 For those living in the United States, Daylight Savings Time begins this Sunday, March 12, at 2:30 am.
This is when we “spring forward,” that is, we change the clocks from 2 am to 3 am (or more likely, our cell phones do it for us). For most adults, this is not a great experience. For those with young children, hope springs eternal that this might cure a child’s early wakings. For if they were waking up at 5 am before, suddenly they are waking up at 6 am. Unfortunately, this rarely works out but it’s always worth a shot! Your best bet, if this is your situation, is to keep naps, bedtime, and mealtime exactly the same as they are now in terms of your child’s body clock. Therefore, if bedtime is currently 7 pm, make it 8 pm after the time change. Naptime (for a once-a-day napper) might shift from 1 pm to 2 pm. And meals switch from 6, 12, and 5 to 7, 1, and 6. It’s important to move mealtime as well as sleep times in order to keep your child’s body clock from shifting. If your child is not an unusually early riser, it's best to start the transition 4-6 days before the start of DST so that you aren’t dealing with an overtired and cranky child (or parents). Move bedtime, naptimes, and mealtimes 10-15 minutes later each day and you should be more or less on track by Sunday. And keep in mind that the timing doesn’t have to be perfect by Sunday – you can consider that one extra day of grace for sorting out the time change. Don’t be surprised if everyone feels a little groggy and tired next week. That should wear off in a few days. But starting the transition ahead of time should definitely lessen the impact of the time change. If you’d like help navigating this or another sleep challenge, schedule a free sleep consultation and find out how your family can be amazingly well-rested in two weeks or less, guaranteed.
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 Daylight savings time ends November 6 in the United States and October 29 in Mexico.
This will be the last time that Mexico adjusts its clocks for DST. If you heard that the United States voted to stay permanently on DST and are confused, you are not alone. The United States Senate voted last March to have the USA be permanently on DST however, President Biden still has not voted on the measure and neither has the House of Representatives. Even if it passes, though, it wouldn’t take effect for another year, until fall of 2023. In the meantime, here’s how to manage the time change if you have young children. The expression is “spring forward, fall back,” but that is confusing to many, myself included! To clarify, when the clocks "fall back," it means that 2 am on Sunday is suddenly 1 am. If you have a young child, I highly recommend making the transition a gradual one. Starting a few days ahead of time, move your child’s schedule “back” a few minutes. So if she normally wakes up at 7 am, naps at 9 am and 1 pm, and goes to bed at 7 pm, get her up at 7:10 am, make her naps 9:10 am and 1:10 pm, and bedtime 7:10 pm. You’ll also need to adjust meal time accordingly by moving those back 10 minutes also. If you can make these changes gradually over a week, awesome. If you can only do it over 4 days, 15 minutes at a time, do that. And even if you can only spread it over two days versus one, that is still worthwhile. But the more sensitive your sleeper, the longer I suggest you take for the transition. I suggest you grown-ups try to do the same or you will feel jetlagged for several days the following week. In case you have forgotten, it's a pretty miserable feeling. Which reminds me, it's time to start transitioning my kids and myself! If you are struggling with sleep challenges in your family, schedule a free sleep consultation and get your family the beautiful rest you have been dreaming of.  It’s hard to be organized with time changes – I rarely succeed – but that’s partly because I don’t have someone reminding me! So I’m here for you!
