The end of Daylight Savings is upon us!
On Sunday morning, 7th April, our clocks go back an hour.
The start, and end, of Daylight Savings tends to affect not only children’s sleep patterns but adults too, no matter how we try to handle it. It can take all of us a week or so to adjust to the change.
Children tend to be much more structured with going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning. That is usually why people notice it the most in young children.
So what is the best way to handle it?
On the night we are due to put our clocks back (Saturday night), leave the clocks alone.
On Sunday, get up at your usual time and start the day.
After a cup of coffee, a bit of breaky, go around changing the clocks. It will feel much better this way.
Then.. SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE.
Toddlers:
On Sunday, if your little one usually takes a nap around midday, move nap time to 11:30am. It will feel like 12:30pm which isn’t too much of a difference so it won’t derail the sleep schedule.
Let’s say your child usually goes to bed at 7pm.
I recommend putting that child to bed at 6:30pm for the first 2-3 nights after the clock change. This will FEEL like 7:30pm to your child on the first night or so. Again, not too much of a change to warrant a reaction.
To make things as easy as possible, keep the morning up time the same. This means, keeping the expectation of when up time is, the same.
If you have a toddler that is using a digital clock and ‘Super 7’ is the time they can get out of bed (or leave their room), or they have a picture clock that lights up, don’t change this expectation. With the clocks going back, you may have some early wakings on the first few mornings – keep the rules the same!
On the 4th night, get in line with the new time. Adjust naps to the usual time on day 4 as well.
Babies:
Simply stick to your baby’s relevant awake times throughout the day. If your bub wakes early for a few mornings, try to hang back and get bub up as close to 7am as possible. It will all even out over time. As the awake times with young babies are a constant moving target as your baby grows, those timings are the only times you need to be concerned with.
