We're about to change our clocks ahead for daylight saving time. I know it's only an hour, and it may be my imagination, but the change seems to upset our routine for weeks. When it comes to my children's nap- and bedtimes, what's the best way to deal with the time change?
It's not your imagination, and you're not the only one to struggle with the sleep change that accompanies daylight saving time. About 70 percent of people find that their sleep schedule is off for a while after the time adjustment. Studies show that there's an average increase of 7 to 10 percent in the number of traffic accidents on the day following the time change when people lose that one precious hour of sleep!
"The one-hour time changes in spring and fall can be disruptive to people's sleep cycles," says Richard L. Gelula, National Sleep Foundation's chief executive officer. "The return to standard time and the supposed 'gain' of an hour of sleep (which often doesn't happen) can have negative consequences, as does the potential 'loss' of an hour of sleep in the spring," he adds.
The resetting of watches disrupts everyone's physical rhythm; you can't push a button to change your biological clock. If you remember from the discussion in Part I on this topic, a sleep deficit of even one hour can have a dramatic effect on sleep and wakefulness. Another reason that the daylight saving time shift greatly affects us and our children is that many people are already feeling the effects of daily sleep deprivation. Any small upset to the sleep schedule thus has an exaggerated effect.
It can help simply to know that it's normal to take a few days to a week or even longer to adjust to the time change. Even if you use the suggestions that follow, have a little patience with yourself and your children until your biological rhythms catch up with the clock on the wall. Here are a few things that can help you make a quicker adjustment:
• Take advantage of the power of light and dark to reset your body clocks. Keep the house dimly lit in the hour before bedtime, and use bright lights for the first hour after you wake up in the morning.
• If you have to put your child to bed an hour earlier, before he's actually tired, extend your prebedtime reading time. Reading in bed can help a child calm down and feel drowsy.
• Follow as many of the ideas in Part I of this book as you can. Paying attention to details like naptimes, afternoon exercise, and choices of food in the evening are all small ways to help your child feel tired at bedtime.
• Just because the clocks officially change at 2:00 A.M. doesn't mean you have to change yours at that time. Since most people don't get up in the middle of the night, many change their clocks first thing in the morning. But this can jolt your system when you realize you're suddenly one hour off. So instead, change your clocks mid-afternoon before the time actually changes. That way you'll have made part of the adjustment to the new time before it actually comes into effect. You'll have adjusted your child's nap and evening meal to the clock, which will help the bedtime adjustment flow more smoothly.
If you and your child are having lots of bedtime problems already, and the change in time makes things much worse, see if you can split the hour difference into fifteen-minute increments for four days up to the actual time change. If you have many appointments or older children to pick up from school and sports activities, you can't actually change your clock. But since most toddlers and preschoolers can't tell time, you can simply write down the bedtimes for the week in advance and just begin your bedtime routine at the adjusted time each night. The following tables show examples for both the shift to daylight saving time (DST) and the switch back to standard (STD) time.
If you are going to be "springing forward" on Sunday at 2:00 A.M. (becomes 3:00 A.M.), and your child's usual bedtime is 7:30 P.M., he will be going to bed one hour later. To break that down into fifteen-minute increments, your week's bedtime schedule would look like this:
If you're going to be "falling back" on Sunday at 2:00 A.M. (becomes 1:00 A.M.) and your child's usual bedtime is 7:30 P.M., he will be going to bed one hour earlier. To break that down into fifteen-minute increments, your week's bedtime schedule would look like this:
Before you automatically make the bedtime hour change, take your family's needs into account. Some families, particularly those with older children who are in school, are happy to modify bedtime to be later during the summer vacation months. If this suits you, then modify bedtime and awakening time to be one hour later during the spring and summer. Do what works best for you!
Many fire departments encourage people to change the batteries in their smoke detectors when they change their clocks. The majority of home fires occur at night when people are sleeping. Working smoke detectors more than double a person's chances of surviving a home fire, so keep your child and your entire family safe by changing your alarm batteries along with your clocks.