British Summer Time officially ends at 2 am on Sunday 25 October 2026. With it come brighter mornings and darker evenings as the clocks ‘fall back’.
For the date and what the change means for adults, see when do the clocks go back?
Essentially, the clocks going back gives us an extra hour as we sleep on Saturday night. Not such a bad thing if you are living on your own and fancy an extra hour in bed on Sunday morning.
However, for families with babies and toddlers, an hour’s adjustment to their carefully planned routines is not as easy to manage.
For young children too, an hour change in sleep and mealtimes is a big step to take in one go.
With families in mind, I have created my simple three-step ‘clock change plan’
1. Baby steps are best
The body clock adjusts gradually, so small daily steps are easier for young children than one big jump. This is also why sleep specialists stress keeping sleep and wake times as consistent as possible. Whilst the adult body clock can adjust by up to one hour if needed, babies and small toddlers are much more sensitive to change.
If you have a baby or a pre-school toddler, I recommend tweaking the nap and bed times by 10 minutes each day. This means you gently move them later, towards the eventual change on Sunday 25 October. The first step, for example, would take a 7 p.m. bedtime to 7.10 p.m.
Ideally, this adjustment would be in 6 small baby steps. To be in line with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) by Sunday 25 October, you would start on Monday 19 October.
If you miss these start times and have fewer days to play with, change the length of the steps accordingly. For example, if you have four days, split the hour down into fifteen-minute steps. Smaller steps still help if you run out of time, and there’s no need to keep a tired child awake just to stick to the plan.
If your child is at school or nursery, the change of schedule will need to wait until the weekend. Start their change on Friday 23 October, moving their bedtime and bedtime routine 30 minutes later on Friday night and again on Saturday night, so that on Sunday morning they are in sync with the new time.
This starts on Friday, so no sleep is lost before a school or nursery day.
Adjusting nap times at home should also be done in the same baby steps. If your child has a nap at nursery school you could also encourage them to change their Friday nap time.
The aim of all of this is to make sure you have as easy a week as possible. But more importantly, you start work on Monday morning with a minimum of stress.
Equally, toddlers who are asked to stay in bed for the extra hour often don’t understand why things have changed so suddenly so using smaller steps smooths the way here.
2. Move mealtimes too
Mealtimes are a key part of our daily routine. They also help to set our body clock. As you move bedtime routines and sleep times later, adjust all your baby’s and toddler’s meal times, bath time and nap times by the same amount of time too.
3. Explain what’s going on
Whilst most children will welcome the extra time with you at night, it’s always best to tell them what is going on and why you are tweaking their meal and sleep times.
Ideally, toddlers who are asked to spend time in bed in the morning should understand why they are being asked to do this.
I like using a sleep-trainer clock that shows a moon and a sun to explain what’s going on. The fun here is that your child is asked to stay in bed when the moon is out and to get up with the sun. This makes far more sense to them than GMT.
Finally, if your child still wakes an hour early on Sunday 25 October, try not to worry. Your child or baby will soon adjust to the new routine.
Your main challenge here, however, is that your toddler may well stop you from having your extra hour in bed!
I’ve also discussed how children are affected by the clock change with HuffPost UK.
I hope these tips help
