Most people with kids don’t like the time change.  I am included in that because it throws off kid’s schedules and takes a few days for them to adjust.  There is another reason, though, that I don’t like the time change.  Time change in our house can mean more breakthrough seizures.

When it comes to epilepsy, time change can be a really bad thing if it isn’t handled right.  This is because, if someone with epilepsy has a sleep disruption, it can cause more seizures.  In adults who know, they can adjust by making sure they still get the right amount of sleep each night.  In children, however, it can be a major issue.  Kids will do everything they can to fight sleep the first few nights of time change.  Their bodies are on one schedule, while the time is on a different schedule.

However, for parents with epileptic children, there are things they can do to help make the time transition easier.  If you know that with the time change, 7 AM means that it’s actually 6 AM, you can start a transition.  We work over a couple months with 15 minute increments.  So the first night, we will have her in bed by 8 pm but we won’t do lights out until 8:30 where it’s usually 8:15.  Then the next week we will have her in bed by 8:15 and lights out still at 8:30.  The next week we wait till 8:45 for lights out.  Eventually we have her in bed by 9 and lights out by 9:30 which the next week will be 8:30.  Waking up, we just let her body adjust on it’s own, so she may be waking up at 5:30 for about a month before she goes back to waking up at 6:30.  As long as we feel she’s getting enough sleep, we don’t worry too much about her waking schedule, because it does eventually even out.

We have a much bigger issue though in the spring when the time change means you actually loose an hour.  This is when an adjusted sleep schedule is more important.  We have to have her in bed by 7:30 so that when the time changes, she’s still getting the right number of hours sleep.  If her sleep schedule looses a full hour, she will have seizures.  so using the same technique, we just have her in bed earlier and earlier until her body adjusts to the loss of an hour.  The week before the time change we have to have her in bed by 7 pm and alseep by 7:30.  It is so much easier to do with kids who can not tell time.  But you have to stress the importance of this to kids who can tell time as well.

So with epileptic children, it is important to start a sleep transition about 2 months before a time change is made so that their bodies are better able to adjust to the time change and can hopefully avoid seziures due to lack of sleep.