HANDLING DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME- FALL BACK

Daylight Saving Time for Fall Back is coming up Sunday, November 3rd! Young children are much more structured with going to bed and waking at the same time each day so that's why we notice the effects of DST the most in children. With Fall Back, you might see some early morning wakings. So here is my best advice for having a smoother transition!

My advice is to “split the difference.”

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For “Fall Back,” my recommendation to all parents is just to leave the clocks alone so it’s not so upsetting to see your little one up an hour earlier. Just get up at your usual time and start the day. After you wake up and have a bit of breakfast, then you can go around changing the clocks. It will feel much better this way, trust me! If, for example, your little one usually takes a morning nap around 9:30, you will adjust this to 9:00 for the three days after the time change. It will be a bit of a push for your child, but not so much that it will cause much damage to her schedule. Do the same for the afternoon nap. Let’s say your child usually goes to bed at 7 p.m. I recommend putting that child to bed at 6:30 p.m. for the first three days following the time change. (This will FEEL like 7:30 to your child.) And it will take about a week for your child’s body to get used to this. It takes everybody’s body roughly one week to adjust any kind of change in sleeping habits.

If you have children over the age of two, you can use an okay to wake clock. Just set the clock forward half an hour so that at 6:30 it says 7:00 and let them get up a little earlier than normal the first few days but not a whole hour earlier, knowing that, by the end of the week,they will be back on track and sleep until their normal wake up time.

If you are dealing with a baby, you cannot do that.Try not to rush in as soon as your baby wakes up. Give about 10 mins or so.Then the next day wait a little longer and so on. By the end of the week your baby’s schedule should be adjusted to the new time and they should be waking up closer to their usual hour.

On the fourth night, just get in line with the new time so your child is back to going to bed when the clock says 7:00 pm. Adjust naps to the correct time on day 4 as well.

Clear as mud? Hope this helps you have an easier transition this year!

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