March 14, 2025
Adjusting your sleep schedule can be tough, and helping your kids do the same (whether for daylight saving time, back-to-school, or any other life changes) can feel even more challenging. But with the right approach, it’s possible to make these transitions easier for you and your children.
A well-established sleep routine can make adjusting to time changes and back-to-school schedules much easier. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), children need the following amounts of sleep:
• Three-to-five-year-olds need 10 to 13 hours of sleep, including naps
• Six-to-ten-year-olds need nine to 12 hours of sleep.
• 13-to-17-year-olds need eight to 10 hours of sleep.
The quality of their sleep is just as important as the number of hours your child gets. To help them sleep better:
• Keep a consistent wake-up, mealtime, and bedtime schedule (even on weekends).
• Have a routine that they follow to help them get ready for bed.
• Encourage physical activity after school, but not after dinner.
• Limit caffeine intake (based on your child’s age) and don’t allow them to have sugary foods and drinks close to bedtime.
• Reduce screen time at least an hour before bed.
• Keep their room dark and cool at night and let in plenty of natural light in the morning.
Whether you're adjusting for daylight saving time or the start of the school year, gradual changes work best.
For babies and toddlers, move bedtime forward or backward by 15 minutes every other night starting eight days before the time change. This strategy gives them a little more than a week to adjust.
For older children, move their bedtime by 15 minutes each day starting on the Wednesday before the time change to help them more easily adjust. Shifting mealtimes and evening routines along with their sleep schedule can also help with the transition.
Even if you adjust sleep schedules gradually, changes in daylight can still be disruptive.
When Daylight Savings Time begins in the spring, it may still be dark out when your child wakes up. To help adjust for this, turn on the lights in their room and let as much sunlight in as soon as your child wakes up. You also can buy a sunlight alarm clock or a sun nursery lamp to simulate natural morning sunlight. And if the weather allows, spending time outside in the morning with your kids can help reset their internal clock.
When Daylight Saving Time ends in the fall, it will get dark earlier. That may cause your child to feel sleepy too soon. To help them stay awake until it’s time for bed, keep your house well lit. To prevent early morning wake-ups due to the sun coming up earlier, use blackout curtains. If they do wake up too early, delay breakfast until their normal mealtime to help reinforce their schedule.
The same strategies that help kids adjust to daylight saving time can also make the transition back to school easier.
If they’ve been staying up late during summer break, start adjusting their sleep schedule one to two weeks before school starts. Also make sure they’re not doing anything that involves a lot of physical activity for two hours before their bedtime.
For the first few weeks after your child goes back to school, avoid letting them sleep in on weekends. That will just make returning to their fall schedule harder for them.
Whether you're adjusting your child's sleep for daylight saving time or the start of the school year, don’t feel guilty about it. Children adapt quickly, and these small adjustments will only help them to feel better in the long run.
