April Daylight Savings

Don’t forget, everyone. Daylight Saving Time is coming up this Sunday, a bi-annual tradition where everyone’s sleep gets screwed up for no good reason.

It’s inconvenient, sure, but it’s also downright dangerous. Did you know that there’s an 8% increase in traffic accidents the day after daylight savings time? In other words, it’s not an exaggeration to say that this outdated tradition is endangering people’s lives.

(Can you tell I’m NOT a fan?!)

Nevertheless, we all have to put up with it, so here’s my very best advice to minimise the disruption for you and your children…

Step 1: Ignore it

The clocks “officially” changes Sunday morning very early. Ignore this completely. Do NOT change your clocks before going to bed.

That way, when you or your child wake up at your usual times, you won’t “freak out” that it’s an hour earlier than normal.

Step 2: Set your clocks back in the morning

After you’ve woken up,  go around the house and change the clocks.

Step 3: Split the difference

After you’ve set your clocks back, move all nap times and bedtimes back with exactly 30 minutes.

This means that if your baby went down for a nap at 10 a.m. BEFORE the time change, today’s nap time should be 9:30 am (AFTER you changed the clocks)

Same thing for afternoon naps and bedtime. If he usually went to bed for the night at 7 p.m., tonight’s bedtime should be 6:30pm.

If you can, do this until Wednesday, which will give your child’s body 4 days to adjust to the time shift. On Thursday, move all nap times and bedtimes to their regularly scheduled times.

While this isn’t a perfect system, it’s the best one I’ve been able to come up with during my 4 years as a child sleep professional.

Sleep well

Christine 🙂