According to Wikipedia, with a modern literal meaning of “midnight,” the term, witching hour, “refers to the time of night (3:00-4:00 am is commonly speculated) when creatures such as witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful and black magic to be most effective. It may be used to refer to any arbitrary time of bad luck or in which something bad has a greater likelihood to occur (e.g., a baby crying, or a computer crashing, or stock market volatility, crimes, supernatural, etc.). The witching hour from medieval times is the time believed that witches came out to do their “unholy” practices. The time ascribed to the witching hour was generally viewed after midnight.”
Witching hour takes on new meaning for Boomer Grandmas as the sandwich generation balancing adult children and the grandchildren and elderly parents who are living longer.
We Boomer grandmas remember the witching hour with our own children. We know new parents find that their babies cry for no reason late afternoon. According to babysleepsite.com, there are several reasons and no reason for the phenomena. Websites give remedies and one of the best websites giving remedies for exhausted and stressed parents.
They say:
“We’re talking today about something that most of us parents have experienced. It’s brutal. It’s intense. It makes us want to grab the nearest set of earplugs. We’re talking about The Witching Hour. You know what we mean, right? That time during the late afternoon/early evening when our newborns suddenly begin wailing for no apparent reason and WILL NOT STOP?”
“During The Witching Hour, nothing calms our newborns. Feedings are fruitless. Pacifiers are pointless. Lullabies are lacking. It’s hour after hour of red-faced crying, and it often doesn’t end until long after the sun has gone down.”
As grandmas, we can act as respite. We understand and have more patience with our baby grandchildren crying. Who else but a grandma would say how cute the baby looks all scrunched up and sobbing!
Parents.com discusses the witching hour as applying to all members of a family with children at any age, not limited to households in which there are two working parents and gives potential remedies.
This Grandma loves their commentary on being a working parent at witching hour:
“An hour ago, you were confidently giving a budget report or happily chasing your toddler at the park. Now you’re consoling a crying child and stirring a pot on the stove, close to tears yourself. Welcome to the witching hour, when the day’s stresses catch up with the whole family, turning well-mannered children into kidzillas.”
“The witching hour is not just the province of colicky babies. It actually can affect every member of the household: “None of us is at our best in the hour before dinner,” explains Carol Baicker-McKee, Ph.D., a child psychologist and author of The Preschooler Problem Solver. “Blood sugar is at its lowest, and fatigue is high. Families are in transition, and kids are often at their neediest. It’s no small wonder that this time of day can feel like a lethal experience for parents.”
Those of us Boomers with elderly parents know about “sundowning”- when elderly with dementia, children and people with mental disabilities go off the rails when the sunsets… Usually 5pm-9pm. This Grandma has experienced the difficulties of dealing with an elderly parent in the late afternoon. The life cycle is so interesting. Who would have expected that we Boomer Grandmas would experience the witching hour as parents of children and then experience it again as children of elderly parents!
What does this mean for those of us who are of the sandwich Boomer generation?
Go out to dinner . . . alone with Grandpa!
Joy,
Mema
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