to use the change to get extra sleep. However, I find the actual day on Sunday just draggggs and it's the 4pm onwards bit when you have tired kids and bedtime is still ages away is by far the worst bit.

And my final 'butt in'- really, the Horror 'years' of babyhood and toddlerhood last until they start Reception at the absolute latest. The routine (the thing we imposed and imposed for those years!)- suddenly wins out. School 1: Parents 0.

In the Big Picture, we are talking 3-4 years.

It is Hell whilst you are living it, as we did, but oh, the light at the end of the tunnel! DH and I did everything wrong. We were paranoid 'older parents'. But even we, in our silliness and ignorance, suddenly found ourselves saying 'What if?' What if we were to Do The Clock Thing on Friday night and see how it goes? What if the Hell that was DS1's 'early years' with its rigid routines and OMG!! moments might be morphed into something more acceptable to Family Life? What is the sky doesn't fall? I am so not mocking- I was so THERE. But you know what? It may NOT be hell-on-a-stick. It may work. You may, just may, suddenly catch glimpses of how it might be; the sunlit uplands of Middle Childhood. It is (was) a glorious place to be and you have to hold that image in your mind in the long, darker hours before dawn.

FWIW, we have had several 'sunlit upland' years of our DSs' mid to late childhood. But I see the storm-clouds of adolescence gathering on DS1's (12) horizon. Sigh.

Think: This, too, will pass.

I can see that this divides a few of us. My DH works on Sunday so it always feels like a long day anyway. I can see that some people embrace it, some people just get on with it and some look back nostalgically. :)

I put my kids to bed slightly later tonight, and added another 15 mins on the sleep clock. We'll see what tomorrow brings and go from there.

My 'problem' is that I'm working full time, and I try to make time with the kids precious. A 13 hour shift on Sunday is going to feel long for all of us.

Oh, ProperLush - those are words of comfort indeed! Thanks.

Just thinking how on earth does Angelina Jolie (and her nannies) cope with her seven children?! She is always travelling with them all over the world, almost every week is in a different country. Must be a nightmare getting the children to sleep!

Alfie I think you just answered your own question! Her NANNIES deal with it!

It is no big deal. My children when young were atrocious sleepers. No difference.

It is only if you are fixated on a routine that it matters.

I remember dreading the clock change last year as my DS was waking up at about 5ish every morning and I was worn to a frazzle. I recall thinking that I would not be able to cope with any less sleep. In the end, the whole thing pushed me to take action - a sort of sleep training for not getting up in the morning thing. After all, I count anything earlier than 5am as 'morning' by any stretch of the imaginiation.
Truthfully, I can't remember what I did - I was too sleep deprived. It took a while but it was worth it. So, yes, I dreaded the clocks going back. Yes, it was awful but unless that had happened I might have had to put up with 5am starts for much, much, longer.

Ooops - sorry. I am sure you guessed but I DON'T think that the pre-5am hours are morning.

only skimmed the thread so might be repeating but..

what i do is ignore the clock change. i spend a week or two putting the clock back(or forward) by 10mins every day or other day so it's a gradual change for me and the kids.
all i have to do is remember that everyone else is an hour different from me.

although this won't work when my eldest starts school next year

I am - because it heralds the start of winter, which I hate, hate, hate, loathe with a passion.

If I can ever afford to stop working I'm off to the sun.

I know some children are crap sleepers really I do, truth be told the only ones I know that "just are", are on here. all the ones in RL it's down to parenting. That said I know some dcs don't require much sleep, so you choose when they have that sleep, as I'd rather not be up before 7am, if I had to put my dcs to bed at say 9pm so be it. My friends dcs go to bed at 7pm, never later for fear it might inpinge on "THE ROUTINE", her dcs are up at 5am ish. She's wrecked and has no life as she has to be in bed so early.

I've not even tentatively suggested putting them down later as I'm sure it wouldn't be taken very well, but IMO that's what's happens when you are slaves to a routine.

socks you speak of a true reality. It was our experience (in Oz, though that is neither here nor there!) that it was those parents pushed to the very brink who said 'Enough'. 'This is destroying our lives. My DC is 9 months/1 year/2 years whatever old now. This cannot go on'- who'd swiftly and efficiently impose Controlled Crying who suddenly, suddenly thought 'Why the hell didn't we do this before?'.

DS1, as previously detailed, was hell. Worst year of my life. DS2, 2 years later, was a bit tricky but- as an example: he'd cry at night to be fed. I'd feed him, 20 mins.. then DS2 FELL ASLEEP. "What?" we said? "What can be wrong? Why is that child fed then asleep? why does he not scream the house down for 3 hours??" so when he continued 'fretful' beyond 8 months we did CC, and, 2 nights. Solved.

