Why Is Sleep Important?

Take our Sleep Habits Test

Find a sleep therapist near me

Daylight Saving Time can be disruptive to a child’s established sleep rhythms.

Calming play, dim lighting and no screens before bed can help ease the transition.

Morning sunlight works wonders to help reboot circadian rhythms. Brightly lit rooms work nicely, too.

Sam’s sister was now a toddler, providing the usual delights and challenges of yet another emerging personality in the family. Unlike Sam, she was an angelic sleeper. She would announce her own “bebtime,” collect her beloved blankie, take any available grown-up’s hand, and lead them to her room. As Daylight Saving Time bore down on the family, grandmother reminded everyone that she wasn’t such an angelic sleeper last year when the time changed, so maybe they should think about managing the transition better this year.

Most parents are surprised that this simple event can be so disruptive to a child’s established sleep rhythms. Adequate sleep is vital to brain health, among other things, so there are established mechanisms in place to predispose children to fall asleep. Daylight Saving Time plays havoc with those very mechanisms.

When adults travel east into a new time zone or two, we all feel that woozy brain thing. It comes from asking the body to manage another hour of sun with zero prep. That disrupts the established hormonally controlled circadian rhythms of wakefulness first, then sleep. And that’s in a “mature” brain.

In the growing, unfinished brain of young children, it’s a much bigger monkey wrench. That woozy brain presents as irritability, fussiness, night awakenings, and more. It feels to them like you decided all of a sudden to put them to bed an hour earlier for no good reason. True, it typically only lasts a few weeks, but it can be shortened and eased.

Prep always sounds good, but most of us don’t have the bandwidth to shift bedtime, naps, and wake-up times in 15–20-minute doses a few days before. If you do, go for it.

Easing the Transition

For the rest of us, the following steps can ease the transition enough to shorten the sleep machinery’s adjustment time:

Calming play before bedtime is always smart, but doubly so in this transition. Books and/or soft music can work wonders.

An hour or two before that calming play, try to dim the lighting. It’s appreciated by those pre-sleep hormonal preparations that need resetting.

No screens of any kind for 60-90 minutes before sleep. The blue light turns the brain on, not off.

If you haven’t used a white noise machine before, this is a good time to plug one in. The early noises of the day (birds, trucks, etc.) can wake a child before they are ready, and we all know what that feels like.

Get them into a well-lit space as soon as they are up in the morning. Sunlight works wonders to help reboot those circadian rhythms. Brightly lit rooms work nicely, too.

None of the above will work instantly. Consistency and patience will carry you through these days. They will also get you ready for the end of Daylight Saving Time, when you can reverse the whole process!

Why Is Sleep Important?

Take our Sleep Habits Test

Find a sleep therapist near me

© Psychology Today