Navigating the Spring Time Change

The spring time change is coming up, so clocks will be “springing forward” by one hour. Now this definitely does not need to be a stressful time for your family because you’ve probably survived most of the time changes up until now without much forward-thinking or planning. This may be the first time you have to worry about the time change with a baby and as easy as it can be for us to adjust, for some babies and toddlers they need a little bit of extra support from us through this change. We’re going to take you through how we approach this time change and what to do (if anything) to prepare for it so you sail right through the time change.

First, let’s establish what this time change is. In the Northern hemisphere, clocks are “springing forward” by one hour, which means 7:00 will become 8:00. Start off by checking in on how you feel when you hear this. Does that mean that your early rising issue becomes less severe, or that your already late bedtime is getting even later? Do you worry about getting everyone up and out of the house on time in the morning or are you happy that your baby will be “sleeping in” an hour later into the day? Depending on your response here, you may want to prep for the change, do nothing and adjust as you go, or shift your entire day so it’s all happening an hour later on the clock when the time change takes place.

Option 1: Shift the whole day back before the time change:

If the idea of everything happening an hour later in the day feels overwhelming to you - either because you have to get out of the house at a certain time or you feel like bedtime was already pushing a little too late as it was - you can definitely start the shift in advance of the time change so that by the time the time change occurs, you’re back to where you are today. If your baby is currently waking up at 7am that means if you do nothing they will be up at 8am. Similarly, if they’re going to bed at 8:30pm, that will become 9:30pm. This is all completely fine if it works for you, but if either of those seem to late then we want to shift the whole day gradually by 15 minutes either every day or every few days, depending on how sensitive your little one is. For simplicity’s sake, let’s look at a one nap schedule as an example.

Say your little one is currently doing:

7am wake

1pm nap

8:30pm bed

After the time change, that would become:

8am wake

2pm nap

9:30pm bed

If we really can’t get up any later than 7am to get out the door on time, we want to start shifting the entire day earlier, before the time change.

As a first step, this would look like:

6:45am wake

12:45pm nap

8:15pm bed

Then we would continue to shift:

6:30am wake

12:30pm nap

8:00pm bed

And keep going:

6:15am wake

12:15pm nap

7:45pm bed

To end up with:

6:00am wake

12:00pm nap

7:30pm bed

Then when the time changes, you’re back to exactly where you started!

As you can see, we’re gradually shifting your little one’s entire day back until we shift the whole day by the hour. Now we hear you saying “Elli & Sarah, our little one is not on such a set schedule, we follow a general routine/rhythm instead of a clock based schedule!” We know, that’s what most babies do and what we always recommend doing, this is just a working example so you can see that the whole day shifts back a bit every day. If you’re using more of a rhythm and you need to adjust morning wake, we still encourage you to wake your baby a little earlier and earlier in the morning - only if you need to be up on time come the time change. If your day is a bit more flexible, that brings us to our second option..

Option 2: Adjust gradually as you go along (aka do nothing in advance)

This is what we naturally do as adults with the time change. The time changes and gradually over time our whole day and rhythm adjusts our sleep patterns back to their typical norm. If your little one’s schedule doesn’t have too big of an impact on your ability to get to work or to any other commitments you may have, you absolutely can do nothing other than wait for the time change to occur and let the natural rhythms of your day unfold and gradually adjust according to your little one’s cues. This doesn’t require any planning or any adjustments, just that you stay attuned to your little one and continue to meet their needs. Easy right?

Option 3: Use the time change to correct early rising or an early phased schedule

Now this last option is great if you feel like you have a bit of an early rising problem, or you feel like your life would be easier if your little one could stay up just a little later before needing to go to bed for the night. You can use the time change to actually adjust your whole day later, because that’s exactly what the time change does!

Say your little one is doing:

5:30am wake

12:30pm nap

7:00pm bed

After the time change this would become:

6:30am wake

1:30pm nap

8:00pm bed

If you keep naps and bedtimes shifted back, you should be able to maintain the later schedule once the clocks change!

So there you have it, your no stress guide to the time change! Get solutions like this and more in The Baby Sleep Course or join our Facebook Community to get support along the way!

Categories: Sleep Without Sleep Training, Routine, Normal Infant & Toddler Sleep