How to adjust your baby for daylight savings

How to adjust your baby for daylight savings

Every time it gets me…. I realize two days before daylight savings starts or finishes that I haven’t supported my babies through daylight savings properly. Ideally, you should start preparing them for it a week or so out, depending on their age and if they are good sleepers or not.

At the start of April we will be putting our clocks back an hour and getting an extra hour of sleep in the morning…. Oh no, that’s right, I have children…. it means the struggle of getting them to adjust to the new sleep times!

Our Resident Sleep Expert Renee has given us a few tips to help us with adjusting babies sleep times depending on their age.

Babies under 3 months of age are best suited to a flexible daily routine and are not typically affected by this change.

The most common approaches to helping your children adjust to the time change are:
The gradual change approach.
For babies 0-1 year; Adjust them 10 mins each day leading up:
 For babies 1 year and over; Adjust them 20 mins at a time:
The do-nothing approach
If your baby is quite adaptable to change, or the thought of having to adjust your baby's daily routine each day is too overwhelming then it is absolutely ok to do nothing!
On Sunday evening put your baby to bed at the normal time. On Monday morning you can now start to push your baby's awake times out by 10/15 minutes over the course of the week. Keep daily activities to a minimum this week while your baby is adjusting to their new routine. 
Over the years Renee has had success with both options. 
With either option, you may experience a few days that are a little bumpy while your baby adjusts. 
This is completely normal. Keep your baby's sleep cues the same to help ease the disruption. 

Don’t forget to start adjusting feed times by the same time increments!

It can also be worth investing in some black out blinds! Even if you just use them for the first few weeks, while their bodies adjust. The lighter mornings can be confusing for young children who associate the sun coming up with it being time to get out of bed. Using black out blinds will keep their room dark. A gro clock could also come in handy here.

Hope this comes in handy, feel free to send me a message if you have any questions!

Natalie xx

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