DR. SEUS ON SCREWED UP TIME CHANGES

There were no mothers of young children involved in establishing daylight savings time. If mothers had been involved...

Sorry, I got caught up in a daydream of what the world would be like if mothers were in charge. It was a nice daydream.

Moving on.

Number one rule of motherhood: Never mess with the schedule.

And yet,the world conspires against nap time.

The usual advice is to prepare your child for daylight savings time by gradually shifting their bedtime later and later (or earlier and earlier, depending on whether it's Spring or Fall).

Hahahaha. What a joke.

The babeola's internal clock is hardcore. There is no earlier or later, there is simply the time the babeola wants to sleep. So sleep has been scarce in these parts of late. Lots of early mornings and early nights as well as late nights. Lots of fussiness and screaming too. No naps. Short naps. One nap. Two naps.

(Hey look! I'm channeling Dr. Seus.)

The schedule has been messed with. God help us all.

Advice to New Moms:

Tip#1 When determining a bed time for your child (and it seems you do have some influence on this in the first year), consider the impact of seasonal time changes. Try to select a time that will work regardless of what the clock does so you don't have to push your baby to sleep earlier or later.

For example, the ideal for our family, would be a Fall bed time of 7-7:30pm so in the Spring, it would change to 8-8:30pm. This would allow us to enjoy the longer days without any trauma of having to make any changes to the actual bed time. Then in the Fall we would revert with the clock to the 7-7:30 pm bed time. No fuss, no muss.

Tip#2 For the love of God do not, I repeat, DO NOT schedule any vaccinations for Daylight Savings Time week. This only makes things worse. How do I know? Guess who had her MMR and Flu vaccines this week? Oi.

Feel free to add your time change tips in the comments.