Fall Daylight Saving Time
It’s that time of year again! The leaves have done their beautiful color change (my favorite!), the air is getting cool, and children are nearly ready to wear their costumes. What comes next? Time change. Before I had children, I loved the end of daylight-saving time – an extra hour in bed is bliss. My first two babies were only a few weeks old for their first end of daylight-saving time so they didn’t know any different. However, by the time we got to the beginning of daylight-saving time in the spring, my first daughter definitely noticed. She is a sensitive sleeper (meaning that change disrupts her sleep easily) and the hour adjustment lent for a cranky and overtired week (or was it two weeks?). Yet I still didn’t manage to work out a plan for how to make the end of daylight-saving time easier on her. Now I know better! I am armed with a plan so that my girls aren’t disrupted by a change in their routine and I want to share it with you.
The way that I think it is best to approach a time change (whether daylight-saving time or travel to a different time zone) is to slowly inch your way towards the new time prior to having to experience it. Daylight-saving time ends on November 7, 2021 at 2am, so in the week leading up to it we would adjust our child’s schedules by 15 minutes every few days (see the example below for specifics). It is very important to remember that you need to adjust the schedule for the whole day: morning wake up, nap times, meal times, bedtime, and overnight feedings. Remember that if you have an okay-to-wake toddler clock and/or a programmable sound machine you will want to make sure that the sleep time cues are extended for the extra time in the morning.
You might be asking why you can’t just wait until the time changes. Well, you can, certainly, but if you have children who are sensitive to changes in their sleep then this isn’t a good idea for them. Children get overtired SO easily which disrupts their body’s ability to get good sleep. (I will talk about overtiredness in another post, but just so we are on the same wave length, if you child is hyper/wired in the evening, they are overtired). It is possible that by pushing your child to stay up for an extra hour on Saturday night they may become overtired, fight bedtime, possibly have more night wakings, and it might not cause them to sleep until the new time.
What if you don’t have the whole week to get your child adjusted or you don’t have the patience to change their schedule every few days? You could meet in the middle and move your child’s schedule by 30 minutes for a few days before the time change.
While you are looking at making changes to ensure that your child gets the most possible sleep, this is a great time to take a look at their sleeping environment. The best sleep environment is a cool, calm, dark room. White noise is so helpful to create a steady backdrop for sleep, black out shades are wonderful to make sure that your child’s room is totally dark, and your bedtime routine will help to cue your child that it is time to sleep.
No matter what strategy you choose, make sure that you are consistent. Be sure not to start bad habits like nursing or rocking to sleep, bouncing or walking around. If your child becomes overtired revert to the sleep training method you first used and help them get back into the groove of a good night’s sleep.
As always, if you need to get your child’s sleep on track, I am here to help!