With DST Beginning, Your Kids Could Have A Weeklong Meltdown: What To Do

Getting the kids — or yourself — to stay up for their usual bedtime Sunday night could be an epic battle, but keeping them in bed on Monday morning could be even harder.

Sleep experts have long opposed the switch to daylight saving time, which starts Sunday. The spring shift disrupts circadian rhythms, causes a kind of “social jet lag,” reduces sleep duration, and is linked to increased risks of heart attack, strokes, and traffic accidents.

And cranky kids. It leads to “cranky kid syndrome.”

“Anybody else getting absolutely wrecked by the time change?” a harried parent wondered on Reddit. The kids “keep waking up at 4 or earlier,” the person said.

“We are trying our best to keep them up later, but they get so cranky about 7:30. Can we just get rid of DST already?”

“I, too, wonder, why do we still do time change?” another person said. “I woke up to my kid standing creepily next to me and all dressed one hour before I usually wake him up. Not cool.”

“My kids are up so early that it’s been a hard week. Sunday felt like the longest day of our lives,” another frazzled parent said. “The 4-year-old snuck in our room at 4:45, which means she was up for at least 30 minutes. The baby was up at 5. The dogs were going crazy because it was time for them to eat, too.”

Drowsy Driving Accidents Peak

Adults have trouble “springing forward,” too. And the risks can be more significant than a meltdown kids can have over bedtime.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and other longtime advocates of year-round standard time as the healthiest choice point to increases in the risk of avoidable health and safety incidents, cardiovascular events, and even workplace errors in the days following the time change.

Drowsy driving contributes to more fatal crashes than official statistics show, up to 10 times more, according to AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety research.

Another study from the University of Colorado Boulder found that the loss of sleep and darker morning commutes make the days immediately after the time change especially risky. Fatal crashes increase by about 6 percent in the week following the switch to daylight saving time.

Also, AAA pointed out, there is general agreement among traffic safety, sleep science, and public health experts that the impacts of drowsy driving are underestimated, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

What Can Be Done To Ease Transition?

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a longtime advocate of year-round standard time as the healthiest choice, says it helps to adjust daily routines that are “time cues,” such as mealtime and exercise schedules. Getting out in the sunlight early in the morning — even though sunrise is an hour later during DST — can help reset internal clocks to the new time. It also helps regulate sleep and alertness, according to the medical society.

Kids’ internal clocks aren’t as forgiving. Parents often describe the transition as a temporary torture, with kids who are cranky and irritable anywhere from three to seven days after the time abrupt one-hour leap forward.

Experts advise easing kids into daylight saving time by gradually getting them to bed later in the days before the switch.

If you’re facing down Sunday night and haven’t made a plan, try to keep the kids up another 15 or 30 minutes, perhaps by playing a fun game, advises Dr. Suzanne Beck, director of the Sleep Lab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Even if bedtime comes a little later each night, keeping a consistent routine tells the child’s brain it’s time to calm down and get ready to sleep, no matter what the clock says, the Sleep Lab says.

Bedtime routines shouldn’t be long, drawn-out routines. The Sleep Lab recommends 20 to 30 minutes, or 40 minutes if a bath is included, cautioning that for some toddlers, a bath can be more stimulating than calming. Find activities your kid loves and finds calming.

Other tips include:

Consistency matters. A good bedtime routine should start about the same time and follow the same steps every night. Occasional shifts on weekend evenings are fine, but a shift of 30 to 45 minutes can make it harder for kids to fall and stay asleep. Sleeping late on weekends can lead to difficulty in falling asleep at the right time on weekdays.

Limit screen time before bed. Cellphones, tablets, computers video games and television should be switched off at least 30 minutes before bedtime. These devices can disrupt the brain’s production of the sleep-regulating hormone melatonin, which may interfere with sleep cycles.

Establish healthy sleep habits by always putting your child to bed awake. If feeding is part of the routine, do it earlier to prevent the baby from falling asleep. Create consistent sleep associations that last all night; items like mobiles or nightlights that go off after 45 minutes aren’t much help unless the child can turn it back on.

Adjust lighting. Because evenings are brighter when DST is in effect, use blackout curtains to create dark sleep environments, but open the curtains immediately in the morning to expose kids to natural light.

Do you like the current system of “springing forward” in March and “falling back” in November? Would you prefer daylight saving time or standard time as the permanent year-round time? Join the conversation below in the comments.

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