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“Fallback” can’t be a bad thing, right? 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 are worried about how this change will impact their baby’s sleep schedule.

Clocks will move back one hour from standard time on November 3 at 2 a.m. 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 another period of daylight saving time.

The current system we follow, of “moving forward” in March and “stepping back” in November, was officially implemented in the United States in 2007, but we have been “saving daylight” since World War I.

The legal enactment of daylight saving time was primarily due to the reliance on trains for transportation and development. It was adopted in Europe and the United States after the Interstate Commerce Commission, the primary regulatory agency in the United States, raised coordination issues related to the amount of electricity and fuel consumed by trains during certain parts of the year, depending on the organization. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

At the time, it was thought that daylight saving time helped save fuelbut nowadays many believe that this change is necessary to save energy.

At least two important elements govern sleep: regular sleep pattern and melatonin production.

The homeostatic process is a self-regulatory mechanism that our body uses to maintain its stabilitysuch as increased sleep pressure. It may take adults a full day to acquire enough sleep, but babies may only need to be awake for an hour or two before falling asleep.

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

“During the day, when we wake up, there will be a lot of sunlight, which inhibits the release of melatonin,” said Dr. Raj Dasgupta, associate director of the internal medicine residency program at Huntington Memorial Hospital.. “At night, it will get darker earlier, which would give us a chance for that melatonin to be released and really synchronize our 24-hour solar day more with our circadian rhythm.”

This process may begin to appear in infants around 2 to 3 months of age, but it may take them more than a year to fully develop their circadian rhythm, depending on BC Children’s Hospital in Canada.

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

You may be wondering how to get your baby or child through the time change in just one day, but don’t worry. It’s never too late to start.

One method parents can follow to adjust their child to the time change involves gradually push back the family’s schedule by 15 to 20 minutes every night before the time change. You can also use this method in the days after the time change if you have not taken it beforehand.

Additionally, you can take advantage of the circadian rhythm by keeping 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 naturally adapt to the change within. one to two weeks.

Sleep is individual to each person, Dasgupta said, and each child will respond differently to change. So it’s important to keep your schedule flexible and give your children options during this time.

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