So Daylight Savings time was this weekend. I'm not big on trying to manipulate Nicolette's schedule (and haven't had much, if any success at doing so in the past), but I did want to do whatever I could to prepare us both for the time change. I reached out to a group of my mama friends and one of them referred me to the isis website. I listened to a webinar about preparing for Daylight Savings and it was extremely helpful. Here are a few of the tips that helped me out:
1. Extend bedtime. Gradually keep your baby awake an hour past her normal bedtime. They suggest starting 10 days prior to the time change and work in 10-15 minute increments. We started about a week prior (before viewing the webinar). Nicolette was normally falling asleep between 7:30-7:45 but due to some late/long naps she started falling asleep at 8:15/8:30. Then I listened to the webinar and was like, "ok, we'll go with this and use it to our advantage". I started intentionally pushing our bedtime routine back until 8:30/9:00 leading up until DST.
2. Extend morning darkness/quiet time. Now I had only thought to worry about trying to keep Nicolette up later at night in order to prepare her for falling back. The webinar also encouraged extending morning darkness and/or quiet time which TOTALLY makes sense when you think about it. The last thing you want is your baby who usually wakes up at 7:30am to wake up demanding attention at 6 or 6:30. And I can personally attest to the fact that just because your baby goes to bed an hour (or more late) does not mean that she will sleep in an hour or more late…unfortunately it's usually the opposite. If Nicolette goes to bed past her bedtime, she's usually up super early in the morning…makes no sense to me but whatever. Anyway, so last week we started keeping the nursery dark and quiet after she woke up until 8:30 and then moved forward with nursing, breakfast, etc. (I say "we" but who am I kidding? Managing Nicolette's sleep is definitely part of my full time job as stay at home mommy. The Italian refuses to acknowledge schedules of any sort, so this was my call)
3. Sleep pressure. The webinar also talked about babies needing to have enough "sleep pressure" built up in order to settle down and go to sleep. I can say 100% for a fact that Nicolette HAS to have enough sleep pressure built up in order to sleep. I can put her to bed at the exact same time every night, but if she has napped 3 hours in the afternoon instead of 2 then she will be awake in her crib for an extra hour. I've noticed that Nicolette needs to be awake 5 1/2 - 6 hours after her afternoon nap in order to fall asleep at night.
So by Saturday night, Nicolette fell asleep at 9pm. We were all set for the time change and it went well, except for the fact that she woke up at 11:45, 1:00 and 3:30 (#sadface). I was sure that she was going to be up between 5 and 6 because she usually does wake up super early if she wakes up throughout the night (which makes no sense to me). I was dead wrong…she slept in until almost 8am, was happy as a clam all day, went down at noon for a 2 hour nap and was asleep around 7:45 tonight with no fussing so I'm counting this as a daylight savings transition success! Yay Nicolette!
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