It’s the time of year that strikes fear into the hearts of parents all over the country: daylight-saving time.
I don’t know about your kids, but mine are very much into their routine and don’t take kindly to having it messed with. Each year daylight-saving time rolls in and upsets peaceful nights of sleep for about a week. So what is a parent to do? The good news is that there are several things that you can do to help your child and yourself transition to the time change.
Move bedtime up 15 minutes or so for several days before daylight-saving time begins. OK, so most of us have missed out on this one for this year. Tuck that tip away for next year.
Keep the bedtime routine the same after the clocks change as you did before. The consistent routine will provide a sense of normalcy even though things are a little different.
Keep the sleeping areas dark. Two words, blackout curtains. My children have these up year round, but blackout curtains are especially helpful when the sun is still beaming down at bedtime.
For my family — I have two preschoolers. We will spend the Saturday before daylight-saving time begins out of the house and busy with a flurry of activity: Tae kwon do, the park, out to lunch, to watch a friend’s soccer game. I don’t want them focused on what time it is, I want them focused on having fun and wearing themselves out!
Unless someone is melting down, we will party so hard that we play right through nap time. My plan is to keep them distracted, wear them out and move the clocks ahead before their bedtime without them noticing. Hopefully, that will allow me to put them to bed an hour earlier without much complaint. The next day we’ll just go on with business as usual.
Remember, daylight saving time begins March 9, 2014 at 2:00am! Set your clocks ahead one hour.
No offense Nicole, because you were probably assigned this article but…I’ve been reading BabyCenter for a few years now and every year there’s an article about “springing forward” and another about “falling back” and every year it comes on the weekend of the time change and it always talks about adjusting kids’ sleep time a couple of days in advance. Great advice but it always comes too late to do anything. BabyCenter people, publish this article the weekend BEFORE, not the weekend of. It will be much more helpful for your readers. Thank you! 🙂
Stop doing daylight savings?!!?!? NO. WAY. 🙂 Why would you want to forego the extra daylight and time outside in the summer months? If they stop anything, I hope it’s to lock daylight savings time in place, but I can’t fathom wanting more darkness in the evening. Kids are flexible…. at least I’ve always been that way with mine and they’ve been just fine!
I do these things….except the first because I always forget. Every year I hope they just stop doing DST. That way I don’t have to deal with it.