Sunday, November 06, 2011

A bad fall back plan

Back in the spring, I blogged about how much I hated time changes. Well, here I am again, back on the same soapbox.

Sure, ‘fall back’ may be easier in some ways than ‘spring forward’ since supposedly we got to sleep an extra hour this morning. But there is no sleeping in for those with young children, children who don’t understand clocks and the division of time into 24-hours or the ridiculous war-measures act for supposedly saving daytime hours throughout winter.

Miya has a pretty good internal clock – one which I have encouraged through a well-developed routine of waking, eating and sleeping times. Young children thrive on predictability, familiarity and routine and it works pretty well for us to have her get up and go down at roughly the same time each day.

Until the clocks suddenly switch, that is.

Now, the girl who gets up at 7 a.m. is waking at 6. She is hungry for her lunch at 11, ready to fall asleep on her plate at 12 because she is usually in bed at this time. She can’t have a full nap because she her body is used to waking up between 2:30 and 3:00 – only now that means an hour less sleep. And by bedtime she is so over-tired that she didn’t know if she is coming or going, never mind what hour of day it is.

Time changes are, simply put, cruel to parents. And, in my prairie view, unnecessary.
How many of us really want our sunlight earlier rather than later in the day? Soon it will be light at 7:00 a.m., but dark at 5:00. Who does this work for? There are enough people already bummed out by lack of sun exposure – why are we making it harder on them to get some reviving rays? Vitamin D supplements and sun lamps can only go so far.

As someone for whom sleep does not come easily, and who is blessed with a similarly afflicted child, I wish we could follow the wise example of Saskatchewan and stop messing with our clocks.

My clock tells me it’s only 9:30 – but my body knows it’s much later. I’m going to bed.

1 comment:

  1. Funny you tube video explaining DST
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=84aWtseb2-4#!

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