Halloween, Daylight Saving Time, and Your Child's Sleep

Every fall, parents hear that daylight saving time is ending and we are all about to “gain an hour of sleep.” Parents know this is false advertising.

This year makes things even more interesting because Halloween falls on Saturday, October 31, and the clocks fall back the very next morning.

And even though I can clearly see Halloween coming, no one in my house has a costume ready, and they probably won’t until the week before. Hello, busy August, September and somehow still October?!

I’m also not stressing about the time change this year. My older kids will adjust just fine, and my two-year-old? Well, she is going to hang with the big kids for trick-or-treating. We’ll bring her pajamas and toothbrush, change her out of her costume before the drive home, brush what we can from her teeth, buckle her into the car seat and let the drive home do what it does. She will go to bed later than I would like on a normal night, but Halloween is not a normal night.

That’s something I think is worth remembering anytime we talk about children’s sleep. Good sleep doesn’t require every single night to look exactly the same. There are vacations, holidays, birthday parties, grandparents, late football games and all sorts of other things that make childhood fun. We can have solid sleep habits and still make room for those nights.

So, how can families prepare in advance for the time change, ride the wave that is Halloween so sweetly placed right before the clocks shift, or get everyone back on track afterward? There are options.

If You Want to Prepare Ahead of Time for Daylight Saving Time

If you have a child who is particularly sensitive to schedule changes, tends to struggle with early mornings, or you simply feel better having a plan, you can start moving the schedule later during the few days leading up to Halloween.

You do not need to move everything an hour at once. Instead, think about shifting the main pieces of the day by about 10 to 15 minutes at a time.

If your child normally goes to bed at 7:00 p.m., for example, you might move bedtime to 7:15 for a night or two, then closer to 7:30, and eventually toward 7:45 or 8:00 by Saturday. You can slowly move naps and meals later in much the same way.

It does not need to be exact. You are simply helping your child’s day drift a little later before the clock makes the bigger change for you.

Morning matters here too. If your child usually starts the day at 6:30, try to keep 6:30 as the earliest start rather than allowing the morning to creep earlier during the week. If they are content in bed or in their crib, let them hang out for a bit. Then once the day starts, go ahead with lights, breakfast and your normal morning routine.

What About Infants?

For babies, I would make these shifts more gently.

You can move feeds, naps and bedtime 10 or 15 minutes later when your baby handles that comfortably, but I would not stretch a tired baby simply to get to a later time on the clock.

If your baby normally takes a first nap around 9:00 and seems perfectly content getting to 9:10 or 9:15, great. If that same baby had a rough night, took a short previous nap or is clearly showing you at 8:50 that they are ready for sleep, put them down.

The goal with an infant is not to manufacture an extra hour of awake time. It is just to make some small shifts where their sleep allows for it.

If You Want to Enjoy Halloween and Let It Help

This is the route I’m taking this year, and for families with toddlers, preschoolers or school-aged children, Halloween may do some of the work for you naturally.

If your child normally goes to bed at 7:30 but trick-or-treating keeps them happily going until 8:00 or 8:30, that later bedtime has already shifted part of their night in the direction we need to go. Once the clocks fall back overnight, 8:30 on Saturday becomes much closer to their usual biological bedtime on Sunday.

That does not mean I would intentionally keep an exhausted child awake for an extra hour. There is a big difference between a child happily running from house to house with a candy bucket and a child who is completely unraveling while the adults keep saying, “Just 20 more minutes!”

If they are done, call it.

But if they are having fun? Let them have fun.

Go trick-or-treating. Stop at Grandma’s. Let them compare candy with their siblings. Let Halloween be the reason bedtime runs late instead of spending the entire evening watching the clock.

When you do get home, keep whatever parts of the bedtime routine make sense. Maybe everyone still brushes teeth and reads a book. Maybe it is pajamas, a quick cuddle and into bed. Maybe, like us, you are changing a two-year-old into pajamas somewhere other than your own house and hoping she sleeps on the drive home.

It doesn’t have to be beautiful. It just needs to get everyone to bed.

