How do you adjust your child's sleep when the clock goes back an hour?

Many parents dread the end of daylight saving time. For your little one it's about one extra hour, and that one hour can already make a big difference. With a simple plan in small steps, you can move the clock without tears and keep the peace at home.

If the clock goes the other way, that has its own schedule: when the clocks spring forward.

What that extra hour does to the body

Your child's body is still running on the old time, an hour ahead of the clock. Sunday 7:00 pm feels like Saturday 8:00 pm to them. The clock has changed, your child hasn't yet.

What happens if you don't prepare

Then your child falls asleep during dinner. After that they still have to keep going until it's really bedtime, and by then they're no longer tired. That's exactly when falling asleep gets hard, because they're overtired.

Good sleepers are flexible sleepers

The secret is in good sleep habits. A flexible sleeper copes more easily with a skipped nap, and with the time change. Kyra names two more traits of good sleepers: falling asleep independently, and sleeping ten to twelve hours through the night (when nights get longer).

She calls falling asleep independently the golden rule. With it, your baby copes well with the transition and with time differences. How to build that is in baby only falls asleep on me, and the moment of putting down in drowsy but awake.

If you want to work on that foundation, look at the daytime rhythm: wake windows by age.

The solution: adjust gradually

The shifting starts before the weekend, not only once the clock has changed and your little one simply has to fit in. You move bedtime and naps later in small steps, so that extra hour doesn't come as a shock.

Which approach fits your child

There are two approaches, and you choose by age and by type of sleeper.

• Small steps of 15 minutes, starting on Wednesday. Fits babies and children who haven't passed 3 years yet, and sensitive sleepers who depend on their fixed times.
• Big steps of 30 minutes, starting on Friday. Fits toddlers over 3, children who sleep easily and flexibly, and a week in which you only get to the shifting late.

If you're not sure what type of sleeper you have at home, read temperament and sleep coaching.

Shift everything, not just bedtime

The shifting applies to the whole day, not just the evening: daytime naps move along in the same steps. That's the case with both approaches, so also if you only start on Friday with half-hour steps.

Small steps: 15 minutes a day from Wednesday

Say your child normally goes to bed at 7:00 pm. Then the week goes like this:

• Wednesday 7:15 pm
• Thursday 7:30 pm
• Friday 7:45 pm
• Saturday 8:00 pm
• Sunday, clocks back: 7:00 pm (new time)

On Saturday your child was in bed at 8:00 pm, and Sunday at 7:00 pm matches that exactly. So the body doesn't notice a big difference.

Big steps: half an hour a day from Friday

With the same bedtime of 7:00 pm, it goes like this:

• Friday 7:30 pm
• Saturday 8:00 pm
• Sunday, clocks back: 7:00 pm (new time)

You're then back at the normal time on the clock, and no more arithmetic is needed. If you only start at the end of the week, this is the route that still fits.

On Sunday you're done shifting

Once the clock has changed, there's nothing left to shift. From Sunday, what the clock says simply applies again: bedtime 7:00 pm is bedtime 7:00 pm, now on the new time. The naps also go back to their own fixed moments in the day.

Keep the early morning dark

In the coming weeks, morning light comes into the room a lot earlier, and that can wake your little one earlier than you'd like. Blackout curtains keep those first hours dark, so your child still sleeps on at 5:00 am. How to get the room really dark is in setting up the nursery.

Waking early as such has its own article: awake at five every morning.

Give it a few days

Those first dark evenings take getting used to for you too. The circadian rhythm, the body clock, can take a few days to follow the new time, and that applies just as much to children who normally sleep easily.

During those days, keep your routine and your fixed times (how long a bedtime routine takes) and let the clock lead. Calmly carrying on makes the transition smoother.