Long haul flight advice - Australia

[Upplaaah]

We are going to Oz soon and have two flight options, we are flying with DC1 (4.5) and DC2 (2yrs) so both will have a seat but it's a long flight (from London).

Option 1:

Day flight to Abu Dhabi stay over and all day next day
Night flight to Oz arrive at 6pm in Sydney

Option 2:

Day flight to Dubai, stay over
Fly next morning (10am) to Sydney arrive 6.30am Oz time

My thinking is that the day flight out will be short enough (7hrs) to keep them up and occupied, then arrive and sleep as normal (ish) and get up and then i don't know if it's best to fly in the day/evening (in our heads...) and arrive in the day so risk no one sleeping at all or to fly at night onwards to Oz and hopefully everyone sleeps but then arrives early evening. If we did that I guess we would just keep them up late on the arrival night and hope for the best.

We have chosen to do a stopover as I just can't imagine coping with DC2 (pretty active!!!) for 24hrs straight on a flight.

Anyone done this and have any advice?

I haven't done this yet but I will be in March! I've been told to arrive either at night Sydney time and not sleep on the Dubai/ Singapore leg (my flight will be from Singapore to Sydney ) to ensure I sleep in Sydney.. Or to to arrive Sydney time in the morning and sleep on the second flight (so Dubai/ Singapore to ensure I stay awake as much as I can when I get to Sydney. Hope that's not too confusing I would go for Option 2 on the basis that they could sleep on the second flight and in your stop over to ensure you are ready for Oz time. But then you may be more tired by Option 2 as its another day in Dubai? If you did option 1, you would be tired on the second flight but not enough to sleep when you land at night and go where you are saying. On that basis, I'd go for number 2 :) hope all goes well