The Sleep Chronicles - Time Change!!

This past weekend, as you know, we turned our clocks back an hour marking the end of Daylight Savings Time.

I have been worried about this time change for months now. Worrying about how Willow would adjust and if we could get through it smoothly. I think the cause of the worry was both an underestimation of myself and an underestimation of Willow. But then, underestimating can be a good thing, right?

Here's how we danced around the time change in such a way that Willow never really new the difference...

I had toyed with a slow transition but ended up deciding to kind of "rip off the band aid" so to speak. Friday night we went to bed 1/2 an hour late. She is usually pretty tired by the time 7:00pm rolls around, but she did well. Saturday we got her out of bed 1/2 an hour later. She slept in an extra half hour, which was very good.

Then, during the day on Saturday we just did things later. Her morning snack was 1/2 an hour later and she ended up taking her morning nap an hour later (and then sleeping for 105 minutes, which was unusually long). Then, since she had such a long morning nap it was a breeze to have her afternoon nap an hour later. Then we had dinner an hour later and put her to bed an hour later.

When we woke up Sunday morning, after "falling back", she was just fine with it and the day proceeded just like any other!!

You want to know the hilarious funny part? I am still the one who isn't used to going to bed and getting up later. Go figure.

I think the key to the whole thing is to try and NOT underestimate her and her resilience and ability to adapt to new situations. For example, Willow HATES hats. We had her in a hooded sweater last week and forget about trying to put the hood on. But then, she ended up wearing her Halloween costume with little trouble and it had a hat. This morning, she found her Halloween hat and wanted to put it on. So, she was running around with pajamas and a ladybug hat (complete with antennae) on this morning. Darned if it wasn't the cutest thing.