Adjusting to Daylight Savings Time

Hey, everyone, it's Christine Stevens with Sleep Solutions by Christine. And I'm back with more sleep tips to help you and your child sleep well at night. So today's topic, Daylight Savings Time. Did you realize that it's coming up this weekend? Well, maybe some of you did. Some of it might be a little bit of a surprise to you. But I'm here to help you adjust your baby or child to the new time change. 
​
As much as we all don't really love having to switch our clocks twice a year. It's just something that until we get rid of daylight savings time; we're kind of stuck with it. So might as well live with it. How do you handle it? That's what I'm here to help with today. Daylight Savings Time is going to start for 2023 on March 12th here in the United States. If you live in Europe, March 25 is going to be when daylight savings time is going to start. So, you have a little bit more time.

Daylight savings time is going to start this coming Sunday, what can you do to prepare a little bit? First thing, if you really want to, you can actually prepare your child or your baby for the time change, you can always put your child to bed 15 minutes earlier than you normally do. Nothing’s wrong with moving bedtime, 15 minutes earlier, your child's not going to notice. If your child's bedtime is normally about seven o'clock, then maybe start putting them to bed at about 6:45pm for the next couple of nights. Okay, so you can do a little bit of a gradual change kind of makes of a little bit less of a big change starting Sunday night.

Now one of the fun things, if you have an early riser, like maybe your baby or your child gets up between 5am to 6am, do nothing. The cool part is that starting on Sunday night, your child is going to actually sleep an hour later in the morning. Timewise we're going to jump ahead one hour. So if your child wakes between 5am and 6am, now they're going to be waking between 6-7am on Monday morning. On Sunday morning, nothing to do, so easy.

Let's go through the different ages and how you adjust. Assuming that we have no other changes made, we're going to go into the time change Saturday night, just know what time you put your child to bed. Done and we'll start making changes on Sunday the 14th.

Now, for newborns and infants that are not on a regular schedule. Newborns, infants, up to about six months old that are not on a regular schedule. Easy part is to use your child's awake windows; you're just going to jump to the new time starting on Sunday. What that schedule looks like, if your child normally goes to bed at say 7 o'clock on Saturday night, Sunday morning, look at what time your child wakes up and use your awake window. So for babies that are newborns under 3 months of age, they're only going to be awake about 60 to 75 minutes. If baby wakes up at 7am, then 8am/8:15am for the first nap. Okay, for babies that are anywhere from about 4-5 months old. They're awake windows are more like an hour and a half to 2 hours, maybe even 2.5 hours. But you get close to six months and they're about 2.5 hours. At 6, 7 months, they're usually about three. Use your child's normal awake time for now.

How quickly does your child get tired after taking another nap? Don’t keep baby awake too long. Jump to the new time starting on Sunday. For the first nap, use that first awake window, take note of it, your child wakes up, wake window again, then down for another nap. Okay? Bedtime is probably going to look like it's a little bit later, but over the course of a couple of days, it'll get back to what your normal time was before.

For those infants and toddlers that are on a sleep schedule, definitely prepare a couple days ahead of time and put your child to bed 15 minutes earlier at night. Nothing wrong with that. Saturday night you're not going to do anything. You're just going to look and see what time your child goes to bed Saturday night. Sunday morning for that first nap, things are going to look later than they normally would. For instance, if your child's first nap is always at about 10 o'clock. Sunday morning, the first day of the time change, you're going to put your child to bed at 10:15/10:30am. You're going to put them in bed a little later than you normally would. Okay? Because that 10am on Saturday now looks like 11am on Sunday. Put your child to bed 30 minutes later than you normally would, let your child sleep, they wake up. If second nap is usually at two o'clock in the afternoon, on Sunday, it's going to look like 3 o'clock. Okay, put your child to bed for nap #2 at 2:30pm. Your child should be able to handle that but always watch for those sleepy queues.

Watch for your child rubbing their eyes, yawning, turning their heads away, not really interested in what they're doing, getting extra fussy, etc. Toddlers start getting goofy and start running around more and really getting to that crazy baby stage where they're running in circles… probably time for a nap.

For those toddlers, that take one nap a day, then nap is still going to be sometime between 12 and 1 o'clock during the day. Make sure that your child is getting to sleep at about 12-12:30pm. Even the first day of the time change. Bedtime for those infants and toddlers on a sleep schedule on Sunday night, is  30 minutes later than you normally would. If Saturday night bedtime is 7 o'clock, Sunday night bedtime is 7:30pm. Done. That's how to change your child's schedule and adjust them to daylight savings time for 2022.
​
If you have questions, I am always available for 30 minute strategy calls whatever I can do to help so don't hesitate to reach out, head over to my website at https://www.sleepsolutionsbychristine.com and send me a quick contact request. I am happy to schedule a free 15 minute phone call to talk you through it and make sure that we have the right schedule for your child. And if there's anything else I can do to help. I'm happy to do it. Thanks again and get some sleep this weekend. Welcome spring and looking forward to summer!t.

---