
A time change is upon us again! In a few days the clocks will be “falling back” as Daylight Saving ends, but your child’s body clock will take a few weeks to catch up. Here’s how to be prepared for this unfortunate reality.
1. Turn off your alarms and hide your electronics: allow yourself to wake naturally Sunday morning. It will feel less miserable if you avoid looking at the time on your your phone when you wake up. Use the clocks around the house until you’ve had your coffee and scrambled eggs and you’re feeling human. Then you can once again consult your phone, change your clocks and begin to acknowledge this new time-space continuum.
– If, for example, your little one usually takes a nap around 11:30am, you will adjust this to 11:00am (which feels like noon to your child’s body clock). Let’s say your child usually goes to bed at 7pm I recommend putting that child to bed at 6:30pm (feels like 7:30)
– Example: if the clock normally turns green at 7am, set their clock to 6:30. They will wake at 6am and try to wait until the clock turns green for 30 minutes.
-If they cannot do this, you may want to set it for 6:15 for 3 days, then 6:30 for 3 days, 6:45 and so on, until they are sleeping later and waiting longer each morning.
If you’re needing support around this transition, please reach out for a free evaluation call! I can help you make a plan to get your schedule back on track and recover any sleep that may be lost due to the time change.