Dealing with DCs and jet lag on your own - would you try to avoid it??

[Thankyouandgoodnight]

We are travelling to a 5 hour behind time zone for christmas +/- an add on holiday for a week finances permitting.

DH has said that he needs to travel for work either the first or second week of January (but I'm not sure how fixed those dates are).

Friends have travelled with their little ones, the same age as ours (will be 2 and 5 months) and have said that it takes a week for them to get over the jet lag and that nights can be a bit of a nightmare during the process.

Do I just suck it up and deal with it while DH is away or should we try and go on hols before the christmas visit instead....

[angel1976]

Hi,

I travelled with my DS when he was 4 months (he's now 6) without DH and we are travelling again in 2 weeks, with DH this time. We travelled long haul (12.5 hours flight) with a 7-hour difference so a lot worse than what you will be doing! Going there was fine, it was a night flight, he slept mostly, we got there in the afternoon and he went to sleep that night fine. He didn't sleep that well the whole 3 weeks we were there but the weather was very different from here so that's understandable. Coming back was ok but the jet lag was bad (woke up first morning at 4.30am and refused to go back to sleep!). It took us quite a few weeks to get back to normal (but he was about 5 months then so lots of changes and no idea how much due to jet lag!). We are gong again in 2 weeks and to be honest, I would just suck it up. If you are worried about jet lag, you will never go anywhere! And it was okay to cope on my own but I only have 1... I just tried to go with the flow and get back into doing stuff during the day and try not to stress about it! GL!

Ax

[Acinonyx]

We took dd to the West Coast US (8 hours diff) when she was 22 months. It took 3 nights to get onto a normalish schedule but longer coming back. Very doable though. I would be less enthusiastic about the transit practicalities with a toddler on my own than the jet lag. Haven't done that on my own yet but I'm considering it (dd now 3). I know lots of people do - it's just whether we would actually choose to given the choice.