Has anyone ever told you about the "extra hour of sleep" in November and made you laugh out loud?
If you have kids at home, you already know how this goes. The clocks fall back on Sunday, November 1. On paper, everyone gets an extra hour. In real life, the little one who usually wakes at 6:00 is now wide awake at what the microwave insists is 5:00, and they are ready for breakfast, a diaper change, and a full concert on the play kitchen.
I want to talk about the clock change this week, but not as one more thing to get "right." There is a lot of advice out there that reads like a checklist: shift bedtime by exactly this many minutes, on exactly these days, or else. I'd rather we look at what's actually happening in our bodies, so you can pick what fits your family and let the rest go.
So let's use an example. Picture a family in Fishtown. There's a 10-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a baby, plus two tired grown-ups. Same house, same clock change, three very different responses.
First, what's really going on
Our bodies run on an internal clock, a roughly 24-hour rhythm that helps decide when we feel alert, when we get hungry, and when we get sleepy. That rhythm is set by cues from the world around us. The biggest one is light, especially morning light. Others include when we eat, when we move, and the routines we repeat every day.
When the clock on the wall jumps back an hour, our internal clock doesn't jump with it. It keeps doing what it was doing yesterday. So for a few days there is a gap between the time the house says it is and the time your body thinks it is. For grown-ups, that gap can feel like a mild jet lag. For little ones, who don't have any idea what a clock is and have no reason to care, it shows up as early wake-ups, a cranky late afternoon, and a bedtime that suddenly feels like a fight.
None of this means anything is wrong. It means the body needs a few days of good cues to catch up. When I work with families, I'm almost always less interested in the exact number on the clock and more interested in the rhythm around it.
There isn't one correct method, either. Three common approaches are to shift gradually ahead of time, split the difference, or just switch. In our Fishtown house, each kid ends up with a different one.
The 10-year-old: just switch
Older kids often roll with the change just fine, so the grown-ups decide to just switch: go straight to the new clock on Sunday and lean hard on morning light, consistent meals, and the routine.
For this 10-year-old, the bigger challenges are the things that already push bedtime around: screens, sports, and school mornings.
Screens. That "extra hour" on Saturday night is very tempting for one more episode or one more game. The family agrees ahead of time when screens go off that night, and keeps the usual screens-off time all week. Dimming screens and lights in the evening is half of the light message: "the day is winding down."
Sports. A Sunday morning game is actually a gift here. Getting outside and moving early in the day is one of the strongest "it's daytime now" cues there is.
School mornings. Monday comes fast. Breakfast at the usual (new-clock) time, a bright kitchen, and a walk to school or the bus, even on a gray Philadelphia November morning, all help the body catch up. Food is a timing cue too.
The 4-year-old: split the difference
The 4-year-old is the one most likely to be up at "5:00," and most likely to fall apart around 4:30 in the afternoon. So the family chooses to split the difference: starting Sunday, bedtime lands about halfway between the old bedtime and the new one for a few days, then slides to the new time.
Early wake-ups. If the first few mornings start early, keep the room dark and calm and the interaction low-key until the usual "good morning" time, as much as is realistic. You are teaching the body what morning looks like, and it takes a few repetitions. Then, lights up and outside or near a bright window soon after waking.
Late-afternoon meltdowns. A child running on a shifted clock is often a little closer to the edge in that late-afternoon stretch. That's a good time for connection and slow, predictable input: a snack, being held, a quiet story, lower lights. Little bodies borrow regulation from the grown-ups around them. If you'd like to understand more about why kids melt down when they're stretched thin, our post on the window of tolerance is a good place to start.
Keep the routine, even if the times wobble. Bath, pajamas, books, song, whatever your sequence is, the order itself is a powerful cue. A familiar routine can carry a child through a bedtime that feels a little early to their body. (For more ideas, see our post on family routines that build calm, predictable days.)
The baby: shift gradually
For the baby, the family decides to shift gradually ahead of time. Starting several days before November 1, they move naps, feeds, and bedtime a little later each day, maybe 10 to 15 minutes at a time. By Sunday, the baby's body is already close to the new clock.
Naps. Watch the baby more than the clock. If a nap creeps earlier for a day or two, that's okay. Nudge it later in small steps rather than holding out until a tired baby is overtired. And sleep still looks the same: on their back, on a flat, bare surface.
Feeds. Whether you're nursing, pumping, bottle-feeding, or some mix, feeds can slide along with the rest of the day in small steps rather than a full hour overnight. If you're nursing and notice your own body feeling the change too, a gradual shift can be gentler for both of you. Our infant feeding team is here if feeding questions come up along the way.
The grown-ups: you have a clock too
Here's the part that often gets skipped. We spend so much energy managing our kids' sleep around the time change that we forget we're running on a shifted clock too. And when the grown-ups in the house are tired and off rhythm, the evenings get harder for everyone.
So I'd gently ask: what would it look like to take the same care with your own body this week?
The same cues apply to you. Get some daylight on your face in the morning, even if it's coffee on the front step. Notice the urge to "use" the extra hour on Saturday night for one more episode, and decide on purpose whether that's what you want. Eat dinner at a consistent time. Move your body during the day. Dim your own lights and screens at night, not just the kids'.
Sleep isn't a box you tick by logging a certain number of hours. It's part of how you live the whole day: the light you take in, the food you eat, how you move, how you wind down, and whether there's any space in your day that actually feels like yours. The clock change is just a moment when that rhythm becomes visible because it gets bumped.
Going easy on yourselves
Three kids, three approaches, and the whole house is still a little off by Tuesday. That's normal. Most families find things settle within the first week or so. A rough Tuesday is not a sign that you did it wrong.
If all of this still sounds like a lot, here's my permission slip: pick one thing. Maybe it's a morning walk for everyone on Sunday and Monday. Maybe it's keeping bedtime routine identical even if the start time drifts. That one thing, done with some attention, will probably help more than a perfectly timed plan you're white-knuckling.
And if your child's sleep was already a struggle before the clock ever changed, with frequent waking, very restless sleep, snoring, or mouth breathing at night, that's worth paying attention to beyond this one week. Those are the kinds of patterns we look at closely at B.well tots, because sleep, breathing, feeding, and regulation are all connected.
Here's to a gentle week, an early sunset, and maybe, just maybe, a little of that extra hour for you.
Warmly, Kelsey
Curious whether your child's sleep, feeding, or regulation could use some support? Our team loves working with Philadelphia families! We see families in Fishtown, Fairmount, and Wyndmoor.
This post is for educational purposes and isn't a substitute for individualized medical advice.