Daylight Savings Changes

Updated 2024

It is the end of summer again, which means it will soon be the end of daylight savings too and time to put the clock back an hour.

The biggest concern with this shift in the clocks is early morning wakes, a 5.30am wake will now be 4.30am, unless you do something about it.

Which is a lot less scary than it sounds!

The good thing about this change is that you now have 1 hour longer to get your baby back to sleep in the morning, or for them to get themselves back to sleep if they're self soothing.

Babies’ biological rhythms are set by 3 factors...

• Food
• Light 
• Social interaction

By adjusting these three elements, you have two options to solve the problem. 

The aim is to move your child’s sleep, food and social interactions forward in small increments of time over the period of a week.

You can do this either the week before daylight savings ends, or afterwards.

To help your child cope with the change, distract them with quiet cuddles or fun games. It also helps to be in the sunlight first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon.

You will need to work on re-settling to encourage these adjustments, they are unlikely to happen automatically. 

If you need a re-settling technique, try our online sleep program.

These tables assume that your child is on a 7am-7pm schedule. If that’s not the case, adjust it to suit.

If you start the week before daylight savings ends:

If your child was previously a much too early riser, the time change can be a blessing in disguise.

If you need help with an early wake up, try our master class and join hundreds of other mums who have successfully solved their early wake up!

If you have the opposite problem, and your child’s bedtime was too late, an extra early bedtime will help them to go to sleep and sleep more soundly.

Watch the Instagram Video on this daylight savings topic.