If you're keen to preserve your evenings, or you're a working parent and depend on the predictability of your child's daily routine, it's a good idea to actively help them adjust to the clock change, otherwise they may miss out on overnight sleep or you may find that sleep challenges occur when you try to put them to bed too early.

You could start adjusting their body clock a day or two before, or just on the day of the clocks going forward, by around 15 minutes. Over a period of around 4 days, the idea is to start each day gradually earlier, or reduce daytime sleep, so that bedtime can come forwards incrementally. 

If your child is on an earlier bedtime pre-7pm or you'd like to shift their sleep-to-wake cycle a little later permanently, go with the clock change and only adjust as needed. 

If your child generally sleeps from 7pm to 6-7am, for example, make sure they are awake by 6.45am on the Friday or Saturday morning, or 7.45am on the Sunday, or reduce one of their daytime naps by 15 minutes. Adjust all timings for the day and then you can try an earlier bedtime of around 6.45pm on the Friday or Saturday night, or 7.45pm on Sunday evening.

If your child wakes earlier anyway during this period, or you usually cope with early starts and play catch-up with naps and the day to help them through to bedtime, then just adjust all timings for the day a little earlier accordingly. The key is to shift everything in the daily routine, including feeds, meals, naps and the bedtime sequence, as well as get some early broad spectrum daylight exposure.