Episode 45- Daylight Savings – Fall Back

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Welcome to the kids sleep show, where we help tired parents from around the world to get their children to fall asleep independently, sleep through the night and build healthy sleep habits for life. I’m your host, Courtney Zentz. Now let’s sleep together. Hello, everyone, Courtney Zentz here so happy you are able to join us for this episode, something that is probably my husband’s most hated day of the year. And that is daylight savings in the fall. So it’s coming up this year. excitingly, it’s the day after Halloween. So at least I have something to look forward to during that particular weekend. Regardless of kind of what Halloween is gonna look like near you. We are doing something kind of fun in our neighborhood. So hopefully the kids will get out and get to enjoy themselves. And I will teach you here in this episode, how to get some sleep. So I’m curious, I wonder what your kids are going to be for Halloween this year. I actually was supermom and ordered a transformer template off Etsy. And built this whole thing with boxes and cut outs and glue sticks and razor blades. And it like took forever to put together my son was so excited. And he was on my grill every single day to get it done. And he was so excited about it. And two days later, he changed his mind and now wants to be a football player. So I have a beautiful Transformers Optimus Prime costume. So if you’re listening in Westchester, Pennsylvania, happy to share that because it took me forever to build and he no longer wants to wear it. But I’m sure well, it’ll get some use around the house. So anyway, you did not pop into this episode to listen about Halloween. But I am going to tell you how to save daylight savings. So this episode is airing a couple days before daylight savings. And the reason I’m doing that is frankly, because there are two schools of thought around tackling daylight savings in the fall, right, you’re going to have the school of thought where people are going to try to get ahead of it. So you know, three, four or five days before daylight savings, they start to make adjustments to keep their kids up later. Knowing that you know, eventually eight o’clock on Sunday becomes seven o’clock. Totally fine. From a school of thought standpoint, if people want to go about it that way, you’re really just kind of force adjusting your children by a little bit each day to keep them up later. So that ultimately when Sunday happens,
they are already adjusted to the new time. So again, there’s nothing wrong with that I am someone who is of the belief that I don’t want to stress about stuff. until it happens, especially this year, there’s a lot going on in the world. So I always tell clients, I’m like don’t mess with daylight savings until daylight savings. So this year, it is on Sunday, November 1 2020. Again, it’s the morning after Halloween. And so what I encourage clients to do is to actually just wake up and take a nice big old cup of coffee and walk around the house and update the clocks at that point. Right. When you do that, I think there’s a little bit less of the mental anguish that goes into things. You know, you certainly have the ability to kind of get the day going, go in and get your little ones they are going to get up a little bit earlier according to the clock. But that’s okay, wake up, have a nice, big breakfast, and then walk around the house, go out to the car, change the clocks and get yourself sorted. Now how do you prepare for that impending transition? Well, what I like to do is first talk about kind of splitting the difference. So the reason that I like to wait till Sunday one is the mental preparation. The other reason is to I frankly just find it easier to make all of the adjustments, and you’re going to be sorted and everybody’s sleeping well by the following weekend. So what it looks like, you know, if your child normally wakes up at seven o’clock in the morning, they’re now going to be up at 6am on Sunday. Okay, so their first nap, for example, if it was normally at 10 o’clock, they’re obviously not going to be able to make it all the way to 10 o’clock if they’re now getting up at six. So I tell clients to split the difference and put them down for a nap, for example, at 930. Because to their body, it’s actually 1030, if that makes sense, right? So that’s where I first like to start as it relates to, you know, kind of that adjustment and you’re going to do the same whether they’re on one nap, two naps, three naps, you know, there are going to be scenarios where for example, if they’re on one nap a day, it’s going to look like you’re going to wake them up or they’re going to wake up excuse me at six o’clock in the morning and then their first nap is going to be typically you know, before daylight savings was at 1230. This day it’s going to be at 12. Okay, they’re going To go to bed at 630. But in their body, they’re going to feel like 730 instead of seven, right. So hopefully that makes sense. And so essentially, what you’re going to do is sort of split that difference between the old time and the new time and allow the body to adjust over a period of, you know, typically about four days. So I do have samples of this on my website, in my latest blog post out on my social media under tiny transitions.com. forward slash tools, there is a link to the blog that talks all about this, if you want actual schedule samples, I do have a bunch out there. But basically, what you’re going to do for four days is you’re going to put your kids to bed at 630. If they’re used to going to bed at seven, and you’re going to bring the naps forward 30 minutes, right. So if they’re used to napping at 10, they’re going to nap at 930. If they’re used to napping at 1230, they’re going to nap at 12. They’re used to napping at three, they’re going to nap at 230. Right. So that’s pretty much going to be what you do to make that adjustment for the period of about four days and then going into Thursday or Friday, just take them right back to normal time, they’re going to wake up potentially still at six, but they’re going to go to bed that night at seven. Okay, for about three or four days and through the next weekend, everything will start to align and adjust. And you will be in great shape with a sleeper that is now adjusted from a body clock standpoint, right? Our bodies adjust by the sun. So I do tell you go outside, get the windows open in the morning when you wake them right. Like try to explode, explode, try to expose their body to natural sunlight and then darkness, right, that’s going to help reset the body clock. And again, you’re changing biology here a little bit because of the timing. So we’ve got to adjust their circadian rhythms a bit as a result of that change. It just sometimes takes a couple days to do it. Okay.
