Help Children Transition Into the End of Daylight Saving Time with PAJANIMALS - Reader Giveaway

We are rapidly nearing the end of daylight saving time on November 4.  Even though it is only one hour difference, it can cause some difficulty during the transition.   That’s where THE PAJANIMALS can help.

PAJANIMALS features four loveablepuppets -- Cowbella, Apollo, Sweetpea Sue and Squacky -- that have become so popular with children and parents alike, their own television series airs nightly on 24-hour preschool television channel Sprout ® during it’s The Good Night Show and now also airs on NBC on Saturday mornings as part of the NBC Kids programming block.

The series follows this adorable quartet as they take young viewers on exciting imaginary adventures. With music and new friends in every story, PAJANIMALS teaches the skills that preschoolers need to move through their days successfully, especially getting ready for and going to bed.

To help transition your child through the time change, the PAJANIMALS’ sleep time experts, Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack from Sleepy Planet, offer these four simple steps:

Step One: It’s the Clocks! On Saturday, November 3, put your children to sleep at their normal bedtime. If it’s typically 7:30 p.m., stick with that. Then before you go to sleep, move every clock in your house back one hour.

Step Two: Early Wake Up – Your child will most likely wake up at the normal time, only you and your clock know it’s an hour earlier. No easy work-arounds here, so you’ll just have to take one for the team and get up early with the kids. It’s not realistic to ask them to stay in bed an extra hour so forget about going back to sleep.

Step Three: Stick to the Schedule – As difficult as it may seem, stay with your regular schedule. If you normally serve lunch at noon, then eat at noon. Your child will likely be ready to eat earlier, at 11am, but a midmorning snack will help stave off hunger. And the same goes for naptime. Keep your child busy until it’s time to nap, even if they start to slow down an hour earlier.

Step Four: Keep ‘em up - Bedtime should be at 7:30 p.m. as usual (or whatever time it is in your home), eventhough your child may feel sleepy earlier. They may be cranky and tired, but do your best to go by the time on the clock. And hopefully their little internal body clocks are adjusting to the time difference without them even knowing it.

It may take a couple of nights, but if you try to continue with your routine as usual, you and your child should be enjoying regular sleep patterns in no time at all.

Another valuable tool that might help at bedtime is to offer a transitional object and a brief cuddle before leaving the room. In childhood development, a transitional object is something, usually a physical object, which takes the place of the mother-child bond. The transitional object enables the child to have a fantasized bond with the mother when she separates for increasingly longer periods of time, such as in the evening. This transitional object serves as an important defense against fear and anxiety.

To thwart your child’s worries about going to sleep alone, try using a transitional object, such as a small stuffed animal, starting around the age of one. While what the child ends up choosing is up to him or her, recognizable objects can help provide a high level of comfort.

With a suggested retail price of $29.99, the PANJANIMALS’ Snuggle Up Story Mat is a wonderful way to help your child transition from playtime to nap time.  It features all of the lovable PAJANIMALScharacters and includes a soft book that also transforms into a pillow.

For more PAJANIMALS fun, you can check out the recently released PAJANIMALS “Light in the Sky” app, priced at $4.99. Available from the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the “Light in the Sky” app allows your children to play and sing along with this fully 3D, highly interactive episode based on the actual THE PAJANIMALS show. The PAJANIMALS “Light in the Sky” allows youngsters to blast off in a rocket ship to visit the moon, set off fireworks and shooting stars in the night sky, play kickball with the PAJANIMALS, make their own melodies with musical stars and clouds; tickle the PAJANIMALS to make them laugh; and match the PAJANIMALS with their favorite toys. And of course they can help the PAJANIMALS “stick to the plan” by brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed. Other features include the ability to turn subtitles on to read along with the story, and you can even gift the app to a friend from within the app.

Reader Giveaway:  One lucky Jinxy Kids reader will win a  PANJANIMALS’ Snuggle Up Story Mat.  To enter, just complete the entry form below by 11:59pm ET on 11/4/12.  Good luck!

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