The next ishoo was waking at Ridiculous o'clock. As soon as we could (DS1 at 3 1/2) we imposed a 'no waking mummy before 6.30am' rule. Magick.

None of this happened 'overnight' but I think afer the horrible year we'd had with DS1, we were in no mood to prolong the agony. Whereas I had mates in Oz who were still being woken twice a night, then at 5 am with FOUR YEAR OLDS.

No.

We're not a slave to any routine. I just don't like being up super early.

My kids were the worst sleepers in the history of the world, but each clock-change went by with us barely noticing it. They seemed to naturally adjust.

minx- I had an Aussie mate who's DS was up at 4 am every morning, as being 'morning wake up' (as that was when daddy got up to go to work, OK?) and, at 'normal' morning play date time (9.30am?) her DS, (2 1/2....) was up for his morning nap. So no play date. Bedtime was 5pm.

Disaster zone in action, but boy, I never MET a poor woman in my life so hell-bent on making her own life as difficult as possible whereas her DS was a likeable, quite easy going, clever little chap. Every suggestion about how she might 'ease up' was met with a 'but you don't understand'... 'da de dad de dah'. FYI she was foist onto me when I went to a Health Clinic's Help Your Child Sleep' clinic as I wanted to brush up on CC and there was this woman who would Not Have It. The midwives and HV there 'asked' me if I could maybe befriend her as she was local and 'struggling like me', which I did. Whilst this is off OP, (sorry), I later learned this poor lass was one of the only 'failures' the Queensland NHS equivalent Baby Boot Camp had ever had- they did this (free) week's residential to help new parents (mums!) to bring intolerable situations re eating and sleep with young babies back under control. "But they didn't understand, it was different for her" (she said)... When I ( a bit later) met her, she'd sit beside her DS for up to TWO HOURS a night, patting her 12 month old DS to sleep, praying the neighbour's DCs wouldn't make a sound. Then, two hours later, she'd 'try not to wake him' as she changed his clothes as the ones he'd been put to bed in were obviously going to be too hot/too cold/ damp with sweat by 9pm ( 4 hours into this DS's night sleep) weren't they?

I mention her as an illustration in an extreme of how ROUTINE!!! can rule for all the wrong reasons, that's all.

I don't look forward to this weekend for 2 reasons:

Firstly, the Sunday just drags on and on - my 2 DS's are difficult to entertain at the best of times so an extra hour of having to keep them busy and not killing each other is not a happy prospect. However, DS1 is going to a halloween party with his friend on Sunday afternoon so it is going to be slightly easier this year.

Secondly, it jalways reminds me of pre-DC times when me and DH had the extra hour to sleep and lounge around in bed

I always tell my childfree colleague that once she has kids, she will hate the clocks going back but love the clocks going forward - i.e. flipping it around from what most people without children feel

Absolutely agree ceebee - I could have written your post.

I love it. My kids get right back on the new time within 24 hours, they wake up at gnats chuff regardless so that doesn't matter and it means snowtime is coming. :)

Ah best of luck bringing There is something so nasty about just...drifting...off...to...sleep...and...then...WWWAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Torture.

Let us know how it goes. Good luck :)

How could I forget? It's DH's birthday this week and we're (unusually for us) having friends come over for an evening meal so we'll be up extra late on Saturday.

That has happened every single year for the last 10 years. I always vow that next year will be different, but every year I forget about the clock change.

Angel am I right in thinking you've got a bit of a tricky sleeper? I recognize your name from threads on here previously?

Sorry if I'm wrong!

Crikey hasn't this topic got everyone going....just remember the OP started this as a SUPPORT thread......
I'm on both sides of the fence, DS1 is 3 and will adjust pretty quickly and if I only had him I would wonder what all the fuss was, however DS2 is 6 months old and seriously testing me with 5am wakings. I am flexible, I would love to have him up later on an evening to see his Dad who isn't home til late but I have tried it and he still wakes early...have a little sympathy for those in the same boat a me guys, a 4 am start next week with other DC's/work/commitments to think about is something to worry about in my book.

We never change the clocks on the Sunday, unless we have to be somewhere of course, but do it the Sunday night before we go to bed. It's all psychological but I'd rather be up early on a Monday morning when we all have to be up for work/school than have a Sunday disrupted, especially as it's the only day of the week we actually spend altogether.

Doing it this way, my DCs have never really been affected by the hours difference.