Daylight Savings Time and kids

There are good things and bad things about Daylight Savings Time*. One good thing about it is that you can stay out longer in the evening before it gets dark. Another is that your kids might sleep a little later in the morning for the first few weeks of it. But still, whenever we spring forward or fall back, babies and kids all across the world can have sleep issues for a few days.

This can be especially frustrating if you've just gotten your baby into a really solid schedule, and now 7 o'clock is actually 8 o'clock, so suddenly things aren't working anymore. Or if your toddler is finally going down with no protests and all of a sudden it's light outside at bedtime and your child thinks you're trying to trick him or her into going to bed earlier. Kids who go to school can really be messed up for a few days by their body's need to sleep later but having to get up earlier to get to school. They can be extra-cranky for a week or more. Of course, there are some kids who won't miss a beat and switch back and forth easily.

IME there are a few different ways you can approach time changes. You can try to go cold turkey to stick with the official bedtime. (If the bedtime is at 8, just stick with when the clock says 8, even though the kid's body feels like it's actually 7.) Or you can go by what your child's body thinks it is, and then move the bedtime by 10 minutes every day until you've transitioned to the new time in a week. (So the first night you keep the kid up until 9, because the child's body thinks it's 8. The next night bedtime is at 8:50, then 8:40, etc. until the bedtime is back to 8.) Or you can just roll with it and move bedtime back by an hour. (This only works if you have some flexibility in the morning--if your child has to be at daycare or school soon after waking up, this won't be an option for you.) But if you can do it, it's kind of fun to stay up later and wake up later in the summer.

Obviously what you choose is going to be affected by your child's temperament and also your child's age. Don't forget about naps in all of this, either. Your child might switch to the new bedtime easily, but the naps might be off by an hour for days or weeks or permanently. (I wonder if more kids transition from one nap to two in the weeks following time changes than at other times.)

You may have to spend a few days playing around with it all to find the right bedtime again. But don't be discouraged--things will be fine again soon. You're not alone, as parents all over the world are dealing with this exact same issue right now. Except for parents in Arizona.

Tips or ideas or anecdotes in the comments, please.

* Europe started last week, North America started two days ago, and Australia just ended it. Check out timeanddate.com for more information and to find out what time it is in selected world cities. For specific info about US and Mexican states and Canadian provinces, check out timetemperature.com.

Comments

[Cat, Galloping]

I'm so bummed. I was hoping we could take advantage of DST to start putting Gatito to bed at 7:00 instead of 6:00 but something about the rhythm of the day, I guess, we could barely hold him till 6:15. Oh well.

[AmyinMotown]

More proof you are in fact a goddess--I was lying on my daughter's bedroom floor last night trying to get her to sleep, I thought, I am emailing Moxie the minute this kid is down to ask her to address the daylight time issue!

Mine is flirting with ending the morning nap, and I thought there would be none today but now she's quiet. I do think DST is going to do it for her. And nighttime. OHHHHH nightime. FURY and foot stomping and screaming, from my normally excellent-at-going-to-bed kid.

[Ally]

It's funny, with all his little sleep idiosyncracies he's also pretty flexible. Last spring was a nightmare, but these days he's just as likely to not take a nap as take one, with little effect other than crankiness at the end of the day and sometimes difficulty finally getting him to sleep for the night. So Sunday we just did our usual thing at the usual time, and he was out about a half hour later than normal. I had to wake him yesterday, but that's pretty normal too.

[Shannon]

Even big kids struggle! My 10 yr old daughter got so messed up that she was up until 1:00 am. I let her sleep until she woke up at 9:00am --- she usually wakes up on her own at 6:00am. We are all having a hard time getting up at 6:30 because it is now dark again. How can 1 hour difference wreak so much havoc!!???!! I have found in about a week we are all fine again.

[Peach]

See?? See?? THIS is exactly why Indiana should never have switched!! Stupid DST. It MAKES NO SENSE. Where were the "think of the children" people when I needed them?

(And also? That whole switch can make grownups fussy as well - as this was the first time I've ever had to deal with this whole clock switching thing. Gr.)

[Kate]

We got really lucky. Miss M slept until 7:45 (the new time--would have been 6:45 old time), and from there we had a regular day, aided by morning of running around the park and a 12-2:30 nap, so dinner at 6/nurse at 7:30/in bed by 8 was usual. I thought she would get riled by the fact that it wasn't "dark" dark at 7:30/8:00, but not so far.

I am dreading the middle of the summer, though, when it's not even dusky at 7:30. She has her notions, you know?

[Jody]

I hate DST. It sucks. We don't have that many problems -- we sort of split the difference at bedtime and the kids get sleepy when they have to wake up earlier, so they push it the rest of the way back themselves -- but I hate DST completely independently of children and the issues related thereto.

Blegh. Phooey. Yuck.

[God, I'm tired and cranky. Why oh WHY is the sun not where it's supposed to be at this hour of the day? And what am I going to do next year, when the government switches the clock back in mid-march and my kids' 7:10am bus time becomes SIX fricken TEN AM? I HATE DST.]

[Maria]

We have HUGE problems with the time change. It seems, illogically, to throw the sleep schedule – nighttime and naps – off by far more than an hour. We are going on day number 2 of NO NAP at all, and my little miss is showing no signs of going down early for the night. Last night she went down at the regular time, albeit with no nap, and was up at 5am for about 2 hours. The day before, she slept until 10am.

I can't see any rhyme or reason, just total sleep schedule chaos, which is also what I remember from last year. Before I had a kid I loooooved DST, but now I am ambivalent at best. And very, very tired!

[Melissa]

I tried being proactive and moving everything (wake-up time, naps, and bedtime) 10 minutes earlier each day for the week before the time change. It worked pretty well. She's still slower to fall asleep at bedtime and naptimes, but it seems less painful than trying to make her adjust by an hour at once.

[Brooklyn Girl]

I really can't believe how much a single hour has screwed The Boy up. He's sleeping an hour later in the morning (which seemed a godsend) but the later wake-up has destroyed his morning nap. And hence the rest of the day. I'm going to try to give him a few more days to try to sort it out on his own, but then I might just start waking him up earlier in the morning. Good grief!

[Monica]

I'm not sure if it's DST or the fact that her father is on a business trip, but for the past two days, Madam doesn't want to go down. At all. And going down was never the trouble before. Despite our solid bedtime routine, and her own exhaustion, she's been staying up until midnight for the last two nights! So that's two nights of me pacing in the dark, singing, for 4 hours or more. Bleh.

So. Tired.

[Moxie]

Monica, you might want to give up on it, bring her out to the living room with you, and doze on the couch with the lights low and the TV on low (on something soothing and boring like Food Network or the workout channel). Even if she doesn't fall asleep right away, it's better than pacing for four hours.