I’m about to say something that’s absolutely abhorrent to so many other parents in my Autism parent circles online.

I love daylight savings time.

(At least so far.)

The Monster works on a clear understanding of his daily schedule.  He might not always like the daily schedule, but he’s working along it.  He understands that he gets up, gets dressed and eats, goes to school, et cetera…

Save, as I’ve mentioned, the kids have started to get up when they feel like it, and roam the house.  More often than not, for a bit of it, it often involves the Monster getting out of bed, opening his door, and if he thinks he hears us, slamming it shut and running back to bed.  Sometimes, this was at 4:30 or 5 in the morning, and sometimes, it was loud enough that I started to get worried he’d trigger the household alarm.

And then daylight savings time hit.  5 AM became 6, which sucked for our sleep for a night or two, but since I get up at 6:30 normally (and 5 when I’m actually awake enough to exercise)…

But the Monster and R?  They don’t know what the concept of “a time” really is.  R can tell us what time Disney Junior told him his show is going to be on, but he’s not yet to reading a clock, and the Monster definitely’s not there yet.  What they do know is the basic feeling of the time of day.  So switching to daylight has made going to bed a little more rough, since it’s still light outside when we’re taking the Monster up at his regular bedtime…

But they’ve conditioned themselves to wake up when it’s light.  And at 6 in the morning, it’s not light yet (yet).   So these last few days, the Monster’s gotten up at 6:10, 6:15, which is so much more tolerable when I’ve been going to bed at 1-2 AM (I have late meetings/curling), and he’s still actually awake so that we can get him dressed and ready without the sometimes-fights about getting him out of bed.  It’s awesome.

Can we have Daylight Time all the time?