Clocks Go Back This Month, and Parents of Young Children Are Bracing for Earlier Mornings

For most adults, the end of daylight saving time is a small gift: one extra hour in bed. For families with babies and toddlers, it often works the other way round.

Clocks in Europe go back on Sunday 25 October, and in the United States and Canada on Sunday 1 November. Within days, parents across both continents will be dealing with the same problem: young children whose body clocks still run on the old time, waking an hour earlier and getting tired long before their usual bedtime.

Why young children feel the change more

Adults can override their body clock with coffee, alarms and willpower. Young children cannot. Their sleep is driven largely by two systems: the circadian rhythm, which responds mainly to light, and sleep pressure, the need for sleep that builds the longer a child is awake.

When the clocks change overnight, neither system changes with them. A toddler who usually wakes at 6:30am will wake at what the clock now calls 5:30am. Naps drift earlier, the late afternoon becomes harder, and by the new bedtime many children are overtired. Overtired children often take longer to settle, wake more during the night and start the next day early again.

Sleep needs at this age are substantial. Guidance endorsed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends 12 to 16 hours of sleep in 24 hours, including naps, for babies aged 4 to 12 months, 11 to 14 hours for children aged 1 to 2, and 10 to 13 hours for children aged 3 to 5. Losing even part of that for a week or two can be felt by the whole household.

What sleep specialists generally suggest

There is no single right way to handle the clock change, but most advice for young children falls into two approaches.

The first is to adjust gradually in the days before the change. Parents move bedtime, naps and meals about 15 minutes later every day or two, so that by the weekend of the change the child’s routine already sits close to the new time.

The second is to switch on the day itself and shift over a few days. On the first evening, parents aim for a bedtime halfway between the old and new times, then move fully to the new schedule over the following three or four days.

Either way, light plays a central role. Keeping bedrooms dark in the early morning helps, as sunrise arrives an hour earlier by the clock. Morning daylight, ideally outdoors, helps reset the body clock for the day, while dim, warm lighting and no screens in the hour before bed help children wind down at the new time.

Most children adjust within one to two weeks.

The bedtime question parents ask every evening

Even outside the clock change, one question comes up in many homes every evening: what time should my child actually go to bed tonight?

The answer depends on more than age. A child who woke early, skipped a nap or napped late in the afternoon may need a different bedtime from the one on the fridge schedule. During the clock change, when the usual routine no longer fits, that question becomes harder to answer.

A growing number of free online tools aim to help. One of them, Lunio’s free bedtime calculator, asks parents for three things: their child’s age, the time the child woke up and when the last nap ended. It then suggests a bedtime window for that evening, along with typical wake windows, nap counts and total sleep for the child’s age. The tool covers children from 4 months to 5 years and draws on guidance from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and published paediatric sleep research.

“Most parents don’t need a perfect schedule,” said Boris, founder of Lunio, a European baby and toddler sleep brand. “They need to know what to do tonight, after the day they’ve actually had. That is especially true the week the clocks change.”

A twice yearly ritual that may not last forever

The clock change itself remains a subject of debate. The European Parliament voted in 2019 to end seasonal clock changes, but the proposal has stalled without agreement among member states, and in the United States efforts to make daylight saving time permanent have repeatedly failed to pass. For now, families on both sides of the Atlantic will keep adjusting twice a year.

When to seek advice

The clock change is a temporary disruption, and most children settle quickly. Parents should speak to their doctor or health visitor if a child’s sleep remains very disrupted several weeks later, or if they notice loud snoring, pauses in breathing, or concerns about feeding, growth or development.

In the meantime, darker mornings, brighter days outdoors, calm evenings and a little patience go a long way. By mid November, most families will be enjoying the darker evenings, and hopefully a few more minutes of sleep.