Parents are being urged to start adjusting their children's bedtime by 15 minutes from Wednesday to prevent them waking an hour earlier when the clocks go back this Sunday, October 25.
As the UK switches from British Summer Time (BST) to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), early risers could wake a full hour earlier unless action is taken in advance. The change means clocks move from 2am to 1am on the last Sunday of October, bringing brighter mornings and earlier sunsets.
Mum's Four-Night Trick
Emma-Jane, a mum-of-two, shared her strict 15-minute rule in an Instagram post with her 101,000 followers. She warned: "If your kids are waking up at 6am now, it's about to be 5am."
Her four-night plan starts on Wednesday, shifting bedtime by 15 minutes each night. With her children currently sleeping from 7pm for 12 hours, their new bedtime would be 7:15pm on Wednesday, reaching 8pm by Saturday, ready for Sunday's change.
Keep Routine and Use Daylight
Emma-Jane also advised tweaking meal times to match the new schedule. She said: "Step two sounds obvious but it's the bit that actually makes it work, keep your routine exactly the same, whatever you usually do, stick to it. Now this is where we mess up – Sunday morning."
She added: "Now they wake up early, do not rush in, keep it dark, keep it calm, blackout blinds are holding my family together at the moment." Her final tip is to get children outside in natural daylight, which she says resets their body clock "faster than anything".
She concluded: "Save this for the 25th and send this to a mum who's already dreading it. And if it doesn't work just remember that extra hour of sleep wasn't for us anyway."
The clocks went forward on March 29, and the return to GMT on Sunday marks the end of Daylight Saving Time in the UK.
