Daylight Savings Time - Your Solution for Early Morning Waking

What's the right tactic for helping your child in adjusting to Daylight Saving Time?

Option 1 - If your little one is sensitive to their sleep needs, or is less than 12 months old, I'd suggest the more gentle approach to losing an hour when we "spring ahead" on the clock

If your little one has a 7:00am morning wake time, and a 7:30pm bedtime:

• On the Tuesday before the time change, start pulling your child's schedule earlier by 10 minutes for each nap, bedtime, and wake up in the morning. 

• A 7am start to the day, becomes 6:50am, bedtime at 7:30pm becomes 7:20pm, and each day you move daytime naps 10 minutes earlier.

• Continue to shift the day 10 minutes earlier each day – by the time you “spring ahead” on Sunday – your little one’s schedule will have slowly adjusted back to a 7am start and 7:30pm bedtime by the clock.

Option 2 - If your child is older, more flexible in their sleep, or tends to adjusts to change more quickly - (use your intuition about your child and trust your gut on their temperament, you know best!) then you can keep their routine exactly the same and just follow your routine by the clock. 

On the Sunday of DST

• Keep your child distracted and busy

• Get outside - natural sunlight helps us all adjust to DST

• Maintain your usual schedule by the new time of the clock 

• Give your child (and yourself!) some grace if there's extra fussiness during the short-lived adjustment.

If your little one already wakes too early and is not getting enough overnight sleep (children under 2 years should be getting an average of 11-12 hours of overnight sleep) - you can use the DST as an opportunity to adjust their morning wake time!   

Sneaky Option 3 - You can move bedtime and naptime on the Sunday after the time change later by an hour (this will actually be their usual naptime and bedtime as per their biological clock). Each two days after this, move their bedtime earlier by 10-15 minutes. Stop pulling bedtime earlier when you see it starting to cause morning wake time to shift earlier.

If your child has a bedtime of 7:30pm and wakes in the morning at 5:30am

• On the Sunday after the time change put your child down at bedtime at 8:30pm (remember, the day before this was the time 7:30pm, so nothing has changed for their biological clock!)

•    Push their nap 1 hour later as well (again, this will be their body’s usual naptime)

• Let them sleep until their normal morning wake time (this will now be 6:30am by the clock after DST)

The next two days (Monday and Tuesday)

•       Bedtime is 8:15pm (15 minutes earlier than the day before)

•       Naptime is 15 minutes earlier than Sunday as well

•       Let them sleep until their normal morning wake time (hopefully 6:30am)

Continue to pull bedtime and naptime 10-15 minutes earlier every two days – until you see morning wake time start to shift earlier, that’s when you stop pulling bedtime and naps earlier and you have found your new bedtime.

Sweet Dreams,

Katie