I’m honored to be a member of the Pampers Baby Board, sharing my insights when it comes to baby’s comfort and ease of transition to Daylight Savings Time. Thanks Pampers! For more information, please visit www.Pampers.com or follow @Pampers on Twitter and Facebook or @PampersUS on Instagram.

When Liam was born, I remember our first Daylight Savings Time (DST) adjustment. As soon as we experienced it, I completely understood what my mother would jokingly say, “DST was invented by someone without children”. It took a good week to get Liam back on track with our schedule.

The most challenging part of it all, is that you have to make this one-hour adjustment twice a year, every year. Granted it gets a little easier as your children get bigger, but it still takes a few nights to get readjusted. This year, my husband and I have the challenge of getting all three (it’s so crazy that I have three children now!) children adjusted to DST. We have our two boys (Liam: 4, Hayden: 2) in the same room, which makes it a little easier to get them both adjusted at the same time. Then, we have Blaire (just two weeks old) who is still trying to figure out her little sleep schedule.

The one thing I’m not worrying about this Sunday is my baby’s diaper.

I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights Liam had when he was a baby while we were trying to find the right diaper for him. He would wake up many nights having leaked through his diaper. Once we switched to Pampers diapers with their 12-hour overnight protection, our children began having much better rest. We already have enough to worry about with the sleep disruptions that DST causes to our children’s sleep patterns, using Pampers will help to minimize any unnecessary sleep disruptions due to wetness. I had no idea until I did some reading, but babies end up peeing on average 3-4 times at night. That’s a lot of pee that that diaper needs to bring away from their tush!

All three of my children are still in either training underwear or diapers during the night. Liam uses the Pampers Easy Ups, while Hayden and Blaire are in Pampers Baby Dry diapers at night.

Overnight Protection Features:

• The 3 Absorbing Channels include:
  • Absorption Layer – Sit above the top sheet of the diaper, attracts wetness and pulls liquid away.
  • Distribution Layer – Locks in and distributes the wetness into the super absorbent core, which tightly stores the liquid.
  • Super Absorbent Core – Made of super absorbent polymers (SAPs), often called absorbent gelling material, the absorbent core absorbs and locks away liquid to help prevent rewetting. SAPs also help prevent redness and irritation by reducing skin wetness.
• Pampers diapers are specially designed with blanket-like softness to maximize comfort while keeping baby dry overnight.
• 12-hour protection

Pampers Gives You an Hour Back: Helping Your New Little One Through Their First Daylight Savings Time

Pampers has partnered with licensed clinical social worker and sleep specialist, Kim West “The Sleep Lady”, to provide insights regarding the effects of DST on baby, and how keeping a consistent sleep routine, including an absorbent diaper, can help baby navigate the change with minimal effect. For baby’s first DST, Kim West suggests implementing the following adjustments into their sleep schedules:

• Slowly Shift Bedtime: Slowly begin shifting bedtime for baby the week prior to DST in 10 to 15 minute increments. This tactic helps baby adjust in advance to the time change for an easier transition.
• Dramatic Wake Up: If prior to DST baby is having trouble waking up in the mornings, try using Dramatic Wake Up (ex. opening of blinds, a good morning song) to help establish the difference between morning and night. Implement Dramatic Wake Up during DST to help baby adjust to their new wake up time and help baby’s internal clock once they have associated your method of choice with starting the day.
• Increase Naps: So baby isn’t exhausted before bedtime, begin scheduling restorative naps. Making naps a priority will help baby reach their bedtime without being overly tired.

Sleep is so important to our children’s health and development. Anything that we can help do to make the transition to DST a little smoother sounds good to me! In studies, allowing our children good sleep leads to positive moods, sociability and better physical and cognitive development.

What I’ve Learned.

If I’ve learned anything over the past 4.5 years to get my children through DST, it’s to be flexible and start slow. Go ahead and think through how you’re going to help your children get adjusted to the time change. Then, take it one day at a time before the time “Springs forward” or “Falls Back”. Slowly move everything in your children’s schedule back or forward by 10-20 minutes per day until the DST transition happens and everyone will be back on their “regular schedule”!

This weekend, we’ll be “Springing Forward”, so today’s 7pm bedtime will become 8pm next week. So, spend this week moving bedtime back to 6pm so by the time you make it to Sunday, your children will be back on their 7pm bedtime schedule.

DST can be challenging for all families, especially those with little ones who are getting baby adjusted to a consistent sleep schedule. I know I’ll be taking this week to transition my children, especially little Blaire, to DST on Saturday. I’m glad I can be rested assured that they will all have dry bottoms and stay asleep thanks to Pampers so we can focus on making the transition to the time difference.

Giveaway

Enter to win TEN $5 off Pampers Baby Dry coupons simply by repinning one of the pins from my baby sleep board onto one of your own boards. Easy peasy!

UPDATE: Winner is Bridget.

This post was created in partnership with Pampers. I was compensated for this post. All opinions are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for further information.