Fall Daylight Saving Tips
Daylight Saving Time...
So I know it's a little bit early since daylight savings doesn't come until Sunday November 6th 2022, but I wanted everyone to kind of have a plan and know what to do! If this is your first time with a little one during Daylight savings time, or maybe you've done it before it didn't go well, I want to give you two strategies to help this one go smoothly!
I'm going to walk you through some strategies to help you make that will make transition easily through Daylight Savings. There's two main strategies that I will suggest. One of the strategies that I'm not going to talk about is preparing for the transition and making any changes before Daylight Savings actually comes because I typically don't recommend that. I recommend just waiting until Daylight Savings comes to do any changes after the clocks have changed. I don't want you to have to feel like you have to plan or prep or do anything different. It's going to feel little bit more jarring that way.
Two Strategies To Address Daylight Saving
1. Don't do anything at all.
You just wake up that day when you wake up. Your little one wakes up that day when they wake up as well. When you wake up you go about your day with the new time on the clock. Then when you would normally out your little one down for a nap you will put your little one down. So it's going to feel a little bit earlier than it typically would, but that's okay. They will adjust and figure it out. From once you wake up, just follow the time it states on the clock and do your normal schedule, pretending almost that Daylight Saving didn't even happen. Make no other adjustments, just put them down for a nap at the same time, put them down for bed at the same time. Then you're good to go!
This works well for older children, mostly children that are on two, one or no naps. They're usually able to push their awake windows a little bit more so it's not as impactful on their day. With a new one, like a child under 6 months, their awake windows are very small, and they're not going to be able to follow the exact same times as they did the previous day.
...So strategy number one is not making any change you wake up when you wake up you follow the time on the clock for their same nap time their same bedtime and then you're all set going forward! could feel a
2. Make those adjustments slowly over the next couple days after Daylight Saving
For this strategy, you would wake up on Sunday morning and see what time it is. You don't want to change the clocks until you are awake and alert. Think maybe after you've had your cup of coffee after you've kind of walked around and gotten your bearings.
For babies, say they normally wake up at 7:00a.m, they're going to wake up around 6:00am. First you're gonna wait a couple of minutes before you go in. When they wake up Sunday November 6th at 6:00am (would be 7:00am) you're gonna wait until about 6:10, 6:15 to go in and get them. That way we're moving a little bit closer back to that seven a.m wake up. The next morning you're gonna wait until about 6:30 until you go in to get them. It's going to take about four days overall for the full transition to happen- so you're gonna do Sunday 6:15am get from the crib, Monday 6:30am, Tuesday 6:45, then by Wednesday you're back on 7am.
For toddlers you have a little bit of an advantage because they may have an okay to wait clock, or some kind of clock that signals when they can wake up and when they need to stay in bed. With them you're going to make this adjustment in just two days. Set that clock to 6:30am on Sunday, so it's going to be early than we want them up, and that's okay. When you set it to 6:30am so they may have a little bit of extra time to just hang out and lay in their room but they're really not going to notice that huge difference. If they're really good about staying in their room until that clock changes, you're good to go. You won't have an issue with the change at all! After two days you would just go to that 7 a.m time. Slowly moving the time isn't going to make a big difference, depending on how sensitive your child is. The change could make it a little bit easier for them especially if they struggle in the mornings.
What About Naps?
Now...looking at naps. If morning nap time for baby is 9:30am you're to adjust it to 9:00am for the first three days. Again, this is just talking about the second strategy where you're gradually moving the timing. So if your little one typically naps at 9:30am they're going to nap at 9:00am for the first three days, as it will feel like 10:00am Same thing for that second nap. If they're only taking one nap, the same strategies apply. You're going to adjust it back by that last half an hour. Then after three days you're gonna move so it will be 12:30pm again.
Whether you just go cold turkey and hop on the new time and just go with it, or if you adjust slowly - either way it's going to take about a full week for that to really feel right in their bodies.
Looking for more tips on Daylight Saving? My Instagram is the place to go!