bren, thanks for responding to my comment. Well, I got laid off last August and after a few months, basically gave up trying to find work. So, as I no longer have to get up at a set time in the morning (hubby is still working, fortunately) my hours are somewhat turned around, although I still try to be up by no later than 10:00. Which means that I usually try to make sure I'm actually in bed by 2:00 or so.

I just wish that I could make their daytime start at around 2:00 in the afternoon (after I've done some household chores, grocery shopping, etc.) and have time to play for a while before I have to start dinner. But since their hours coincide with our real life hours, I'm afraid that if I switch day to night that their morning would be more like around 10:00 at night. sigh...just am not sure what to do. Oh well, I still like the game, I just have to figure out how to be able to play it while they can actually do something. It's now 1:50 a.m. where I live and I've been good -- I still haven't opened the game since I exited it at around 10:20 tonight. Now I'm really tired so I'm going to head to bed too, but if I could change anything in the game, it would be that I could pick the time for their morning.

I find that as soon as the sun starts to set here, their morning starts, so that would mean around 5.30/6pm. I doubt it would be 10pm, so if you could play their 'day' from around 5.30pm - 2am your time, then reverse time would be better for you like it is for me. I still check in around 2pm my time & even though it's their night, they still are doing things, but you'll find most of their night would have been from sunrise your time (so guessing around 6am your time).

putting them to bed (with a pat on the back) the first couple of nights seemed to help. the first night i was so disappointed i was sorry i bought the game, but they seem to have caught up. i notice the older they get the harder it is for them to catch up though.

They do get better eventually if you make them go to sleep or take naps everytime you see they're awake. Or you can buy the energy drink from the store and give it to them.
I had a family (parents and one child) with the same problem - I gave the father an energy drink and made the mother and the daughter rest all the time. Their status is back to Happy/Elated now.

Wow, I just got my first couple that had some energy and they just run all over the place!

Okay this is what I found out after playing the game for 5 days I've been playing with all the families to confirm my theory, when I started buying the house upgrade and praising them for using it. They stop being Exhausted, the problem got solved completely I'm serious. I think that they need to have these things in other to relax and do other stuff than work or do homework. Also they have to have a lot of food like all the time plenty of groceries especially if your family is big. Buy first the less expensive upgrade and proceed with the other item as money grows. But I’m almost 100% sure that this upgrades will solve the problem, Can someone else tell me if they've tried that already and it didnt work? I want to know if my theory is correct.

So 7 days after my original post....

my little people are still tired/exhausted. I buy the organic food (one tip), praise them when they nap or go to bed (another tip), not working them non-stop (yet another), letting them goof off in between working (yet another), buying upgrades (most recent), not checking the game late at night (another) and their energy levels still seem to be no higher than "elated" which quickly drops back to tired/exhausted. I am on my 3rd generation of families and the only time their energy is above elated is when they're first born/adopted. This is really aggravating! The tired/exhausted affects everything including having children (my families have yet to have multiple births, only the occasional single).

I haven't heard or seen anything from anyone at LDW yet about whether this is a bug or not and I'm really frustrated. I love the Virtual games but this is just downright annoying.

Instead of posting the same tips which are in other threads on this site, or quoting the strategy guide, can someone from the company actually take a look into this?

*shakes head* I didn't mean disrupting them while in bed or napping elsewhere. Even when they've woken up from bed, they have to fiddle at the nightstand, walk down near the entryway, look back toward the bed, and then back toward the entryway before they actually get the resting energy.

I've been studying how they gain/lose energy- and their energy only goes up in increments of | | with each "going to bed". This means an incredible time that they have to be sleeping... and even "Reading an Email" takes half that much energy. If they do manage to become exhausted, it takes roughly 20 minutes to get them back to a safe energy level. That's not "hard", that's time-devouring.

Another thing is that I cannot get the adults to get a bit of extra sleep. If they're no longer Tired, they won't go to bed and will rarely nap on the hammock. Which means... they do one action and suddenly they're Tired again. Perhaps making the energy gained when sleeping would ammend this without taking away from the need to adapt to each person?

I can't figure out why they're always tired/exhausted, I only know that they are. It's really, really a huge disappointment with this game.

I bought every edition of Virtual Villagers, and thought that this was going to be great as it's so much better than Villagers. Instead it's frustrating.

I can only play the game between 5-9 pm due to my work hours and kids at home, but each and every time I see my little family they're exhausted. I feel like I spend most of the time putting them to bed or to naps and praising them for that...which in theory they should be well rested and quite used to napping and such. It does no good. They are still exhausted. My first family has all the upgrades, only one teen left at home, the dad is a master in his career, they have over $200,000 in the bank, and eat organics. They can have whatever they want from the store, yet they're constantly exhausted. And I keep wondering what I'm supposed to do with them now. Is there more to the game or is this it? They master a career, get the house comfy, then that's it?

My question would be... if your family is that successful, why is the tired/exhausted thing an issue? The game is obviously still functional and the family is WAY more successful than mine is and mine don't get exhausted often.

In my mind, like real life, a couple who works that hard to get the finer things in life IS exhausted much of the time, so it makes sense... No?

I think it's legitimate in your case, you're working them a bit TOO much. Arthur has even said as much regarding working the people all the time.

Just my .02