How can families deal with the inevitable ‘witching hour’ when bad behaviour turns evening time into chaos?

THE BABY is wailing, the toddler is scribbling on the wall, the older siblings are fighting over the TV remote and – in the middle of it all – you are trying to make dinner.

Yes it’s the “witching hour”, when everybody is on their worst behaviour and bedtime cannot come soon enough. Any semblance of the family harmony we all aspire to quickly unravels into a bad-tempered melee.

Exactly when and how the “witching hour” happens depends on your circumstances and the ages of your children. It may come before dinner or it may be the turbulence that follows. But in many households with young children, it is a time when meltdown is only one “no” away.

Stay-at-home parents reach the point when they have had enough of their little darlings for one day, thank you. There is the added pressure of not wanting a partner to return home to utter chaos and wonder what they have been doing all day.

Working parents who come in the door from the office stressed and hungry find it hard to deal with cranky children, but feel guilty about wanting them to go to bed because they haven’t seen them all day. It is a time of release for children who have had to behave well in the creche or for the childminder; they feel free to be defiant when back in the security of their own home.

If there is a “witching hour” in your house, the first thing is to become aware of it, says parent coach Marian Byrne. “Ask yourself, what are the triggers for them and what are the triggers for me?”

If it is happening regularly, you may need to look at what you can do differently. You also have to examine your expectations. Is it reasonable or realistic to think you should be able to safely navigate this part of the day with tired children, while catching up with chores? How you are as a parent can aggravate the situation or calm things down.

Byrne advises parents working outside the home to try giving children their complete and undivided attention for the first 10 minutes when they return, instead of immediately trying to put on the dinner. Children are more likely then to go off and play, allowing the parent to get on with whatever has to be done.

Stay-at-home parents who experience a major blowout at six o’clock on rainy days because everybody has been cooped up should look at what they might do differently earlier in the afternoon, she suggests. Going out for a walk despite the weather, or inviting a friend around to play, may prevent a build up of tension.

“It is one of the least enjoyable parts of the day and it has the potential for trouble,” agrees Martina Newe of Help Me To Parent. “A good bedtime routine is key to getting through that time.”

She recommends creating a picture chart for young children as a visual guide to the steps involved from, say, putting on pyjamas to settling down to sleep with the light out. “When you are setting a routine with children it is important to be working towards something nice,” she stresses, such as a story and cuddles. If you have difficulty persuading children to follow the routine, use a star chart to reward them when they do.

Beware of locking yourselves into a drawn-out process because, once it is established, you will never get away with skipping bits. However, the big advantage of following the same procedure is that the children see the countdown to bedtime as inevitable, instead of trying to renegotiate every step of the way.

Léon Fahy says she and her husband, Paul, were relaxed about bedtime with their first child, Matthew, who is now five. But when his sister Zoe arrived three years ago, Léon felt the need for a stricter routine. Since then, baby Ryan (nine months) has been added to their household in Ballina, Co Mayo.

It was hard to get Matthew into a routine, she says, and he still tries to “push it”. But having done it from day one with Zoe, she is in bed at 7.15pm and usually asleep within minutes.

“Generally they know now this is what happens: we have our food, we have a bit of quiet time, have a shower or bath, wash their teeth, then it is story time and bed.”

When their father comes home at 6pm, “it is always a bit mad” initially, with the two older ones jumping around. When the children are really loud, she says, Paul sometimes has to take time out for five minutes. “It is different for me at home with them all day – it doesn’t faze me anymore.”

By trial and error, they have found that bedtime stories downstairs works best. When they read them upstairs, the children were far more likely to be giddy and jump on the beds. They don’t turn on the light in the children’s bedroom when they go up – they actually removed the bulb for a few months so they got out of the habit of switching it on again.

Léon usually completes the bedtime routine with the older two while Paul minds Ryan. “I am with them all day so they are calm with me, whereas with Paul they are livelier.”

She breastfeeds Ryan after the other two are in bed. “It is easier – I can relax and he is not distracted, and then he will settle much easier.”

There are times at the end of the afternoon when she is exhausted and just wants bedtime to come around really quickly, she admits. But at least when it is seven o’clock, she knows “the bedtime routine will kick in and they will be gone in half an hour”.

That allows her time to catch up with her other job – as Mayo co-ordinator for mykidstime.ie. “Even when I am not working, it is nice to be able to see your husband and not be shouting over the kids, ‘How was your day?’. I do think you need a break.”

David Caren and his wife, Ellen, swear by a set routine for their three young children at home in Innishannon, Co Cork, to bring them smoothly from a family dinner at 5.30pm to a child-free evening from 7.30pm onwards.

