While it only happens twice a year, it seems like a jarring experience every time. I’m talking about daylight savings time and how you can help your baby or young child adjust to it without too much kicking and screaming. For most adults, the twice yearly change in time is nothing more than a minor inconvenience that may mean a few days of less or more sleep followed by forgetting about the experience entirely. But, that’s just not true to the experience of parents, especially parents with infants or toddlers. For them, it can be a much more difficult experience that can have ripple effects into the coming weeks and months.
For today’s blog, we have compiled some of the best wisdom and advice on the subject garnered from our years of experience in the field of infant child care. If you have any questions or want to share your experience, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! We can’t wait to hear from you.
Tip 1: Keep An Eye Out For The Early Riser!
During fall back, you may notice that your little early morning riser may try to start the day even earlier than usual due to the time difference. To avoid messing up your and their sleep schedule even more, you can do one simple thing to help get your little one on track for their nap time later in the day. Try keeping them in their crib 15 minutes later than their usual wake up time in the morning for the first few days after the time change and then bump that up to 30 minutes for the next five days or so until you feel confident that you can bump the full hour or as close to it as their natural schedule will allow. Allow them to rest a little longer in the morning will help them keep on schedule and not sleep too much longer during their daily nap time.
Tip 2: Adjust Your Nap Time
Keep an eye on your baby’s nap time during the days and weeks after the daylight savings time change. Your baby may want to sleep a little longer (or a lot longer!) during their daily naps in order to compensate for the hour differential in their night schedule. Try to keep an eye on this and don’t allow them to overcompensate as this will pull time from their night time sleep.
Tip 3: Come Prepared To Daylight Savings Time With A Set Schedule
A little bit of planning can go a long way. We recommend trying to keep your child on a sleep schedule tailored to the time of year to help with these transitions AKA a “Summer Schedule” and a “Winter Schedule.” It helps to keep the guesswork out of things and it makes it easier to plan around especially when you have a busy schedule each week. Here is a template that we like:
Example: Your baby or child’s Summer Schedule is 7:30 am wake for the day and 8 pm bedtime. Their Winter Schedule would then be 6:30 am wake for the day and 7 pm bedtime.
Parting Thoughts
Getting the best sleep for your newborn comes with its own set of unique challenges, but it is far from impossible. We hope these tips have helped you along your journey. If you have any questions about helping your baby to sleep better, or about your baby in general, please reach out to us HERE. We are experts in all things baby and sleep and would love to help!
If you have questions about your child, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We would love to help. Please reach out to us here! We look forward to hearing from you.
