Bring on daylight savings! We're all tired of getting up with the rabbits.
THIS time every year the farmers start complaining about the cows getting grumpy and mums get grumpy about the kids complaining they’re tired. Yes, welcome to the wonderful world of daylight savings.
If you’re like us and have a bird sitting on the window sill at 5am whistling to the tune of Wake Up Jeff, you’ll know daylight savings couldn’t come quick enough. Last night we started on the path to gently adjusting Baby Holly and Princess Ella’s body clocks for daylight savings, which this year happens at 2am on Sunday.
Since Ella was born, we’ve used this guide and it’s worked for us – from babyhood to preschool age. So I thought I’d share our (mind numbingly) simple plan for those who have never had a plan or end up going stir crazy because their overtired children turn feral for the next two months. If it works for the cows, why not. If you have teenagers, sorry, but you’re alone on that one!
You can adapt this to your child’s bedtime if it isn’t usually 7pm. Also consider moving their dinner time earlier by 15 minutes each night as well. This can be used at the end of daylight saving too, by putting children to bed later.
Here’s the bedtime plan:
Tuesday: 7pm
Wednesday: 6.45pm
Thursday: 6.30pm
Friday: 6.15pm
Saturday: 6pm
Sunday: 6pm – the children are already adjusted
If you missed last night, that’s OK. You’ll still be on track if you start tonight. The key to all of this, of course, is to be organised and expect to be SUPER tired this week. Unless you have a live-in nanny. Yeah, right.
Do you transition your children in the lead up to daylight saving? What are your tips?
Read more sleep tips in the Sleep Challenge.
thanks for the reminder we need to do this! Will start tonight. Im already tired at the thought of losing an hrs sleep.
Haha! I hear you! I’m losing enough sleep as it is at the moment, without throwing daylight savings into the mix! 🙂
We actually don’t adjust our kids. We’ve found that the hour isn’t too big of a difference and so we only get a little complaint that first day, and by the Monday we are back to thinking “What daylight savings?”
I love daylight savings though.
Ooh, that’s interesting, Miss Pink. Thanks for sharing that. BTW, I’m envious!! 😉
All kids are so different, aren’t they? You really do have to find what works best for your kids and also your family. It will be interesting to see how Baby Holly copes with it this year, being her first year. She was too young for the end of daylight savings for it to matter in March. x
Ah this is a great idea.. I will try it tonight and hope its not too late!! am so sick of them getting up super early~ and in the holidays!!! 🙁
Not too late at all! Tonight’s probably a good night to start. They’ll still be well adjusted by Sunday!! Good luck with it. x
Ah what a good idea! I used to hate one day just randomly having to go to bed when it was still daylight outside! Although we don’t have daylight savings here… and *whispers* I kind of like it…
Oh, so envious, Veggie Mama! Daylight savings can be a pain in the bum! 😉
Mind you, being in Tassie, any extra daylight of a night time is pretty welcome too! x
our daylight savings doesn’t start for another several months (i think – i can never really remember…)…. but i do remember the adjusting days….
It all went pretty smoothly here! Thank goodness! Hope the same happens for you once daylight savings kicks in! x
I’m not sure anything much can save us from our bedtime shenanigans. However, I just counted what time Miss T would be sleeping from DLS and if her usual pattern is anything to go by, it’ll be 9.30-10.30pm! That was enough to shock me into considering a plan from tomorrow night. I suppose one positive is she doesn’t wake early because she sleeps so late.
I wouldn’t mind a late sleep-in every now and again, Veronica! Sounds like bliss! Hope it’s all gone well with Miss T since daylight savings started! x
Oh crap, daylight savings is happening? I have a week of early appointments this week and just, ugh.
Hope the transition went OK, Veronica! Daylight savings seems to creep up on us every year, so I was super organised this year! 🙂
Yep we have two teenagers! So we leave them to work out their own sleeping patterns!
Luckily they havent brought day light savings into QLD (yet) but I did grow up in NSW as well as hubby, so we can so relate to being grumpy and tired. Wished we had parents who had thought to bring our bedtime forward by leading up to it! Great tip for adjusting to daylight savings.
Cheers
Lisa
LOL!! Love that you leave the teenagers to work it out for themselves, Lisa.
Very envious of all the Queensladers not having to worry about daylight savings. It has it’s advantages, for sure, but also quite a few disadvantages!! 🙂