Time Sensitive: We’re Springing Forward. Your Child Doesn’t Care

This Saturday night, we lose an hour. Thanks to the geniuses who invented daylight savings time, much to the chagrin of parents everywhere.

Your toddler is not emotionally prepared. Your baby can’t tell time. Your preschooler is not attuned to the lengthening days.

It might be fine. 

It may also mean 4 am wakings for three days in a row.

Here are two real approaches to this senseless torture of parents everywhere. And one tempting fake one.

Pathway 1: Do Nothing and Ride the Wave

This is for you if:

• Your child is generally sleeping well
• You are not already hanging on by a thread
• Planning feels more taxing than mild sleep deprivation. (This includes me.)
  
  

On the night of the change, you simply shift to the new clock. If bedtime was 7 pm, it stays 7 pm by the new time.

To your child’s body, that will feel like 6 pm at first. Mornings will feel hard because your child likely went to sleep at the regular time and had to wake up at the new, earlier time, according to their body clock.

The key here is consistency. Do not change bedtime and wake times just because your child looks tired. Hold your boundary. Let their body recalibrate.

Most children adjust within a few days.

If you know your child is not one of those children, pick a different plan.

Approach 2: The Gradual Shift

​This is for the planners and lovers of spreadsheets and sleep apps.

Start 3 to 4 days before the change. This means today. 

Move bedtime 15 minutes earlier each night. Shift naps and morning wake time later as well.

Yes, this may mean waking your child in the crib a few minutes earlier each morning.

By the time the clock jumps forward, your child’s body is already aligned.

This approach works especially well for babies who are sensitive to overtiredness or families who have worked hard to stabilize nights and want minimal disruption.

Approach 3: Use It to Your Advantage

This is the seductive one.

Because we are springing forward, bedtime will suddenly feel earlier to their body.

The early morning wakings suddenly disappear. Life finally feels manageable.

This lasts for a few days. Then the early morning wakings creep back again. 

Spring forward already shifts biology. If you stack additional changes on top of that, you can tip a well rested child into overtiredness quickly. If sleep is mostly working, do not get fancy. Stability first. Adjustments later.

The Only Things That Really Matter

Your baby does not read the clock.

They respond to light, routine, and your nervous system.

Dark room.

Predictable wind down.

Clear expectations.

If you are tempted to refresh PSP at dawn to confirm everyone else is also awake, I promise you are not alone.

If your child is already struggling with night wakings, early mornings, or needing you in the room to fall asleep, the time change may highlight that.

Sleep is not luck. It is consistency and boundaries.If you want a clear, personalized plan for this transition, I can help you map it out quickly and calmly.

Schedule a free consult here and find out how you can have your whole family falling asleep peacefully at bedtime and sleeping through the night in two weeks or less, guaranteed. 

*Young babies who are feeding more than once during the night will take longer than 2 weeks, given my recommendation for a gradual approach, but they, too, can sleep through the night. 

PS ​If the bedtime math during the spring forward time change makes your head spin, I explain exactly why that happens here.