Media Release
April 3 2009
How to avoid sleepless nights with daylight savings gone
A
leading researcher into children’s sleep needs says the end to daylight
savings this Saturday doesn’t have to lead to sleepless nights for
worried parents.
“Society might run according to the clock on the wall, but our bodies
don’t,” said
Dr Sarah Blunden, Post Doctoral Research Fellow at
UniSA’s Centre for Sleep
Research.
“Our bodies run according to our internal body clock, which is a
combination of routine and hormones released during certain times of the
day.
“So even though this weekend we’ll be winding our clocks and watches
back an hour, our bodies will still be operating according to the
routines we’ve developed over months of daylight savings.”
Dr Blunden said generally adults adapt well to the change to and from
daylight savings, but for children, the transition isn’t always smooth
one.
“Just because we’re gaining an extra hour on the clock doesn’t mean we
can necessarily sleep for an extra hour,” Dr Blunden said.
“We’ve all heard someone say how the change to or from daylight saving
has really knocked them around, and that’s because for some people it
does.
“Something outside our normal patterns is telling us what to do and as a
result, we’re losing sleep. When we lose sleep we can have trouble
thinking, remembering and regulating our behaviour as our bodies try to
adapt to the change.
“Adults generally recognise this as part of the change to or from
daylight savings but children can’t.
“When children’s sleep patterns are disrupted, they can get tired and
that’s when we start to see children getting cranky and their behaviour
becoming a little more difficult to manage
“Getting kids to settle in to a new sleep pattern can be a real
nightmare for some parents, but there are some ways to make the
transition from daylight savings easier.”
Dr Blunden said parents should adjust their children’s bed times by
about ten to 15 minutes each night, over the space of about a week until
they’re going to bed at a regular time again.
“If during daylight savings you put your child to bed at 7pm, as of next
week that would be 6pm, so over the course of the week put them to bed
at 6.15, then 6.30 and so on until their bodies re-adjust to the time
difference,” she said.
“Parents needn’t be too worried about their children’s health during
this time, because they’ll be back in a routine before you know it.”
Media contact
- Jon Brooks office (08) 8302 0096 mobile 0415 921 657 email jon.brooks@unisa.edu.au