Most parents will know what I am talking about when I mention “the witching hour”. And you know it may be far more than one hour. For some children this shows up when they are a few weeks old and can last, primarily for a couple of months. But what most books and articles I’ve read don’t tell you, is that the evening hours continue to be a challenge for months if not years to come.
For both of my children, they had a definite dislike, starting around 5 weeks old, of the 5pm-9pm range. But also, no child is created equal. For us, this time span was absolutely not ok for our first born, our daughter. We would try everything and generally, the only thing that would work would be to go outside. Either to stand outside or to walk outside. We also quickly learned that she was physically uncomfortable at that time most nights as well. Not everyone will agree with me on this, but don’t believe the claims out there that some babies are just colicky and you have to learn to try and address the symptoms as best you can until they grow out of it. I strongly believe that colic is a symptom of a larger problem and as parents, we owe it to our children to try and address the root cause. We eventually narrowed down our daughter’s trigger as being dairy, which led to complete diary elimination from my diet (which is still the case two years later). We saw remarkable improvement. She still was and is a passionate child who is not shy to express her emotions, but evenings became so much better once we identified that trigger. Once we had our second child and saw that he only became slightly more fussy in the evenings and could be calmed by just being cuddled. It really confirmed for us that we were right with going with our gut and digging deeper with our daughter. Parents, listen to your gut, even if others don’t understand it.
But don’t be fooled, evenings may continue to be a challenge, no matter what you do. Sometimes, especially if you are a working parent, you may feel like everyone else gets the best version of your child, and to be honest, on week days they probably do. Its hard, but completely understandable that toddlers and babies are tired by the end of the day and want to express their emotions in the safe space of home and to their parents. But as a parent it is hard to feel that most of the hours you see your children, Monday through Friday, are strained. I’m here to encourage you to do whatever you can to make evenings simple. This will make it easier on you and your child and allow you to enjoy some minutes or hours with your little munchkins. Don’t worry about the housework while they are awake in the evening. It can wait for after bed time, early morning, or the weekend. Rely when you can on crock pot meals, meal prepped dinners, or simple 20-30 minute meals. If you do have to prep, try to keep it simple enough that your toddler can help with pieces of it. And whatever you do, make sure that they have had enough snacks to get them to dinner time. If you have one anything like our older one, the world will be falling apart and you can’t figure out what the problem is until you give her food and realize she was just hangry.
Our children really do feed off of and model our energy. When we get home and are hurried and anxious about getting everything done, they become anxious and escalated. Take a moment to have a deep breath, slow down, and maybe even enjoy a few sips of wine while you cook. Your calm will help your toddler learn how to tap into their calm. In upcoming posts, I’ll share some of our go to weeknight recipes and meals.