Young Children and Jetlag..?

[brightspark]

Hi there,
If you have young children how do you cope with jetlag? Last time Ds1 was 3 and he woke at 1am on the first morning thinking that it was time to get up.. that was a very long day! He will potentially go back to sleep this time... he's 5 now, and he's better at playing quietly whilst letting the rest of us sleep. But now we have a baby too.. how do you go about trying to reset their body clocks?

We found that he was so tired he was dropping off to sleep again not long after we got to the parks which will make things more difficult when we are only planning to be in the parks in the mornings, then rest after lunch, swim in the late afternoon. we would dearly like to go back out for fireworks but have failed to do this since having Ds1. How do you all manage?

Any advice, or ideas of things we can do in the hotel before the parks open in the mornings, greatly appreciated...

Thank you

 

[dabootie]

The real trick is keeping the little one awake as long as possible on your arrival day. I know kids are knackered after the long flight but keeping them up and taking them out and about in the early evening is the key. It helps if you are arriving in Florida when the evenings are still quite bright, the idea is that you have to fool their body clock by keeping them up as late as you can before letting them sleep for the night.

Never mind kids finding it difficult, I used to live in California for a while and found that because of the time difference when I flew over there from the UK I would arrive a couple of hours after I had left the UK. I used to be completely spaced out after spending up to 11 hours on a plane and then still having half a day to get through before bed time! Thats how I learned the daylight trick...mess with your body clock by staying out in the light as much as you can before settling down for the evening.

 

[khibs]

We recently took our DD4 and DS 10 months old. When we arrived we tried to keep them up a little then put them to bed about 9pm. My DD was fine this time and woke about 7am everyday our little boy would wake between 4 & 5am wanting his milk as he thought it was morning but once we gave him his milk he would drift back to sleep on his bottle. After 3/4 days he also adjusted to getting up about 7am. We did what you plan to do go to parks early and come back for afternoon nap/ pool time then back out. Everyone we have been we have got our daughter into a routine of sleeping for an hour or two in the afternoon to catch up on her sleep then generally she can stay up a little later. I fight the jet lag worse for them once we get home!

 

[Elise79]

Like the PP we keep DD up and out on arrival day. We never let her go to sleep before her usual bedtime of 8pm.

We find we are all awake around 5am but we just get up showered and dressed ready for an early breakfast. This usually means we need to leave by 7am so it's not that bad.

We always manage the fireworks but not usually until a few days in. The first few nights she usually only lasts till about 9 but after a week she can stay up till 11. It's a bit more difficult now she is 5 as she doesn't want to nap in the afternoon but we still saw Wishes, Illuminations and Fantasmic last month.

 

[brightspark]

Thanks everyone

I wonder what time our flight will be? I don't remember ever letting Ds1 go to bed early... He's waking before 6am here every day at the moment, so no idea what will happen out there... although the room will stay darker so that might help. The baby wakes for milk and then is good at going back to bed. I remember when Ds1 was 18 months he fell asleep on the bus on the way TO the park one day (at 8am!) and then fell asleep on the safari thing in Africa... (how could he do that it was so bumpy!?)

Hope we can work things out better this time!

Hope the jetlag on return isn't too bad for him.. he has to go back to school 3 days later !!!

Thanks

 

[london75]

We find it's always 3 or 4 days before the day feels normal.

This year we're trying a little experiment. As it's summer holidays and they're a little older (7 & 5) and we fly on a Monday, we're going to start staying up later and later from Friday so 11pm Friday, 12am Saturday and as late as possible on Sunday. This should start them shifting into the right time zone and the added benefit they may well sleep on the 'plane on Monday! They have already shifted into summer holiday time zone which is sleeping until 9am and going to bed quite late 9/10pm.

It's never going to work but I think it might help us all a little. If it can at least stop that first morning 2am with my eldest asking what can she do now, how long until the parks open, can she have some breakfast etc etc.

Oh and don't worry about school, due to a last minute notice from Daisy's new school, she has to go for an hour in full uniform the day we get back! She then starts properly the following day. She'll be fine though, she's the one that doesn't sleep.

 

[scoobydooby]

We have booked the 1.45pm Manchester flight this year so it will pretty much be time for bed after we arrive and get unpacked and eat.

Routinely everyone is awake 4 to 5 am the first day and the kids hit the wall after lunch. Now they are older they will swim instead of sleep but still want to leave the park. Last trip by day 2 they were fine.

When they were younger we did a lot of 9pm bedtimes. Very few evenings in the parks. I have more planned this trip as they are 11 and 14 now.

We find jet lag on the way back the real killer. I have to give them a week to recover before school starts. It's one reason we dumped Christmas and Easter for August.

 

[Elise79]

Another who wouldn't worry about school. In April we landed Saturday and Chloe was back in school on Monday. She did have Tuesday off as she had picked up a bug I am assuming on the plane home

This time we landed Sunday - DH & I went back to work Monday which meant DD had to be up to go to child care and she was fine. She's been better than DH this time at getting over the jet lag

 

[Squidgyness]

It's weird, but I always found jetlag to be bad if you were very young (my mother has a few stories on that one) then get better when you get a little older and then get bad again. I was a lot better on my 2003 trip than 2009. Strange.

And yes, he will be fine at school I think. When I went at 5, I had to be back a few days later and I managed. The hardest was actually 03, I had precisely 16 hours in which to adjust! I slept for 14 of those, and managed to get there in the end.

I think it's more the long flight sometimes, it tires you out and depending on when you land, that can really mess with your sleep schedule too. (Night flights are my kryptonite. No sleep at all makes me craaaanky.)

 

[Crickey]

Drink Water on the Flight helps combat Jet Lag . Give it to the little ones aswell

Also when we arrive at Hotel we always go for a evening Swim and stay up till about 10ish and wake up just right for early start for MK

 

[Wills Mom]

On our May trip DS was just 15 months old and he adjusted remarkably well. Let him sleep as much as he wanted on the flight, which was 2 hours total (an hour at take off and an hour later in the flight) He slept in the car from the airport to the villa but woke when we got there. We went to Walmart for some groceries and brought him, he was dead on his feet but somehow kept going. He was in bed around 10pm, woke at 4am I think and I gave him a bath and we played for a while and then I asked him if he wanted to go back asleep with a bottle of milk around 6am and he did so then he slept til 9am. Napped as usual that day and that night slept through from 8pm to 7am and continued to sleep well for the duration. Also when we got home he adjusted so well, slept only 9 hours the first night we got home and the next night he slept 15 hours straight and after that he was back to normal!