To not want to deal with 2DCs and jet lag on my own?

[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....

It depends on how important being away for Christmas is?

If not avoid the stress. Get DH to pin down his travel dates first though.

No YABU as everyone has their own amount of energy for any given situation.

It is really hard TYAGN. My husband and I took our 11 month old DD on holiday to a place that was 8 hours behind. She adapted within two days whilst on holiday. However, when we returned (two weeks later), she took a week to get back into her sleep patterns and was very grumpy. It was an exhausting week to be honest

Five hours shouldn't leave you with too much jetlag, it usually only kicks in when you cross more zones than that. And the 'rule' is that you then adjust to the new zone at a rate of 1hr per day. So if you were travelling to a zone 8hrs behind, you should be used to it after 3 days. I've always found that if I can get a good night's sleep the first night my body is then good-to-go.

The key is to put yourself into your new time zone straight away. No naps mid-afternoon, eat your meals at your new time, not the old one etc. I appreciate that's harder to do with a baby but ime, the travel itself is tiring so with a bit of luck they'll adjust pretty quickly. Have fun on your trip!

We did this with DS1 aged 19mths and expected the worst. He was totally fine, it was an 11 hour flight and he just slipped straight into the new routine on the first day of being there, no issues when he came back either. He has mild autistic tendencies so you can see why we expected trauma. It really was ok. Having said that, I'm not sure I'd fancy attempting it with them both..