This week, I want to rant about the clock changes!
WHY are we still doing this stupid time change twice a year? You know, the Spring Forward, Fall Back thing? Is there actually a logical reason for it now? I know it was done during the war to give farmers more light so they could be in the fields for longer but really, in 2013, do we HAVE to do this twice a year? It messes up things, is complicated (we can’t even co-ordinate it, the US and other countries did theirs a week or two ago, making time changes and zones even more complicated) and I am pretty sure parents all over the world loathe the fact that it messes up their kids sleep routines!
So, come on, if someone out there can give me a logical, good reason why we need to keep doing this? If you can, I will pipe down and be quiet, but frankly, I can’t find one, and it has messed up my kids wake time, once again , and sleep is rare and precious in this house as it is, being woken up an hour earlier is not thrilling me!
Surely we could make enough fuss, and get them to stop? I can’t be alone in my whining about this ridiculous thing we do, “just because”?
Who else hates the clock change as much as I do?
awww I like the clock change. I like the fact the evenings suddenly get lighter, over night. But then I dont have little kids with messed up sleep!
I guess in the grand scheme of things it isn’t really that big a problem, I was just very grumpy when I wrote the post on Monday before I went on holiday, having been woken up at the crack of dawn by a time confused toddler demanding breakfast. It just makes no sense as to why we still do it? 😉 Thankfully we seem to have gone back to our normal 6am wake up time, 5am even for a few days was not doing it for me at all! 🙂
Yes, it’s a pain in the proverbial, but also…
– I dont have enough hours in my day, every extra bit of daylight is welcome. id rather once a year feel “oh how horrible, an hour less sleep” than lose access to how-ever many hours of light it equates to. No point saying i could just get up an hour earlier & have the same result… clearly i wouldnt because Im just dog-lazy! i need everyone else getting up, to force me to!
– Vitamin D deficiency is a growing problem in the UK as the population diversifies and includes greater numbers of people whose biology is wired for lots of sunlight.
– Energy use! Variable according to equatorial distance eg Daylight Saving Time trims the USA’s electricity usage by 1% each day, because less electricity is used for lighting and appliances. In New Zealand, power usage decreases 3.5% over daylight saving & starts off at a 5% drop in the first week. Therefore… to do away with Daylight Saving would increase world fuel consumption by (im counting on my fingers)… erm, “loads”.!
I have to pipe down now, don’t I, seeing as what you say, Nina is totally correct! 😉
I hadn’t thought of all of those things in my sleep deprived, and grumpy state. I wonder, if we stayed with the clocks this way, would it make a difference all year round, or do we have to go back an hour, in the winter and then back again in the summer for it to work? I can live with the time change, if we kept it one way, with longer light etc, I just wonder if going back again makes sense as well?