Getting Through the Daylight Savings Time Change
You’ve worked so hard to get your child on schedule and now the Daylight Savings Time change is coming up. This is a day hated in the sleep consultant world- getting our children to sleep through the night and into a routine is hard enough, we don’t need extra obstacles!
But alas, the proposal to get rid of Daylight Savings Time didn’t pass fully through Congress (maybe there is still hope in the future?), so we still have to adjust two times a year.
In the fall, November 6, 2022 to be exact, the clock falls back an hour. This happens in the middle of the night on Sunday and theoretically means an extra hour of sleep. But unless you have teenagers who like to sleep in, this is unlikely to happen for your children (or you!).
This is because of your child’s circadian rhythm, or body clock. As your child gets used to going to bed the same time every day and waking up at relatively the same time every morning, their body starts to adjust their internal clock to always fall asleep and wake up at those times. This is the goal in sleep training and the time changes messes with that. They go to bed the normal time Saturday night and wake up the same time Sunday morning, however with the clock change, this is now an hour earlier.
So how do you get back onto the schedule you worked so hard to reach?
First, don’t change the clock on Sunday until after breakfast (just to make it easier and less depressing for you).
Then for the next 3 days, you are going to put your little ones down for their naps and bedtime 30 minutes earlier than their usual time. So if nap is usually at 12 pm and bedtime at 7 pm, move them to 11:30 am and 6:30 pm until Wednesday. On Thursday, go back to your normal times again. If you are using a wake window schedule, stretch your wake windows 30 minutes longer for these 3 days. Then on Thursday go back to normal wake windows.
Doing this helps cut the hour shift in half, gives your child a chance to adjust to a 30 minute change and then complete the next 30 minute adjustment after a few days.
If your child wakes up early in the morning (usually 6:30 but now its 5:30 am and totally unacceptable), then leave them in the crib/bed for an extra 10 minutes every day- until 5:40 day 1, 5:50 day 2, etc. Hopefully they can fall back asleep while you wait, but if not you are still resetting the body clock by not getting them up and out of their dark room. If you have an older toddler or child, you can make them wait 30 minutes at a time.
Mornings and naps are always hard to adjust, so stick with it and be patient as their bodies adjust.
If you need more help, feel free to reach out and I’ll guide you through this change!
