Help with baby jet lag

[makingitup]

Hi everyone, My husband was offered a job in Singapore so we decided to move from the UK and live here for a couple of years. We flew out on Saturday night and my husband starts his job on Monday. Our LO is almost one and has had a terrible cold and really suffered on the night flight, probably only managing about 2 hrs sleep so effectively missed a night's sleep. The first night we were here he crashed out and slept well and we thought 'great'. But after last night it's clear that his body clock is still on the UK and wanted to play all night long... He was on a great routine in the UK and apart from teething, illness etc did really well with it. I'm basically looking for any advice out there on how to deal with jet lag with babies... - is a softly softly approach best and gradual move into the new time zone or a short sharp shock best? Also, I'll be flying back in August on my own with LO for a brief trip for a wedding which feels terrifying at the moment, do people have any tips on how best to fly with a LO and generally prepare them for the flight as well as the change in time zone? Thanking you very much!

[TanteRose]

yup, coming over to the East from the UK is awful - it took my DCs well over a week to get over the jet lag when they were smaller(they say one day for every hour of time difference).

try and get out in the sunlight during they day as much as possible...and keep things subdued at night. You'll get there!

[savoycabbage]

We have done the flight between the UK and Australia a few times and none of us have ever had real proper jet-lag until this last time. We were upside down for about a week and still not quite right for another week after that.

[papooshka]

Jetlag is crap with small kids, we regularly travel between Singapore and London, and I really don't think there is anything you can do to prepare for it, you just have to deal with it!

They say it takes 1 day for every hour of time difference, which for us usually makes sense as it takes the kids a week to get back to normal and Singapore is generally 7 hours ahead of UK.

What I do, when we get back to Sing is try to keep them up as late as possible, I find if I put them to bed at 7pm when it is still only midday in the UK, they will wake up by midnight and then its crap all round, but if I put them to bed at midnight, then they generally sleep through. Then I put them to bed an hour earlier every night, so 11, then 10 etc etc. Also in the morning they will generally sleep till late so I wake them up earlier and earlier every day.

[anonymosity]

We had a 1 yr old and a 2 yr old when we moved from the UK to the US. It took about 3 wks for them to stop waking in the night completely. I made sure they had food and drinks in the day and would only provide water at night (as at home). Just before bed they'd have a banana and a big cup of milk, to tide them over. To be honest, it took me longer to fully adapt to the time zone change. Maybe 2-3 months. Tragic.