Certain milestones in life are full of magic and wonder. Your first Christmas snow, driving through a vacant parking lot in your parent’s Volvo, and the day your baby finally starts sleeping on a somewhat consistent schedule. It’s no secret that society is obsessed with all things baby sleep; why they don’t sleep, how to make them sleep, what to buy to make them sleep and when to start freaking out about them not sleeping. And although sleep is developmental and babies are born without an established circadian rhythm, let’s be real, the first time they sleep through the night is some unicorn-level fairytale type stuff that makes Santa seem like a regular Joe with a job.

So, needless to say, when you finally have your baby on a sleep schedule, it’s a big deal. You know when to put them down, and have a good idea of when they will likely rise. You start planning meals, showers, housework, and, most importantly, your own sleep schedule around your baby’s newfound slumber. And then something happens. Just as spring arrives and you’re busy celebrating the new season, March 8th rears its ugly head, and the clocks get set forward an hour. Which, in retrospect, shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Except, of course, it is.

I mean, here I am, in my 30 years of earth inhabiting glory, and daylight-savings time still manages to screw me bi-annually. For the weeks following the “falling back” or “springing forward” of our clocks, I quickly become a shell of my once relatively well-rested self. It’s incredible how much one measly hour can throw off our mojo. So if daylight savings does all that to me, what the heck is it doing to my baby?

Bad news, friends, but daylight savings is a sensation felt by babies just as much as it is adults. And for even more bad news, if you wish to attempt to combat it, you should’ve started preparing at least 30 days ago. Whoops. According to an interview with CNN, Lee Atkinson-McEvoy, a professor of pediatrics, says that gradually moving your baby’s sleep schedule in 15-minute intervals over the course of a month is the best way to get them assimilated with the new artificial time zone. By gradually adjusting their schedule, you can help ensure that they aren’t too thrown off by the sudden shift in sunrises and sunsets.

But if you’re anything like me and missed the sleep-management memo, you’re probably just going to wing it. So here is my plan of attack: demonstrate patience when the sun is still shining at 8 pm. Be willing to go with the flow when the tiny person challenges her sleep cues. Curse the clock-gods who bestowed this unnecessary evil upon us. Then eat an entire pint of ice cream once she finally knocks out on the kitchen floor. It might not be the best plan, it might not even be a good plan, but at least it ends with me eating a tub of ice cream. So cheers to us, mama. May we survive, may we prosper, and may it always be double-chocolate fudge.