In an attempt to prepare ourselves to turn the clocks back we started last Monday. I had heard that by moving your child's schedule back by about 15 minutes every day (4 days that week), that by the time you turn your clocks back they will have already adjusted. So I decided to give it a try.
I started on Monday by moving things back by 15 minutes. The girls didn't even seem to notice the adjustment. On Tuesday we stuck with the same 15 minutes. On Wednesday they went down for their first morning nap at 10 instead if 9:30. Getting to that point wasn't pretty, but we managed. On Thursday we moved back by another 15 minutes so they went down for their nap at 10:15.
The problem we encountered was they weren't getting that whole sleep later in the morning memo. They were still getting up at their usual 7 am, sometimes even slightly earlier.
Finally on Saturday morning they slept until 8:15. They were up earlier but we both grabbed a baby and brought them to our bed to snuggle. Luckily it worked and we all fell back asleep until 8:15.
Saturday night was the true test. We put the girls down late (about 8:15) and crossed our fingers. Luckily it worked! They woke at 8:10 or 7:10 on our new time change.
This morning was the same. Clara was up a little earlier, but nothing crazy exhausting.
All in all, our first daylight savings change (that actually affected us) was a huge success. The only fail was that I can't manage to stay awake much past 9 pm.
How did it go for you? What was your strategy?
Disclaimer: Don't read this and think both girls slept all night. Clara did but Lucy still got up a few times a night (will she ever sleep through the night?!).
Our strategy was "Holy crap! We have to turn the clocks back! AHHHHH!" Actually it didn't matter because she was sick and sleeping weird anyway. She ended up taking 3 naps and went down at her usual time last night (7AM) and got up a tad bit earlier than usual (5:30 instead of 6), but hopefully being back in her routine today will help her get all straightened out.
ReplyDeleteOur strategy was "hope for the best" and it worked! We're in the midst of transitioning to beds from cribs, so we've had interrupted sleep, but for the most part it went like any other night-- yahoo!!!
ReplyDeleteWe tried pretty much the same strategy as you, although not super strict on the times. By the weekend, I had adjusted their schedule by an hour. It didn't work for us. Instead of getting up at their usual 7:00ish, they were up at 5:15am!!!! What??? They did that for 2 days. This morning they FINALLY didn't wake up until 6:10am so that was an improvement at least.
ReplyDeleteWe did the same thing as you. I was going to say it worked pretty well until I remembered that Riley woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday and we couldn't get her back to sleep for 2 hours. I can't remember the last time that happened. Usually a middle of the night wake up is easily solved with a pacifier and pat on the back. I don't think it had anything to do with the time change, though. It's teething, I think. Other than that, our strategy worked great. haha.
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