Daylight savings: What happens to baby sleep when the clocks change

When daylight savings time ends and clocks shift back an hour for winter, the adjustment can impact everyone's sleep for a few days, with parents especially concerned about maintaining their children's sleep routines. However, there are ways to help ease children into the new schedule.

For parents, even under normal circumstances, a baby’s sleep patterns can be challenging. With the time change disrupting carefully established routines, it’s no wonder that some parents feel anxious about how the shift might affect their children.

Scientific research on infant sleep is now providing insights that help dispel common myths. So, what does science suggest about how infants and young children adapt to the clock change? And are there any strategies to make the transition smoother?

It’s clear that adjusting to the time shift can take a bit of time for both babies and adults. "Even though mechanical clocks change in an instant, body clock changes take time to implement," explains Pamela Douglas, an Australian GP and sleep researcher. Douglas is also the founder of the Possums Sleep Intervention, a widely adopted approach to parent-child sleep.

One study, for instance, analyzed the sleep patterns of over 600 children after the spring clock change. On average, toddlers aged one to two took around three days to settle back into their usual sleep time, while infants under a year old required about eight days to adjust fully.