For infants, I would handle this differently. If your baby is ready for bed at their usual time, put them to bed. Babies do not need to stay up for Halloween in order to adjust to the time change. You can either make some small shifts beforehand or help them adjust afterward.

If You Don't Prepare Your Child at All

Maybe Halloween comes and goes and you never touched the schedule. Maybe you meant to prepare and forgot. Maybe moving bedtime by 15 minutes every night simply did not make the list that week.

That is fine too.

Sunday morning is where you start.

The biggest surprise for most families after we fall back is the morning wake. Your 6:30 a.m. child may be ready for the day when the clock says 5:30 because, to their body, it still feels like 6:30.

I would try not to immediately turn that earlier wake into the new morning. If your child is content, leave them for a little while. If they need you, respond, but keep things darker and calmer if you can. You do not have to make them stay in bed until their old wake time, but you also do not have to flip on the lights and serve breakfast at 5:32.

You can meet somewhere in the middle and then slowly move that morning later over the next several days. Maybe the day starts at 5:45 on Sunday, around 6:00 the next morning, and then continues working back toward 6:30.

Once you do decide the day has started, make it obvious. Open the curtains, turn on lights, have breakfast and get outside when you can. Morning light, food and activity are all useful signals to the body that this is now the start of the day.

What Should You Do With Naps?

This is where I especially do not want parents of babies watching the clock too closely.

If your baby normally wakes at 6:30 and naps at 9:00, but suddenly wakes at 5:30 after the time change, expecting that baby to make it all the way to 9:00 may be too much.

They may need sleep earlier, and that is okay.

Let the first nap land where it reasonably needs to based on the morning and how your baby is doing, then start moving it later in small increments over the next few days.

The same works for toddlers. If your toddler normally naps at 12:30 but is clearly ready around noon on Sunday, use noon. The next day you might aim for 12:10 or 12:15, then keep working back toward 12:30.

You are trying to move the schedule without creating an overtired child in the process.

And Bedtime?

Bedtime works the same way.

If your normal bedtime is 7:30 but your child is exhausted at 6:45 on Sunday, I would rather see you use the earlier bedtime than fight to keep them awake simply because 7:30 is the “right” time.

Then begin nudging bedtime later again over the next few nights. Maybe it is 6:45 on Sunday, 7:00 on Monday, 7:15 Tuesday and somewhere around the usual 7:30 after that.

You do not have to reclaim the entire hour in one night.

For many kids, getting enough sleep while their schedule moves is going to make the adjustment easier than becoming overtired in an effort to get back to the clock faster.

For the Bigger Kids

Older kids generally need less finesse around the whole thing.

Let them enjoy Halloween. If they stay up later, the timing works in your favor this year anyway. On Sunday, I would avoid letting the entire day drift several hours later, especially if school requires everyone to be up and moving Monday morning.

Get some daylight, keep meals reasonably close to their normal new-clock times, and if they are exhausted by Sunday evening, an earlier bedtime is completely appropriate.

Then Monday morning, get back to the normal school routine.

They will adjust.

Give It a Few Days

Whether you prepare beforehand, use Halloween to help you along, or start working on it Sunday morning, there may still be a few strange days.

You may see an earlier wake. Your baby may need a nap at a time that looks wrong on paper. Bedtime might be earlier for a night or two.

That does not mean the schedule you had before suddenly stopped working, and it does not mean you need to start making big changes.

Give everyone a little time.

Keep the routines that were already working, make gradual adjustments where you need to, and remember that a temporary disruption in sleep can be worked back from.

That is really the message I want parents to take away from this one.

If getting ahead of the change makes your life easier, do it. If your family wants to lean all the way into Halloween and deal with the clock afterward, enjoy the night. And if Sunday morning arrives and you completely forgot the time change was happening, you have not missed your chance to fix anything.

Kids adjust over time.

So let them trick-or-treat. Let Halloween bedtime be a little off. And parents, enjoy the Kit-Kat bar with your coffee Sunday morning.

We can get everyone back on track after breakfast.