Iowans will need to switch all of their clocks ahead an hour this weekend as we shift back to Daylight Saving Time, and a pediatrician says if you have kids, start getting them prepared for the change tonight.
Pediatrician Dr. Casy Freymiller says one thing to try is something called bedtime fading.
“It’s the process of doing just short little 15-minute increments of going to bed earlier those few days before Daylight Saving,” Freymiller says, “so those little, small changes aren’t as the big of a change as the hour clock moving forward.”
While an hour may not seem like much, he says getting kids ready for the change in routine is crucial.
“Preparing for it and doing that in advance can go a long way,” Freymiller says. “Letting your child know that this is happening in advance, especially during the daylight, goes a long way. They don’t like surprises about bedtime at bedtime, and so definitely doing that earlier can be helpful.”
Studies find kids — and teens especially — are prone to the health impacts of getting less sleep.
“Sleep is very important. It has really quite a lot of benefits that we talk about. The things that I think about are improved mood and improved emotions and how to regulate them,” he says. “It helps us form our memories and learn things during our day-to-day school routine and helps us concentrate, helps us stay on task.”
New data from the CDC shows only 23% of high schoolers averaged at least eight hours of sleep per night in 2023. A decade earlier, that number was 32%.