How long will it take a 4/5 yr old to recover from jetlag?

[Grockle]

From the US to the UK?

DS will be starting Reception in September. I want to make sure he is back in some kind of routine and sleeping properly before he starts school.

Last year, he was still up all night, 3 weeks after we returned

Does anyone else have any experience of this?

From the West Coast, 1-2 weeks ime (have made lots of trips with children that age). There are lots of tricks you can do to help get them onto right time ... sorry, I am too tired to write them all out. But hopefully you can Google it.

It took my 4-year-old just the one night, but she hardly slept on the flight home (from Central time zone).

6-year-old just took the one night, too.

18-month old baby took two nights.

We got them home, bathed them and kept them up till 8, then put them to bed.

Wow, expat, that's impressive.

I know the tricks but it won't be me preparing DS so I cannot do them.

I didn't use Benedryl or Piriton or Medised on them.

Just went au naturel.

Ok. In which case, I think it may be other things that may have affected DS in the past, not just jetlag but also 3 weeks with his father, moving home etc. And this time, he'll be starting school.

I've never used medised/ Benadryl, despite being told to by many

(tis S u p e r B u n n y btw, we've chatted in the past)

We're just back from West Coast and my 4 year old DD is back into her routine now - took 3 days. I find making them have meals at the proper time and not letting them sleep in gets them more quickly back to their usual routine.

When we went to China (which was the same time difference) it was about 3 days as well.

I have been flying UK-Tokyo (12 hour flight, 8/9 hour time difference, depending on the time of year) with the DCs since they were babies, and it has never taken us more than 2 or 3 days to get back into a normal routine at either end. These days (aged 11 and 7) we go during a short school holiday and they are normally back at school within 48 hours of our return.

The best way I have found is not to bother trying to get them to adjust gradually - keep them awake until normal(ish) bedtimes from the first day, and spend as much time outside as possible - daylight helps you adjust. You may get a few broken nights and some rather grumpy children, but if you start letting them sleep during the day they will be up in the night for much longer.

I've never even thought about jet lag being a problem for my kids. So they get up a bit later for a day or two when they get home. What is the big deal with that?

I just put them into the normal routine of either place as much as possible.

Seems to work okay.

I made the mistake this year of letting mine sleep in as long as they wanted when we got home - so consequence was they were not at all ready for bed the following night! So following morning up at normal time and then normal bed time. A bit sleepy in mornings for a couple of days but not too bad. (East Coast US and kids 7 and 10)

"What's the big deal with that?"
Well... last time I came back with 4 DC, age nearly 2, 5, 8 & 10. I already had a broken arm and then came down with swine flu or something like it just before we returned. So could barely got off the sofa day or night. But DC were running a bit riot on odd hours, exhausting DH all day so he was trying to get some sleep at night, when I was had meant to supervise but I couldn't function at all because of the flu.

Meanwhile, the 2 youngest were fiddling around with sharp knives to cut their own bagels, that kind of thing.

They only broke a plate in the end... still, I am not travelling into remote timezones with them all for a very long time to come!

There would be no big deal with DS getting up a couple of hours later if that is what happened and I don't allow him to do that anyway. He already has sleep issues but when he is waking up at 3 am for 2 or 3 weeks and staying awake all day, it's not ideal. Especially when he's going to be starting school.

I DO think his issues are not just jetlag but I think it doesn't help.

Ragged, that sounds very scary!

But ragged, they are still wide awake for the same number of hours in the day, whether you are sick or not. It is just a slight shift of hours, which is pretty easy to overcome.

But it's not the same number of hours - I make DS get up and go to bed at the same time he usually would but his body clock still seems to make him wake at 2 or 3 for ages afterwards. Which means, he's getting 7 hours of sleep each night instead of his usual 10 - 11

That's not normal if you are moving from west to east.

UK to US it took DD aged 2 about 4 days of waking at 2/3/4am. And she returned almost immediately to normal once in UK again as we got a night flight and landed, but then the clocks changed by one hour a few days later and THAT screwed her for a week

You're right actually, it shouldn't work that way round. I think his sleep patterns are disturbed by all the other stuff and perhaps exacerbated by traveling. Who knows.

West coast canada to UK - 8 hour time difference. The big deal is exactly as Grockle describes. It messes up kids body clocks and they are wide awake in the middle of the night. This means they lose precious hours of sleep, which in turn means they don't function too well in the day. If a young child is starting school this is quite a big deal as they will be emotionally and physically all over the place through tiredness.