Guest blog from Jess a.k.a. The Sleepy Avocado. The Sleepy Avocado provides child sleep support for little ones from birth - 10 years. Jess is also passionate about education before birth to help prepare mums to be and give them the best chance of a good night's sleep from early on.
On Sunday 30th October daylight saving time changes and the clocks go back, meaning an extra hour in bed (for those of us without kids). Those with the tiny human alarm clocks might find that the clock dials show an hour early when the alarm clocks go off. If you’re used to a 6am wake up, come Sunday 30th October, this could be 5am. A scary start to your halloween…!
There are several ways to try to prepare for the clocks changing. If your baby/child is in a very strict routine and any change to it is likely to wreak havoc to them and your day/night, you can look at shifting their routine in the days leading up to the 30th. You can do this gradually, just moving everything from wake-up 15 minutes earlier each day. Move naps, meal times and bedtime routine so it all moves as a block. This small shift shouldn’t be enough to throw everything off.
If your little one is a bit more resilient to change you can just move by ½ an hour instead of 15 minutes at a time.
Other alternatives are, do nothing. Just put babe to put at normal time the night before and see what time they wake up, maybe you’ll get lucky. Or, keep them up a little later with the hope that they then spend the same amount of time asleep and you still get close to your usual wake up time. Be wary of this last one as late bedtimes can very often lead to even earlier wake ups due to overtiredness.
What am I going to do? A bit of background (as every baby is different), my two year old can be quite adaptable in terms of naps and bedtime. She pretty consistently sleeps through, we naturally still get the occasional wake up for a cuddle or tummy rub but generally she goes between 11 - 12.5 hours at night, depending on how much she’s napped the day before. My plan is to try to push her nap back on the Saturday. This should mean I can then push bedtime back a bit without her being overtired. I’m hoping that will then result in a slightly later than usual wake, getting her into the new time fairly seamlessly.
If your little one does end up having an early wake you can avoid it becoming a habit by firstly trying to resettle them to go back down. If they’re not going back down, keep them in a darkened room with minimum stimulation until close to your desired wake time. If they’re still napping during the day don’t reinforce the early wake with an early nap - try to push their nap to their usual time. Early naps are one of the key things that result in early wakes becoming a habit!
Whatever ends up happening sleepwise when the clocks change, at least you can know you’ll be looking amazing in your For The Creators clothes.
To find out more about Jess and The Sleepy Avocado, head to her website www.thesleepyavocado.com and get 20% off any of her packages with our FTC code 4THECREATORS