The only people who genuinely enjoy daylight savings changes are the childless, empty nesters and parents with older teenagers. The rest of us parents dread that early wake-up call. Kids don't give a shit about the clock falling back or springing forward. They wake up when their internal clock goes off. Which, for my child is already the asscrack of dawn.
Every year, when I should be 'getting an extra hour of sleep,' by 5:30am on Sunday, I'm sitting in the living room watching my son play. READ: Screaming inside and trying not to lose my shit. I know it's not totally his fault. Though, if that kid doesn't sleep past 7am in the near future, I may just lose my shit on principal. HE'S BLOODY FIVE! Sleep in for fuck's sake!
I know some parents are trying the gradual change to help offset the time change. I tried it. I even wrote an article about it. You're supposed to change the sleep routine by fifteen minutes a day for the week leading up to the time change. Magically, this should make your child sail through the time change and actually get your extra hour of sleep.
Good luck with that. It failed miserably for me. My son is not a light switch! There is no friggin' way I'm going to pull off fifteen-minute increments each night with ease. Honestly, does that shit even work?
I've resigned myself to just face the time change, blindly. See what happens. Maybe the kid will sleep until 6am, maybe he will be a complete shit and wake up bright-eyed by 4am. Who knows. He's five. He wakes up between 6:30-7am seven days a week. No friggin way is he going to pack in another hour because the clocks changed. It's no wonder so few countries observe the absurd change.
My only hope is that I can shove an iPad in his face to buy an extra 20-30 minutes of sleep.
According to my friends with two to twelve-year-old children, we're all up at the asscrack on Sunday morning and, for the most part, back to the normal routine by the next the Sunday.
Good luck, mom and dad, Sunday will most likely suck for all of us. And just like every other annoying thing our child does to screw with us, this too shall pass...