Are you concerned about how to adjust your baby’s routine at the send of day-light savings One of my favourite things about the start of spring is the earlier sunrises. You see I have always been a morning person, ever since I was a little girl, so that means very early mornings in summer and later starts in winter. Unless you could completely climate control my bedroom and make it pitch dark, I would wake with the sun feeling ready for a brand-new day.
My parents learnt over the years to leave cereal out for me and taught me how to use the TV from about three years old. I can still remember sitting watching credits in my living room, waiting for the channels to start at 6 am. I am the same now as I was then, an early lark. Even now, I will always wake ready to start the day with the sun. It is for this reason that I understand the importance of good quality block-out curtains and keeping your baby’s room dark for naps and nighttime periods of sleep. More on this later.
Spring has hit, and we are three weeks away from the start of another daylight savings changeover. This is the time of year when parents start to worry about their little one’s sleep times and how to adjust it during the daylight savings transition.
At the moment, you are probably already noticing that your baby may be waking 15 minutes earlier than they were a month ago. As we go through the different seasons, our circadian rhythm naturally shifts. The change of the clock from wintertime to daylight savings time is a day on the calendar, but our bodies are often already shifting before this day. I encourage parents to try and adjust their baby’s timing slowly with what they are already naturally doing and not just at the time that it changes over. We shouldn’t need to feel that our baby’s routine should change when the clocks change. If you take about a month to assist your little one in adjusting their timing, it will take a lot of stress off you both you and them.
As I said earlier, they are probably naturally starting to wake up a little earlier in the morning, so at this point, it’s probably a good time to start putting them down to bed a little bit earlier at night. For example, let’s work on a child that is going to bed at 7 pm and wanting to keep the 7 pm bedtime after the daylight savings adjustment.
If you are aiming for your little one to be in bed at 7 pm time, take this next few weeks to adjust their body clock. It may take much less time, but if you give yourself about a month to transition you will take the pressure off yourself to do this
Start shifting your routine a little so that you’re putting your baby to bed at 6:45 over the next week. As your baby naturally starts to wake that little bit earlier in the morning, everything in the daytime can also shift earlier. Over another week or two, you should gradually shift your baby’s routine another 15 minutes. This would mean that they may go to bed at 6:30 at night and wake up between 6 and 630 in the morning.
By the end of September and the first week in October (adjust another 15 minutes), this would mean a 6.15 pm Bedtime. At this stage, you may have been able to change your babies routine by up to 45 minutes following their natural rhythm and your gentle guidance.
So by October 4th when the clocks will move forward one hour, you may have put your baby down to bed at 6:15 the night before, which will now become 7:15 the following night. It will also mean that your baby’s previous wake-up at 6 am is now 7 am.
Now you have only 15 minutes to adjust to the 7 pm bedtime. This may take a few days to a week to adjust that 15 minutes, take it at yours and your babies pace.
So, in short :
• Take about a month to adjust your baby’s routine; adjusting it in increments of about 15 minutes over 7 to 10 days should help smooth this transition.
• When you are adjusting the end and start times of the day, you need to change the routine in the middle also so adjust to earlier naps too.
• Remember the time on the clock is just the time on the clock. Your baby knows what’s happening by your behaviour, what you’re showing them and teaching them so if you want to help your baby adjust to a different bedtime, gradually start to shift your behaviour so that your baby follows suit.
• If your baby isn’t a morning lark or a night owl you might need to adjust your expectations to suit them.
• Don’t panic about the time on the clock adjust your baby gradually; it will take them anything from a week to 3 weeks to adapt to the new time go with it and enjoy the long afternoons.
• In peak summer, the sun is obviously up for longer and can rise as early as 4 am. This may mean that you’re putting your baby down to bed at night time in daylight, and if your baby is sensitive to light, they may find it difficult to fall asleep at night time and be waking up earlier in the morning. If you find this to be the case, you need to look at complete block-out curtains in your child’s room.
Many of you may not be able to put complete block-out blinds in your baby’s room for various reasons; Rentals, affordability, holiday house etc. If you are considering reusable temporary block-out blinds, I strongly suggest you check out my Lullababy Blockout Blinds.
Not only are they quick, clean, affordable, and easy to use, they are 100% Blockout, 100% reusable, and with 8 meters on a roll there is plenty to go around. They also come in a handy travel bag so if your going away, you can take them with you and reinstall them at home when you get back. These guys are also mess free they have this awesome static stick reusable technology which means absolutely no sticky residue or mess
