Spring is almost here! This means warmer days and longer days. If you noticed that our Fall time change wreacked havoc on your little one’s sleep schedule ( hello early mornings!), this is the perfect time to begin getting your ducks in a row for this week’s time change. If you are like me and 5am wake ups just seem totally unreasonable, I have good news for you! This time change may come with a shift towards later wake ups. (wahoo!) Meaning, if your babe has been waking up at 6am, this time change may naturally shift that wake-up to 7am. It may be an optical illusion, but I’ll take it! Ok, so, what’s to do? Well, a couple things. It will be light out later, which also means if your tiny person is sensitive to how light it is outside when they go to bed, this will be an adjustment. (Think blackout shades) Also, their little bodies will also need to get used to going to bed an hour earlier as well. Based on how your little person adapts to change, here are a few strategies for managing this shift: 
- Don’t Change A Thing: If you have noticed that your baby has a relatively easy going temperament, this one’s for you! Simply move your clock ahead to the new time after your baby has gone to sleep on Saturday night. Your baby will wake up at their normal time Sunday morning, which will now be an hour later on the clock. So if your baby was an early riser and consistently waking up at 5:30am, then your child will now wake up at 6:30am according to the new clock. Proceed with your normal daily routine according to the new clock. Meals and nap times tend to go pretty smoothly with this method, but you may find that come nighttime, your baby or toddler isn’t feeling so sleepy. This is because if you are putting your child down at their “regular” bedtime (let’s say 7:30pm), but 7:30pm tonight was 6:30pm just the night before. Therefore, you might need to be a little flexible with bedtime, maybe putting your child down somewhere in between the old clock and the new clock. Then for the next few nights, keep shifting bedtime up until you are at your child’s regular bedtime according to the new clock.
- Start to shift your baby’s feeding and sleeping schedule slowly ahead of time. This method is tried and true if you have noticed that your baby is particularly sensitive to changes in routine, or if your family schedule does not allow for a later wake-up. You can begin this on the Tuesday before daylight savings. Prepare ahead of time by moving feedings, naps and bedtime earlier by 10 minutes each day. So if baby usually has her first feeding for the day at 7:30am, see if you can do that feeding at 7:20am. If she refuses, don’t force her, but you get the idea. Just try to make the routine adjustments as the day goes on. If her first nap of the day is typically at 9:30am, see if you can put her down closer to 9:20am. These small time shifts should help your baby to go down a bit earlier at night without having a child that is just too awake for an earlier bedtime. If all goes well, then on Sunday morning after the time change, your baby will wake according to the new time. So if baby typically woke up at 7am before the time change, she will now wake up at 7am according to the new clock. Her feedings and sleep times should now be adjusted to the new time. If you find it is still off a bit, (or if you did not start making these shifts so far in advance) just continue to shift in small time increments post time-change, until you are back on track. Be patient, things should be back to normal in a week.
Hot Tips:
- Adjust the light: Try to give your child at least a half an hour of natural sunlight first thing after waking up in the morning. This should help your child’s internal clock adjust to the time change faster. In addition, blackout shades can be very helpful if there is still sunlight coming into your child’s bedroom at nighttime or before wake-up time in the morning.
- Don’t Panic: Please remember that even if all this planning doesn’t go quite according to schedule, simply by keeping to a steady daily routine, most children will naturally adjust to the time change within a week or so. I know I feel a little out of sorts for the first few days after a time change, our littles will too!