Daylight Saving

This weekend used to be one of my favorite ones. The clocks went back an hour and I could wake up, realize that it was much earlier than my internal clock thought, and happily snuggle back into bed. Unfortunately, I now live in fear of the end of Daylight Saving all year long. This is the weekend I LOSE at least an hour of sleep.

You see, no one tells the toddlers and preschoolers of the world that their internal clocks are wrong. And if you try to tell them that six is really five, they'll laugh at you. I may have a glimmer of hope with C this year as he now knows how to read a clock, but A? Forget it. Her internal clock is already so hopelessly out of synch with the rest of ours I figure we won't recover from this weekend for months. In fact, probably not until it's time to turn the clocks the other way.

We've been trying to shift her schedule for the past several weeks with little success. In her ideal world she would go to bed at 6:30 pm and wake up at 5 am (which is soon to be 4 am). I just can't. get. up. then. I can't. Our attempts have led to nothing but an over-tired toddler and mommy. She'll now go down happily at 7:30, but still wakes at 5. Not only have we lost an hour during the night, her already too short nap has dwindle to almost non-existent. Thankfully she's a cheerful camper in the early morning hours, allowing me to wake up and get my bearings, but by 10 am or so the melt begins. I can only imagine that this weekend's shift will lead to, probably many tears from me, several choice words from M, and a steadfast refusal to ignore her internal clock from A.

I can only hope that eventually her need for sleep will cause her to decide to change her waking hour but I'm very unclear on how long that will take. My guess is longer than I would like. In the meantime, I am seriously thinking about reintroducing caffeine into my life.