Spring Ahead- Tips for the Upcoming Time THIS Weekend
Oh I am so ready for the Spring and the extra daylight that comes with it - this weekend the clocks will go forward, and I can't wait! I absolutely LOVE this time change. Mostly because, I love it when the days are long, and I can be up early, get productive, and have a run before I start work-which I don't often do in the darker months of Winter.
You may have noticed your child has naturally stated to wake up earlier and earlier over the past 6 weeks. If you have, this is totally normal! We typically start to see children wake up earlier prior to a time change in both the Spring and the Fall. The good news is that it is easier to correct these early wakings in the Spring than in the Fall, when 5am become 4am!
Here's some tips to make this Spring Ahead's transition easier- starting as early as Thursday am if you've got a baby 9 months or younger.
9 Months and Younger:
Start making changes Thursday am by getting your baby up 15 mins earlier each day leading up to the time change.
For example, If your baby wakes at 7:00 am here's how it'll look:
Thursday am: Wake our baby up at 6:45 am
Friday am: Wake up at 6:30 am
Saturday am: Wake up at 6:15 am
Sunday am: Wake up at 7:00 am (which is the old 6am)
You'll likely have a few days where it will appear that they're sleeping in which will be wonderful for you!
9-18 Months Old
Using the same 7am wake up time example, start waking your baby 20 mins earlier starting Friday am.
Here's how it will look:
Friday: 6:40am
Sat: 6:20 am
Sun: 7:00 am (which is the old 6am).
18 Months or older
You can offset by waking your child up 30 minutes earlier starting on the Saturday.
Here's how it looks:
Saturday: 630 am wake up
Sunday: 7:00 am wake up which is the old 6 am
Going Cold Turkey:
For those of you who do not want to make any changes in advance (or forget), its all good - nothing terrible will happen. Within a few days the 1 hour difference will be a thing of the past and instead, we will all be benefiting from the extra vitamin D (or at least I hope we will be), if the clouds would move.
Just a few tips of things that you can do after the fact:
Work on real time on Sunday - expect to feel a little out of sorts, your child may do too, acting like a little grumpy pant's.
Don't change the flow of your day or the spacing between feeds / naps - ignore the clock and follow your usual windows of awake time between items.
On Sunday night as we have lost an hour your child may appear to go to bed 'later' than normal based on the clock, this is fine!! Don't stress.
The following day don't let your child sleep in later then 7am.
Over three days, everything will settle down and normalize. I promise 😉
If you're wanting to get ahead of the game and check out what things will look like in Fall, you can take a look at my Fall Back Post.
Let me know if you plan to start implementing changes ahead of time, or are planning to go cold turkey in the comments below.
