This time is the one! This Sunday, at 2 a.m., we are turning the clock back in Canada. Much to everyone's delight, the return to normal time means an extra hour of potential bedtime!
Across Canada, except Saskatchewan and parts of British Columbia, all clocks are put forward one hour on the night of second Sunday in Marchand set back one hour on first Sunday in November. If officially the change is scheduled for 2 a.m., it is better to go around all the clocks, dials and electronic devices before going to bed so that in the early morning you do not experience a state of panic deep.
Changing the time also means changing the batteries in the smoke detectors. Get into this good habit twice a year! That way you make sure you remember when it's time to do it!
When we go back in the fall, the impacts are greater than when we go to daylight saving time in the spring. Studies mention that it is older children who react the most to time changes, because their lives are well defined by different rhythms and a schedule.routine. Babies can suffer from a lag, more or less long to attenuate. However, sleep specialist Brigitte Langevin is convinced that the change can be made without difficulty if parents maintain sleep habits. “If, from the first day, we continue to put them to bed and get them up at the same times, in 24 hours, the children should have already integrated the time change. »
Of course, in the spring, we have the illusion that the children get up “an hour later” and it is more in the fall that we find that they get up much too early. "At the change in autumn time, if we react and get up when they wake up early, it's off to a bad start… Children are creatures of habit, we have to maintain our rhythm and not bend! “, explains Brigitte Langevin.
Tips
- Bed and wake the children at the usual time (not the old time);
- Maintain the consistency of sleep patterns that are already in place;
- Expect the first day to be more difficult, but then everything will soon be back to normal;
- Getting used to taking naps.
Nap
Lack of light affects us to different degrees, but it's common to feel more tired or low in energy between the months of November and March. The little ones are no exception to this phenomenon and often need their nap to recuperate during the day.
If you already have a sleep debt, thetime change may affect us more. "A missing hour of sleep in a person who sleeps badly or not enough can be enough to create a more intense fatigue effect," says the specialist. Futile reason to complain? We do not know. But so that the change does not screw up our sleep cycle or intensifies our fatigue, we can opt for… naps! "We don't take enough naps! A lot of parents ask me when they should cut naps for their child, but we should all “nap”. Of course, they are shorter: 45 minutes for children aged 4 or 5. And for adults, a nap of about twenty minutes every day would do us the greatest good. Our body demands it. After dinner, our temperature drops, our vigilance too. A nap would be in order. But if this is not possible on a daily basis, taking a 1h30-2h nap on Sunday afternoon would eliminate the sleep debt accumulated during the week,” suggests Brigitte Langevin. His only contraindication? “We don't take a nap between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., otherwise we will interfere with our sleep at night and disrupt our sleep cycle. »
So, the prescription for the change to go well: on the Sunday afternoon after the time change, we all take a nap, maybe?