The big payoff for preparation? Preparing your children gradually will help prevent night wakings and early morning wakings. Which means avoiding overtired, cranky children (and adults)! Win win. If you are extra organized, begin TODAY by moving bedtime 10 minutes earlier each night. You also need to wake your child up 10 minutes earlier each day, to move meals 10 minutes earlier, and to move naps 10 minutes earlier as well. Do this each day and by the time DST rolls around, your little one won’t even register the time change. If you are less organized – and I don’t blame you – you can start 4 days ahead of time and move every item on the list (bedtime, wake time, nap times and meal times) 15 minutes earlier each day. And if you are even less organized, remember that you don’t have to make the full switch on Sunday. You can pretend that the time change didn’t happen yet and make a gradual transition even after the official time change. Just start the transition on Sunday. Just know that the faster the transition, the more likely you are to have “growing pains” and sleep disruptions. If you do it all in one day, the entire family is likely to suffer. But you should recover within a few days. Also, if you haven’t yet installed blackout shades, this weekend is an excellent time to do so. The days are just going to keep on getting longer and, for those of you at northern latitudes, bedtime (and early wakings) are just going to keep on getting more challenging as a result. So make those bedrooms as dark as you can. The reason for this – it’s not just that darkness is easier for sleep – is that darkness triggers the brain to produce melatonin, the hormone that naturally helps us fall asleep and stay asleep. Blackout shades are truly magical for this reason – they are total gamechangers. If you are worried about your child getting “addicted” to truly dark rooms and that travel will be difficult as a result, know that you can bring garbage bags and painter’s tape with you to make guest rooms more dark while you travel. Also, fear of not having great sleep later should not be a reason to prevent great sleep now. If nothing else, your well-rested child will be better able to cope with the disruption of travel if they are sleeping well now, even if they don't have perfect darkness later on. If the financial investment of blackout shades is intimidating, know that you can use temporary blackout shades. You don’t have to spend a lot for great sleep! This six-pack of temporary blackout shades is just $20. Or you can do what I did and experiment with just garbage bags and painter’s tape at first. (Warning: it’s highly effective and deeply depressing to go into a room that is consistently that dark!) Daylight savings tends to bring a lot of sleep disruptions to families with young children. Spending a few days preparing for the transition will help everyone. Just don't forget, parents, that you also need to start transitioning your sleep and wake times now too. It's not easy to force yourself to go to sleep earlier, but it's worth the payoff. If your family is already struggling with sleep, fear not. Schedule a free consult today and get the well-rested family you deserve. *Mexico changes to DST on Sunday, April 3rd  If you’re like me, your transition to standard time might have been a bit (or a lot) of a cluster.
We can’t all be well-organized! If your child is suddenly waking up in the middle of the night, or crazy early in the morning, don’t despair. Hope is not lost. The main thing is, stay consistent. Keep aiming for an early (but adjusted-to-standard-time) bedtime. Wake your child in the morning by 7 am, even on weekends. Keep the midday nap starting between 12-1 pm, regardless of how early your child woke up. And if your child (still) takes a morning nap, don’t let it get too early, even if your child is waking up quite early in the morning. In most cases, a first nap (after the first four months of life) should be between 8:30 and 9 am. If you are panicking because sleep has totally gone off the rails for your family, don’t. We can totally fix this. Schedule your free discovery call today. And if we’ve worked together before and you just need a few questions answered, schedule a 30-minute Ask Me Anything call and receive a 10% off returning client discount. Happy fall!  If you are super organized about this – and I’ve never succeeded in this, so no judgment from me – you should start preparing your child for the end of Daylight Savings Time today.
In the United States, the clocks “fall back” this year on Sunday, November 7. That means if your child normally wakes up at 6 am, he will wake up at 5 am next Sunday morning, according to the clock. And if she normally goes to bed at 7 pm, her bedtime will become 8 pm. If you’ve ever talked to me, you know that early morning wakings are generally caused by too-late bedtimes. And if you suddenly move your child’s bedtime an hour later – on Sunday night, no less – you are very likely to have an ugly, tired, whiny week for the entire family. But if you can get organized – and again, this is no easy feat – you can make the time change pretty easy on yourselves. Start moving your child’s bedtime and wake times 10 minutes later TODAY. So move bedtime from 7:00 to 7:10 pm. Those few minutes should not be enough to cause chaos, assuming your child is otherwise well-rested. In the morning, try not to get your child up before 6:10 instead of 6 am (assuming 6 am is your desired wake time, DWT). Just to make things more complicated, tomorrow you ALSO need to move meal times and nap times later. So a 9 am nap becomes a 9:10 am nap, and a 12 pm lunch time becomes a 12:10 pm lunch time. Continue to do this each day, and pause for a day if your child gets too overtired. There’s no reason you have to have the entire transition done before DST ends, but it will certainly help if you are most of the way there. You can continue to transition that Sunday and even that Monday. If you don’t start quite early enough, you can also move the schedule by 15-minutes per day. You may have more overtiredness that way, but maybe not, too. It just depends how sensitive your child is. One final suggestion: try to make next week a low stress week. Veterans Day is that following Thursday, November 11, so that will hopefully make the week a little easier than normal. If you'd like help transitioning your child to a more liveable schedule where you all get more sleep, set up a free discovery call and find out how to make this dream come true. |
AuthorAbby Wolfson is a pediatric nurse practitioner, certified child sleep consultant and certified life coach for parents. She divides her time between Brooklyn, NY and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Archives
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