diff --git a/include/posix/time.h b/include/posix/time.h
index 78b9ea29f6a..a9bcf82a8d3 100644
--- a/include/posix/time.h
+++ b/include/posix/time.h
@@ -10,15 +10,29 @@
 extern "C" {
 #endif
 
-struct timespec {
-	signed int  tv_sec;
-	signed int  tv_nsec;
-};
 
+#ifndef __timespec_defined
+#define __timespec_defined
+struct timespec {
+	signed int tv_sec;
+	signed int tv_nsec;
+};
+#endif
+
+/* Older newlib's like 2.{0-2}.0 don't define any newlib version defines, only
+ * __NEWLIB_H__ so we use that to decide if itimerspec was defined in
+ * sys/types.h w/o any protection.  It appears sometime in the 2.3.0 version
+ * of newlib did itimerspec move out of sys/types.h, however version 2.3.0
+ * seems to report itself as __NEWLIB_MINOR__ == 2, where as 2.2.0 doesn't
+ * even define __NEWLIB_MINOR__ or __NEWLIB__
+ */
+#if !defined(__NEWLIB_H__) || (__NEWLIB__ >= 3) || \
+    (__NEWLIB__ == 2  && __NEWLIB_MINOR__ >= 2)
 struct itimerspec {
 	struct timespec it_interval;  /* Timer interval */
 	struct timespec it_value;     /* Timer expiration */
 };
+#endif
 
 struct timeval {
 	signed int  tv_sec;