Here's how to help your baby adjust his or her sleep to the “relapse time” change

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“Falling back” can’t be a bad thing, can it? However, for someone with children, the time change can be an unwelcome challenge.

Although some people are looking forward to getting an extra hour of sleep this weekend, many new parents worry about how the change will affect their baby's sleep schedule.

Clocks will “reset” one hour to standard time at 2 a.m. on November 3rd. On March 9, 2025, most clocks in the United States and many other parts of the world will move forward one hour and stay that way for eight months as we enter a different period of daylight saving time.

The current system we follow of “leaping ahead” in March and “falling back” in November was officially introduced in the US in 2007, but we have been “saving daylight” since World War I.

The legal adoption of daylight saving time was largely due to the reliance on trains for transportation and development. It was introduced in Europe and the United States after the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first regulator in the United States, raised coordination concerns related to the amount of electricity and fuel that trains use during certain times of the year, according to Bureau of Transportation statistics.

At the time, it was believed that daylight saving time would help save fuel, but today many believe the change is necessary to save energy.

At least two important components determine sleep: a consistent sleep rhythm and the production of melatonin.

The homeostatic process is a self-regulating mechanism that our body uses to maintain stability, for example by building sleep pressure. It can take adults a full day to build up enough sleep readiness, but babies may only need to be awake for an hour or two before they can fall asleep.

The circadian rhythm is our body's internal clock that maintains behavior and physiology according to our environment. This invisible clock explains why we feel more energetic during the day and more tired at night.

“During the day, when we wake up, there will be a lot of sunlight, which suppresses the release of melatonin,” said Dr. Raj Dasgupta, associate program director of internal medicine residency at Huntington Memorial Hospital. “It gets darker earlier at night, which gives us a chance to release melatonin and really better align our 24-hour solar day with our circadian rhythm.”

According to BC Children's Hospital in Canada, this process can begin in infants around 2 to 3 months of age, but it can take over a year for them to fully develop their circadian rhythms.

Because their circadian rhythm is still developing, babies and toddlers wake up earlier in the first few days after the November time change.

You may be worried about how you can adjust your baby or child to the time change in a single day, but don't worry. It's never too late to start.

One method parents can use to adjust their child to the time change is to gradually move the family's schedule back by 15 to 20 minutes each night leading up to the time change. You can also use this method in the days after the time change if you didn't get around to it before.

You can also take advantage of your circadian rhythm by leaving the lights on longer in the evening and waiting to turn them on in the morning.

If these hacks don't work, don't worry. Even if you don't follow a transition process, children should adjust to the change naturally within one to two weeks.

Sleep is unique to each person, Dasgupta said, and each child will respond to the change differently. Therefore, it is important to keep your schedules flexible and give your children options during this time.

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