Anna's Bedtime

Update: Annnnnnd I'm a moron. It took me two weeks - TWO WEEKS - to realize we move the clocks BACK in the fall. When I pointed this out to Jamie he said, "Yeah I know but you seemed so convinced..."  By then I'd already adjust Anna's bedtime forward by 30 minutes and I just decided to move it back to 8 and we'd cross our fingers and hope she did ok come November 4th. And she did. We're up earlier than I'd like to be, but bedtime is no problem. Hopefully she'll start sleeping until 8 again soon! And we'll try this again in the spring when it actually makes sense!

This week Anna is going to bed at 8:00 PM.

Next week she'll be going to bed at 7:45.

The week after, 7:30.

And the week after that? 8:15.

Why the crazy moving around of our one-year-old's bedtime? Are we trying to punish her and ourselves by deliberately keeping her from a routine?

No, of course not.

Two weeks from now, on November 5th, Daylight Savings Time ends. Which means if we weren't being all crazy about her bedtime now, it would go like this:

This week, bed at 8. Next week, bed at 8. Week after that, bed at 7.

The clock on the wall might say 8, but her little internal clock would be saying 7 and we don't think she'll just adjust automatically once we explain Daylight Savings Time to her. Of course I'd have to have someone explain it to me first. Why do we do this?

Anyway, our hope is that by moving her bedtime up by 15 minutes for the next few weeks that Daylight Savings Time will be a lot easier to manage this time around. I'll be doing it in the morning, too. She usually sleeps about 12 hours at night, so I'll be getting her up at 8:00 this week, 7:45 next week, 7:30 the next, then 8:15 and then 8:00. We'll be a little more lenient on that end, though. I'm not planning on rousing her from a deep sleep just because the clock says so or leaving her crying in her bed half the morning because it's not officially time to get up.

I can't take credit for the idea; it was all my Mom's, but I thought it was brilliant when she shared it with me. I figured if I was grateful for the idea you might be too.

I'll let you know in a few weeks how well it worked!