Hard moments

The witching hour

There's a stretch between about half four and six that most parents of little ones come to dread. The light goes flat, tea isn't ready, and a child who was mostly alright all day falls to bits over nothing you can put your finger on. They call it the witching hour, and it isn't in your head.

For ages I thought I was doing something wrong at that time of day. I wasn't. Late afternoon just piles a few things on top of each other at once, and once I twigged why, I stopped taking it to heart and started working round it.

Why five o'clock's the worst

Have a think about what's stacked up by then. They're properly tired, usually past the point a nap would've helped and too early to go down for the night. They're running on empty, because lunch was hours ago and tea's still on the hob. They've spent all day keeping it together at nursery or out and about, using up what little self-control a two or three year old has, and there's nothing left in the tank. Add a parent who's also worn out and trying to cook, and the whole house runs short at the same moment.

Ask less of them, not more

The instinct at five is to push on, get the jobs done, keep them busy, get to bedtime. For us the opposite works better. This is the hour to expect less, from him and from me. I stop asking anything that needs a decision, I let the jobs wait till tomorrow, and I let the evening get simpler instead of busier. A tired child can't rise to a big evening, and asking them to is usually how the whole thing kicks off.

Feed them early, turn everything down

A little snack at four, before the crash, heads off a surprising number of five o'clock meltdowns here. Hunger and tiredness feed off each other, and it's far easier to get ahead of it than to talk him down once he's gone. I turn things down too, fewer lights on, telly off, my own voice quieter. A calm, dim kitchen asks less of a frazzled little brain than a bright, loud one.

When it goes anyway, I reach for the same thing I always do, one steady sound to give his ears somewhere plain to rest while I get tea on the table. Building the app around a single calm tone instead of busy layered noise was on purpose, for exactly this hour, when nobody in the room has a scrap left to give.