It’s that time of year again when the mornings become darker, the days get shorter and the night draws in earlier. In case you’ve forgotten, on Sunday at 2am in the UK the clocks go back an hour. We’re leaving British Summer Time behind and heading back in to Greenwich Mean Time.
Hurrah! You say. An extra hour in bed? Methinks in my household this can only spell trouble.
The problem is my children rule the roost have no concept of how to adjust their body clocks in order to become accustomed to the change. Big E has an uncanny sense of clockwork precision when it comes to certain aspects of his day. Getting up, eating lunch, getting ratty because he’s tired, all happen with such punctuality each day it’s startling. It’s going to be a challenge changing his routine.
I suspect Little E will adjust with much less fuss. My experience from when Big E was a baby tells me that she will most likely not really feel any effects. Her routine is flexible to say the least.
If I’d have had any forethought about this whatsoever I would’ve begun gradually taking Big E’s routine back a few minutes a day over the past two weeks. But, I didn’t. So now I’m going to pay for my lack of preparation.
Whilst having a browse around a parenting forum I help moderate I came across this link to ‘Ready for Bed Week 2009‘. The event is taking place between Monday 25th October and Saturday 31st October and aims to help parents ease their children into a bedtime routine. There is a downloadable reward chart* that is a useful bribery tool incentive for toddlers and older children, and plenty of tips on how to establish a good routine. Snafflesmummy also blogged about the event earlier this month.
So, I’ve downloaded a reward chart. All I need now is a miracle…..
What are your tips and tricks for coping with the clocks going back and establishing a good bedtime routine?
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*With every 100 reward chart downloads funds will be donated to Canadian charity ‘Sleeping Children Around the World’ (SCAW) to provide a bed-kit for a child who doesn’t have a comfy place to sleep in an undeveloped or developing country.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
In spring we just did all his usual things at their usual times, well, their usual NEW times. He was a bit thrown out for a couple of days but soon settled again.
So tomorrow we'll just have breakfast/snacks/nap/tea etc an hour later, or at least as close to an hour as I can push him. I'm just really REALLY hoping that he doesn't decide to have one of his "I want to get up at 4.30am" days, because you know what time the clocks will say…
Actually. No scratch that. Ant gets up with Kai at weekends – he can get up whenever he wants
I'm afraid that I've always had clock change Nightmares but the only good thing is that it's only taken a week or less to get back to normal with me sticking to the new routine as rigidly as poss. My earliest ever wake up was a couple if days after the clock change when my middle one was then 2 and an early esker anyway. 4.30 am is not a good time to start the day! As with all these things, it does pass, so just hold on to that. In terms of bedtime routine I don't do anything unusual, just tea bath 2 stories and bed. I just keep it the same every day without fail.
bloody clocks :s children and daylight savings is not fun…neither is insomnia and daylight savings – sigh…best of luck.
Last year when the clocks went back I commented to a friend 'an extra hour in bed!' forgetting I had two children with no concept of daylight saving. Like you I'd have loved to plan the routine but I suspect we'll muddle through. The children are on a routine but my eldest is currently waking up about 5.30am anyway so anything goes tomorrow!
I don't know how we're going to cope, maybe keep toddler up a little later for him to sleep longer…! I think we'll just go with the flow. But with baby girl think it will be easier, they tend to be a little bit more flexible at this age!
It won't affect us as much now that my daughter is older, but it's likely that she'll get up at 5am rather than 6 which might be a problem. But if she sleeps through I'll probably wake up! It always takes my bodyclock afew days to adjust and twice I've forgotten to change all the clocks!
Gin and calpol, works every time.
get a hour extra in bed PAH! i know i will be up at blooming 5am trying to convince them it is still too early to get up. Oh well at least because its dark earlier my 3 will want to go to bed earlier now thats always a good thing lol! x
My daughter has never and will not tomorrow stay in bed an extra hour. We get up at the ungodly hour she wakes, then do all the meals at the new times and then go to bed an hour earlier on Sunday night!
Bedtime routine is: pj's at 6.15pm, then milk in lounge (quiet time), 6.30pm teeth and wash, 6.45pm bed and two stories (two if she's been good, it goes down to one or none if any bad behaviour whilst getting ready for bed – it's my last hold over her!).
Coping with the clocks going back: fine, I have sleepers.
Bedtime routine: leave it to the husband. No idea what goes on, but he does a stirling job.
Why have you turned green with envy?
We go out of sync with Europe for a few weeks. Terribly confusing. LLGxx