When you don’t have children, lounging in bed for that extra hour when we “fall back” as a result of daylight saving time feels glorious.
When you are the parent of a young child, however, adding that hour can mean a week or more of meltdowns, wakeups and general crankiness … from your child and from you.
But not all parents have that issue.
Parents who live in several specific parts of the country do not have to spend two weeks a year dealing with extra-cranky kids. Can you imagine? Their kids are just the regular amount of cranky all year long!
These U.S. states and territories do not observe daylight saving time: Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands.
We spoke with several families who live in places that don’t observe daylight saving time to see if not worrying about the time change is as glorious as we suspect it is.
When does Daylight Saving Time end this year?
Most of us observe daylight saving time by moving clocks one hour ahead in the spring and one hour back to standard time in the fall. This gives us more sunlit hours in the evening during the warmest-weather months, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
You may have heard that we began doing this to give farmers extra hours in the sun, but Scientific American reported that it was actually put into practice to conserve energy during World War I. However, the actual energy-saving has been minimal at best.
Whatever energy saved surely is outweighed by the energy parents use to get their kids on a new schedule twice a year.
Daylight saving time begins every year on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. This year, daylight saving time ends on Nov. 2, 2025, when clocks “fall back” from 2:00 a.m. to 1 a.m.
What is it like to not observe Daylight Saving Time?
“Crossing time change off the list has been great for the kids,” says Mandy Dowies, who moved from northern Virginia to Hawaii in 2019. “The kids are so much better behaved when they get the rest they need without having to adjust to a new time change.”
At the time, she had two children, and she has since added a third. Dowies went from observing the time change with her kids to living in a literal paradise that keeps the same time all year round.
Jennifer Marcuson, mother of a 6-year-old, moved from Indiana to Arizona in June 2023. Like Dowies, she appreciates being on standard time all year because it is “just one less thing to worry about parenting-wise.”
Rachel V. Smith grew up in Arizona and didn’t have any experience with daylight saving time until she went to college in Rhode Island.
“I absolutely hated it,” she said. “I hated that it got dark at 4:30 p.m., and that from one day to the next we had less ‘sun’ hours in an already gloomy winter season.”
Smith moved to Italy (a country that also observes daylight saving time) and had to adjust her oldest child — who is now 5 — to the time changes that she once dreaded. Then in 2021, Smith moved back to Arizona, had another baby and said goodbye to daylight saving time for good.
“Once we moved back to Arizona and I didn’t have to worry about it anymore, it’s honestly so great,” says the busy mom. “I really love not having time change and would dread moving back to a place that did.”
Why do we torture parents with Daylight Saving Time?
Short answer: no idea.
In addition to just being plain annoying for parents, changing the clock has been correlated with an increase in heart attacks, car crashes and other ill health effects, particularly when clocks spring forward.
Dr. Carol Ash said on TODAY said that we lose about 30 minutes of sleep a night during daylight saving time, due to our bodies being misaligned with the sun.
To the average person, 30 minutes is annoying but likely won’t change your life. For the average sleep-deprived parent, losing an additional 30 minutes a night is like throwing a drowning person a cinderblock.
We were so, so close to eliminating daylight saving time through 2022’s Sunshine Protection Act. The bill was passed unanimously in the Senate but it failed to pass in the House of Representatives.
And so here we are, rapidly approaching the time change on Nov. 2 … and dreading the week of poor behavior that will surely follow.
How are you supposed to prepare kids for Daylight Saving Time changes?
Sleep experts have recommendations on how to prepare kids to skip ahead or fall back based on age.
Suggestions include:
- Start early and move nap times forward or back by a few minutes a day.
- Help kids stay active during the day so they’ll be tired at night.
- Keep bedrooms dark and cool.
- Remove clocks.
- Avoid electronics.
And here’s how to prepare yourself:
- Set your expectations low.
- Lower.
- No, like really, really low.
- Pretty much expect a week of whiny, cranky kids who have a hard time going to bed, wake up at least 60 minutes early and are extra needy while they’re awake.
If you go into it expecting the worst, you might just be pleasantly surprised. And if you want to avoid the issue altogether, perhaps consider moving to Guam.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
