In this guest post by Jaclyn Mandel, a Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant. Learn practical tips to help your child adjust to the time change smoothly and ensure a more restful transition for everyone involved. Parenting may be challenging, but with Jaclyn’s expert advice, you’re not alone in this journey.

Daylight savings

If you’re new to parenting then you’re going to quickly learn that when daylight savings time
ends you can no longer think of setting the time back as getting a glorious extra hour of sleep.
Our clocks may set back automatically but unfortunately, our children don’t know (or care) that
they are suddenly wide awake at 5:00 a.m., rather than their usual 6:00 a.m.

If you have an older toddler or child that is on a fairly set schedule, for example, sleeping 7:00 pm– 7:00 am, then you’re going to want to slowly adjust their schedules this week to make the
time change is just a little bit more bearable for everyone involved.
You can move your child’s bedtime forward in 15-minute increments every few days so that by
the time Sunday rolls around, they’re already an hour ahead and on their correct schedule.
Alternatively, you can try to push forward with your same routine come Sunday and keep naps
and bedtime at your usual time, but you definitely do not want an overtired child on your
hands. Try your best to stay within 15 minutes of their usual naps and bedtimes and things
should adjust on their own within a few days.

Parenting is hard work and then we get the time change thrown at us for an extra dose of
unexpected fun. As always, do your best and I’m here for support at all times.

Jaclyn Mandel
Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant
Sleeplessinthevalley.com