Phew! Daylight Savings is Behind Us
Posted by Nicole on November 5th, 2009
The end of Daylight Savings is always the source of worry for many parents, especially when their baby is waking too early. I thought I’d take the time to tell you how ours went and see how yours went, too.
Thankfully, our daylight savings went fairly smooth this year. I personally use option 3 when it comes to daylight savings in our house. My boys are just too unpredictable to use another option.
On Saturday night, I put the boys to bed around 9:20 p.m. which was a little late for my 21 month old, but Halloween definitely helped in that way. It did hurt us in that because he was overtired, he was up around 4:15, but once he fell back to sleep, he didn’t wake until 8:30 a.m. the NEW time, which was GREAT! For my preschooler, we have a rule that he does not come into mommy and daddy’s room until the first number on his clock is a “7″, so I changed his clock the night before. Hee. Hee. Sneaky mommy. It mostly worked, but the later bedtime did too, I’m sure. He didn’t come in until 6:53 a.m. My husband and I have a deal that we each get a day to sleep in on the weekend and Sunday is my day, so I was able to sleep until 8:40 a.m. NEW time! Woohoo!
The past few days have been filled with slightly earlier bedtimes, around 7 a.m. wake-up times, and good sleep, so it’s been pretty smooth for us (now that I’ve completely jinxed myself). I’m enjoying the earlier bedtimes because my preschooler is such a night owl that bedtime had gotten close to 9 p.m. anyway. I enjoy the later wake-up in the morning, but the late bedtime makes it hard to have much down-time in the evening. Mostly, I work on this website at night, truth be told. 
Now that Daylight Savings is behind us, I can start to focus on the holidays and start my Christmas shopping. If I’m a good little girl, do you think my husband will get me these diamond earrings? :p Not this year!! Instead, we’ll focus on the kids and review this year’s hottest toys.
How did your Daylight Savings go?
Tags: baby sleep daylight savings, baby waking too early, daylight savings, toddler daylight savings, toddler waking too early, waking too early
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November 5th, 2009
I decided to move my 9 month old son’s bedtime forward 15 min for the 4 days leading up to the time change. It worked so well, that we decided to continue with it for a couple of more nights to permanently move his bedtime/wake time to 7:30pm/7:30am (instead of 7pm/7am). This allows us to stay out a little later when needed (especially with holiday parties coming up) and also allows me to sleep in an additional half hour. Overall it went really well for us part time parents. Thanks Nicole for all the advice.
November 5th, 2009
Mine has been so set on 7pm bath, 7:30pm out like a light and a 4am wake up that I didn’t know what I was going to do. That schedule works great for us, because I have to get up at 4 anyway for work, and it just gives plenty of time for morning cuddles, food and playtime, and she always goes right back to sleep just as we leave for daycare. Saturday just worked out great. I pushed all of her naps back just a little bit, and when she was tired at 5:30pm, I let her sleep for an hour…and that managed to push her back to 8pm to start bedtime. She slept till 2:30 new time, but I was able to get her right back to sleep for another 2 hours after that. Since then, she’s been getting super tired about 6:30 (used to be her 7:30) so I’ve just been following her lead and trying to slowly help her back to 7pm…and she’s been waking up around 3…but this morning was 3:30, so she’s getting the hang of it!
November 7th, 2009
I moved my 1- and 3-year olds’ schedules by 15 minutes every few days for a week leading up to the time change. We had some rough times but I do think it helped overall. They had a couple mornings of waking up around 5 or 5:30 but mostly they’ve been sleeping until 6, which is what I wanted. Yay!
November 9th, 2009
The time change snuck up on me, so unfortunately we didn’t do any real preparing for it. We kept our 15 month old up for an extra 20-30 minutes on Sat. night, but she was tired, so we didn’t push for any longer than that. And of course, she was up at her regular time the next morning (6 AM in her head, 5 AM according to the clock). I actually adjusted her schedule at her naptime instead of bedtime and it seemed to work well. Even though she was ready to nap at 11:30 AM (10:30 AM new time), we kept her up that additional hour and she has pretty much been back on track since.
November 22nd, 2009
@Jill I’m glad daylight savings went smoothly and you were able to permanently move his schedule. That’s great!
November 22nd, 2009
@Cara That’s great!! I’m glad daylight savings went well.
November 22nd, 2009
@Sarah That’s great!!
@Lisa Sounds like she did great! Glad she got back on track quickly.