How the moon affects kids and what to do about it

Have your kids been bat-sh** crazy the last few days?  (Crazier than normal anyway)  Did they toss and turn all night long for no particular reason?  Maybe you yourself have been feeling restless, uneasy, a strange kind of unsettled energy brewing?

I wasn’t really on board with the whole ‘moon affects us’ thing until I had kids.  Now like clockwork every month we have a couple of nights (and days) that the whole lot of us go a bit nuts.  Eamon was like a tiny drunk person yesterday, a combination of overtired and moon energy perhaps, but last night he was a screaming mess only to say he just wanted some water when we got to his room… face palm. Meanwhile the little one tossed and turned all night, and as someone who was almost sleeping the whole night through went back those early days to sleep on my chest for most of it.

Apparently we’re affected by the moon for a number of reasons.  We’re made mostly of water so in the same way the tides are moved by the moon, it is suggested so too are our emotions.  And just the fact that it is lighter and brighter during full moon, is said to affect our ability to enter a deep sleep, keeping us restless and awake.

Either way, anyone with kids or anyone who works night shift knows, people just go a bit mental during full moon.  So what can we do? And how to we survive those few days each months without totally losing our minds?

Go with it.

Before modern lighting we would have naturally been more active and social during full moon because we could actually see at night.  So just go with it.  Organise a get together. Don’t stress out it you miss bedtimes and just roll with the natural tendency to be more restless during this time.

Move your body.

Restless energy (especially if you are running on zero sleep) may have you grabbing for the sweet stuff, which will may help momentarily, but moving your body will help you to calm the heck down and stay down. It doesn’t matter what you do, walk, run, yoga, dance, as long as you’re moving.  This goes for your kids too, take them outside to run off that mental energy and hopefully encourage a better nights sleep.

Lay low.

The day after the full moon, it’s likely everyone’s going to be feeling a bit tender after a night of little sleep and high emotions.  Lay low. Stay close to home. Spend time in the backyard or park and keep all activities low pressure to avoid meltdowns (by adults as well as children!)

So that’s what we’ll be doing today. Laying low. Napping. And trying to get back to some sort of normal state.  How about you? Have you found the moon affects kids?  What do you do to survive it?