Adjust the time they go to bed a week prior
Courtesy of Hatch
One of the first things I learned about changing the time and baby sleep was that you can get ahead of it — pun intended — by adjusting the time your kids go to bed by 15 minutes every day in the week before the clocks change.
We usually start the Sunday before the time change and either move their bedtime 15 minutes earlier or 15 minutes later depending on how we are changing the clocks. By the time we get to the day of the time change, they’re already going to bed by the time we want them to.
This makes the change more gradual for them.
We use a Hatch Rest+ clock to let our kids know when it’s time to go to sleep. We typically set it to turn red at 7:30 p.m. to indicate it’s bedtime and turn green at 7:30 a.m. to indicate it’s time to wake up. When we are preparing for the time change, we adjust the times incrementally to reflect the new schedule.
Using a color-coded clock has really helped our twins with sleep. They were waking up in the middle of the night and would scream for us, but since we added the tool to their sleep routine, they can wake up, look at the color, and go back to sleep.
My kids still don’t know how to tell time, but they are excited to see the light turn red when it’s time for bed.
