Help Your Family Adjust To Daylight Savings

By: Jenifer Metzger

This Sunday is Daylight Savings time ends. This means we fall back an hour. Which is great! We get an extra hour of sleep right? Or maybe you prefer an extra hour to catch up on projects? Yet for our kids, it often just means they are up earlier. It's hard adjusting to a new time. Even though it's only 1 hour, if their bodies are used to a regular bedtime, wake up time, naptime, and meal times, this time change can throw them off leaving some cranky kids and frustrated moms.

Here is a tip to help your family adjust to the time change, both in spring and in fall:

1. Begin your time change on Friday. Friday morning change your clocks by just 30 minutes. If your kids are busy playing, they are less likely to notice a 30 minute change. This means have dinner 30 minutes earlier and put the kids to bed 30 minutes earlier. {Change all of your clocks except your cell phone. You wouldn't want to arrive to work or an appointment at the wrong time.}
2. Finish your time change on Saturday. Saturday morning do the same thing, adjust the clocks the remaining 30 minutes. Now you are already completely on the time change and the kids can finish adjusting on a Saturday instead of Sunday when you have church.
3. If you think your kids will need a little extra time, begin on Thursday with 20 minutes, the next 20 minutes on Friday and finish the final 20 minutes on Saturday. {Of course it is too late for this one this time around, but keep it in mind for next time!}

What are other ways you have helped your family adjust to the time change? Share in the comments!