“The two of us like hanging out together,” he explains.

Bedtime stories are rotated around the bedrooms of Robin (four), Astrid (two) and Dalton (17 months) – whoever’s turn it is can choose the story for that night.

There are other rituals such as recalling all the names of their cousins. After that, the three of them go to sleep very quickly.

Even if they are staying with relatives or on holidays, they stick to the routine. If David is working away, he will try to phone home at story time to talk to the children.

“Because we have had the children so close in age, routine has been there from day one. Sometimes it can be very annoying and you just want to throw it all up in the air and get on with it,” he says. But he reckons it is an investment in time and effort that has paid off.

He sees other families and friends who still have their kids up at 10.30pm or coming into their beds. “I couldn’t cope with that,” he says.

Tears before bedtime: how to avoid them

Plan ahead:Tired children need attention, so try to minimise chores and last-minute dinner preparation by doing as much as you can earlier in the day – or the night before.

Create distractions:When a child is heading for meltdown, divert their attention by producing an unexpected toy or starting a new activity. Set a timer and see if they can "beat the clock" to clear away the day's mess.

Take a deep breath:If it is you who is heading for meltdown, step back, relax and see a humorous side to the madness.

Pick your battles:It is not the time of day to be correcting a child for every lapse in behaviour.

Tune in:Prepare yourself mentally during the commute home from work and then give them your undivided attention for the first 10 minutes you are in the door. If hunger makes you cranky, eat a snack to keep you going until dinner.

Walk around the block:A quick excursion with the buggy can do wonders for your stress levels, but this has to be balanced against the risk of putting the child to sleep, if it is too early.

Skip the interrogation:Don't expect a child to pour out the news of the day when you arrive home from work, just because you are ready to hear it. Persistent questions are annoying.

Use TV sparingly:The "screen babysitter" gives you a break, but keep it for the "witching hour" – and then there is no need to feel guilty.

Establish bedtime routine:Following the same procedure every night means children know what to expect and they are less likely to fight it.

Stay off the drink:As tempting as it may be to open a bottle of wine, leave it for after the children have gone to bed.

Job done: ‘I used to joke that if by the end of the day we were all still breathing, it was a good day’

Mother of four Amy Cullen knows all about the “witching hour” – particularly at the moment, having recently cut out the afternoon nap for her three-year-old twins.

Anytime from 4pm onwards is tricky, when Tadhg and Charlie tend to become whingey and she needs to be inventive. Meanwhile, their 19-month-old sister Annie is running around doing her best to torment them.

The first day Amy cut out the twins’ nap, she made them sharpen every pencil in the house. “They loved it!” Arts and crafts and storytelling also help to keep the peace.

She usually has no trouble being with the children, “but I do find myself having to count to 10 a few times in the evening and tell myself it is not their fault, they are tired and cranky”.

Amy became familiar with the “witching hour” when she was breastfeeding her newborn twins and also trying to cope with her eldest child, Cillian, who was 18 months.

The babies would have a “really needy time” in the late afternoon, while she was also trying to make their brother his dinner, bath him and give him quality attention too.

“I used to joke that if by the end of the day we were all still breathing, it was a good day.”

She took the advice of a friend not to be running around madly trying to keep on top of the house as well – “Do what you can but when your children need you, they need you.”

Another “brilliant” bit of advice was to prepare dinner in the morning, either to be given to the children at lunchtime – and then only a quick snack was needed later – or to be heated in the evening.

She accepts now that if her children go to bed feeling happy and loved, it does not matter if there are dishes in the sink or the floor is a mess.

“I find when I am busy doing something and distracted from my children, the stress levels are so much greater because they’re cranky and I’m ‘Just go and watch your programme’ and ‘Yes, I’ll get your drink in a minute’, and they’re ‘Mummy, mummy, mummy’ and I am getting crosser and crosser. It just isn’t worth it and I end up getting nothing done anyway.”

On bath nights the children undress before they go upstairs (to save having to cart the clothes all down again for the wash) and enjoy “naked hour”– or “naked five minutes” in reality. They run circuits of the downstairs “like wild horses”, using up surplus energy.

Amy is happy to let them watch something like Fireman Samon the television for a short while after bath time – giving her the chance to do a quick tidy up.

Annie is put into her cot around 7pm and the boys all go up at 7.30pm-7.45pm. The children have always been very early risers because her husband, George, used to be up at 5am to go to work as a crane driver in Cork city, before losing his job 18 months ago.

“We have spent a huge amount of time teaching our children to sleep later in the morning. Now, the majority of mornings, it is a quarter to seven and it used to be five, half five. When they are waking that early, it is very difficult to keep them going.”