How to (Try To) Maintain A Later Waking Time

If the onset of daylight savings time has meant that your child is waking up at a more human hour, congratulations! Enjoy!

If you want to maintain that later waking time, here’s what you need to know:

You need to keep your child’s schedule on the OLD time zone/clock, NOT on the new one.

It’s probably obvious to you that you need to keep bedtime an hour later in order to keep the waking time an hour later.

What may not be obvious is that you ALSO need to keep meal times (and naptimes) an hour later as well.

If dinner was at 5 before, you need to have dinner at 6 pm now. If nap was at 12, move it to 1 pm.

The other challenge with DST is that the days are typically, depending on your location, getting a LOT longer. If it’s light out late, it’s a lot harder for your kid to go to sleep at the same time in June as she does in December. (With my own kids, I also find that they typically sleep less in the warmer months.)

To prevent this from happening, blackout shades become increasingly important. If your child’s room is too bright either at bedtime or in the early morning, it’s going to be really hard for you to get your desired results with your child’s sleep.

Invest in blackout shades and consider blackout curtains or something else to cover the edges and top of the blackout shades if your child is struggling to fall asleep at night or is waking up too early in the morning. Those little cracks can add up to a lot of light leakage.

Let me know if you have success with keeping your child on the new schedule!

And if you are struggling with bedtime struggles or early morning wakings, schedule a free consult and find out how to get your family the sleep you need to truly enjoy your time together. 

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