I would start with home assistants built in automations and scripts before diving into node-red. Node-red is great for complex automations, but if all you’re doing is turning on lights and stuff, just using HA is more than enough, and has a much easier learning curve, IMO.

My money is on sleep deprived. Same thing for all intents and purposes. They are outside of a daycare.

I don’t disagree, but sleep deprivation makes a person do wild things they wouldn’t do otherwise.