By Spring Childcare · 29 Oct 2021

Let’s get ready for daylight savings

The last Sunday in October marks the start of daylight savings and this Sunday we will be gaining that extra hour, for those without children this weekend is mostly welcomed but for parents it can cause a huge disturbance in our children’s routine, causing lack of sleep and irritability. We would like to share some helpful information on how to make this transition a little easier for you and your little ones. 

  • To encourage sleep we must first tire our little ones out, on Saturday we recommend high energy activities like playing outdoors, soft play and games that stimulate your children. Lots of fresh air can also help so get yourself out for a nice family walk or trip to the park. 
  • If your child normally has a nap then reduce the time slightly, do not stop a nap altogether as this will then cause them to be over tired and take longer to settle in the evening. 
  • On the lead up to bedtime change from highly stimulating activities to more relaxed ones, switch off TV’s and pads and opt for some story telling podcasts or reading a book. 
  • A nice warm bath before bed will help relax your little one for bedtime. 
  • Make sure your child’s room is nice and dark for the morning so that extra light does not disturb them come morning. 
  • If your little one usually wakes up at 6am, from Sunday it would be 5am so you can try to push your little ones bedtime back slightly by 15 minutes a day to help them adjust to the new time to wake up, to avoid those extra early wake up calls.  

With the change its easy for us to slip into bad habits with our children so try to keep your routine close to normal, this helps keep our little ones on track. Don’t worry if they have an unsettled couple of days, children learn new routines fast and will get used to the new timings soon enough.