Daylight Savings & Your Child's Sleep - Springing Forward

Daylight savings can create worry and even dread for many parents so here's some ideas around supporting your child's sleep through this change.

Firstly, please remember to be patient with yourself and your little ones. Some children barely notice the change. Others take longer to settle. Both are completely normal. In fact, it's the same for us as adults.

In NSW, VIC, SA, TAS and the ACT, daylight savings always begins on the first Sunday in October. In New Zealand, it starts a little earlier, on the last Sunday in September.

There are different ways you can approach daylight savings with your child and family.

1. Adjust timings ahead of the change in a structured way (less common for this spring forward change but sometimes relevant)

2. Adjust timings after the change in a structured way

3. Wing it

Each approach is valid but the good news is that even if you don't actually do anything in particular, your child's body clock will adjust over time. If you want to take a structured approach with scenarios one and two, then it can depend on what's happening for your family right now.

Let's take a look at each scenario. SCENARIO 1: Bring things back by an hour

Your current routine is working well and you simply want to bring things back by one hour

· You are going to move the day back by 1 hour in small increments.

· How big/small the increments are will depend on your child, their temperament, how long they are typically awake for, how many naps they are having and what you think they can manage.

· Exposure to morning light when waking is very helpful and then the dim light ahead of bedtime.

· Basing example on 15 mins

Step 1: - Let them wake naturally (some parents prefer to wake their child earlier on the first morning). Bring the whole day earlier by 15 minutes for each nap, meals, feeds etc

Step 2: - Wake them another 15 minutes earlier in the morning the second day or after a few days so now 30 mins earlier. The aim is now you are now pulling the whole day back by another 15 minutes. This includes everything with meals and feeds too - Bedtime is 30 minutes earlier

Step 3: - Wake earlier again by another 15 minutes the next day or after a few days and pull everything through the whole day and bedtime again by 15 minutes - You’re now at 45 minutes earlier

Step 4: - Wake earlier again by another 15 minutes the next day or after a few days. You’re now back to the same time for morning wake up as before time change - The whole day is pulled one hour earlier so flows through to naps, meals and bedtime - Keep going and give then rhythm time to adjust to the change SCENARIO 2: Early risers

You have an early riser, or they started rising early recently with lighter mornings, and perhaps you’re counting down the days until the time change occurs!

A key thing to remember here is that the whole 24-hour period shifts for you with your child too, naps and meals included. This might seem obvious but sometimes it's important to just have this reminder because as parents we can get accustomed to things being around a certain time with our own routines.

Also remember to work on keeping that consistency with anchoring that morning wake up time fairly consistently. If your littlie is waking up earlier than your minimum time you start the day, supporting them to stay calmly in the darkness until as close as possible to that minimum time is helpful. And then getting up and into the light once awake and all the social cues of daytime is great.

Similarly, you are working on that bedtime timing to also stay consistent.

How tight you need to keep this can depend on how sensitive your own child is to things being a bit here and there but overall the goal is avoiding wild variations and having a generally consistent timing for when sleep is offered at bedtime.

SCENARIO 3: Wing it

Just go with the flow and take things as they come, your child will get into the swing of the change.

Got questions? Feel free to get in touch right here on this site or jump over to my social pages to connect. Just note I'm not on social media much but will pick up your message.

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Always love,

Annie x