As it relates to okay to weight clocks, right things like hey, you know, my my toddlers used to getting up on the clock says seven, I really don’t want them getting up at six thinking it’s okay. So with the okay to wait clocks, what I encourage you to do is actually fake the time on the clock, right? So let’s say for example, they’re used to getting up at seven, after daylight saving is now six. Okay, what I want you to do is set the clock for 30 minutes ahead. So the actual time on the clock is going to be wrong for a couple days. But it’s going to teach your children that they still get up at seven, even though it’s really only 630. Does that make sense? Right? That way, you’re keeping them on par with like, Hey, I’m not allowed to get up till seven, but in actuality, at 630, so they do have to hang out in their room for another half hour. And they can again, lay quietly read a book, sometimes go back to sleep, all of that is going to help to ensure that we create consistency in the timing, what we don’t want to do is open Pandora’s box. And that’s where a lot of people go wrong, is they start to make it acceptable to get up at five in the morning. And it’s like it’s not right, you got to go back to sleep. So you know, keeping your children in their crib for at least 15 to 30 minutes. As long as they’re not really upset, right? Like, because some kids are gonna fall asleep. I mean, if your baby’s freaking out, you know, you have to get them but just know that their body will adjust to the new time, you know, you just want to balance it, you don’t want to run in there right at 501. When you hear them stirring, and grab them out of the crib, like give them a chance because you never know if they’re gonna pass back out, or fall back asleep, right? Daily savings can be confusing, because I think whoever is doing it and whoever you’re talking to, you know, you have that school of thought who is going to start earlier the school of thought of the people that are going to start on an actual daylight savings day, it’s up to you as your family, right? Like, you can kind of figure out what’s going to work best for you. And then you can adjust accordingly. There’s no right or wrong answer. I just find that mentally I don’t want to be stressing out going into it. I’d prefer to just enjoy our family time together. And then on Sunday, it’s a new time and we’re going to adjust accordingly those next couple of days. And the beauty is with a lot of folks having a little more flexibility now. It’s going to be something that’s much easier to transition to. Okay, so daylight savings again, if you have any questions, I’ve got a blog posted on it, I did a video on it. That’s out in my slumber Made Simple Facebook group. It’s a free group. If you’re not out there, I absolutely encourage you to join because I do weekly Q and A’s and training and I’m always really trying to help provide knowledge, tools and support for y’all based on how I can help. And just as a side note, I do have private consultations that myself and my team of 12 offered to clients. So if you’re just sick of struggling and you are tired, first things first go out and check out tiny transitions comm forward slash tools because there’s about 1000 downloadables out there. I put a ton of information out for free. I want folks to really feel great. If you’ve got a newborn, you don’t have to do anything. You just basically have to wake them up at their normal time. There. Get up and start the day and they’re gonna adjust accordingly. So because they’re awake, windows are short, so short, you don’t have to do anything with newborns. And I talked a little bit about that in my blog, as well as in my newborn ebook that is free out there for you to download about 30 pages of amazing information that I wrote over the past six years of doing this that I’ve put together for you for free to help you get set up for success for the long haul. So again, any questions you can always email me Courtney at tiny transitions calm. Hopefully you enjoy your Halloween this year. Don’t get started till Sunday, and have the best you can from enjoying the time with your children have the best time and I look forward to connecting with you all out in the group. Thanks so much. Bye for now. Hold on one more thing before you go. As a valued listener of the kids sleep show. I want to help you build a great sleep or not just in the times you’re listening to the show. But all day every day. Every week of the year. I have a new Facebook group called slumber Made Simple. It’s a place to gather with other parents looking for sleep support, laughs and the latest in sleep research, to build a family that is rested and at their best day in and day out. If you want to be part of the community where you can get free sleep support, weekly training sessions, unbelievable content and so much more. Head on over to tiny transitions.com forward slash community. That’s tiny transitions.com forward slash community or head over to Facebook and search slumbered Made Simple. drop me a note and let me know when you join. I can’t wait to see you there.