jet lag - the good bits!

[mckenzie]

Some of you will remember my 'Help please!' post around christmas time when the DCs had woken up at 3am, 3.30am and then 4 am for the first 3 mornings of our Florida holiday.

Well, we got back last weekend and it has been brilliant! They were waking at 10/10.30am to start with. We have had a week of lie ins - it has been fantastic (we even overslept for our first day back at school - oops!). But this morning, it finished . DD woke at 7 and DS at 7.15am. I am so tempted to go back to Florida again though and suffer those three hideous mornings just so that we can have the 7 days of lie ins. I really think it has been more than a fair swap

Sorry to hijack your thread mckenzie, but am in DIRE need of some reassurance!!
We spent Christmas in NZ with my 5 and 1/2 mo DD. The first couple of nights we were there she was awake a few times, the third night she slept till 4, next night till 5, then till 6 and then was good the whole time.
We got back to the UK on thursday. Since then she's done a good sleep from 7pm till at least 10pm, but we seem to be in a rut of her waking around 2am and then only sleeping 40 minutes once we settle her. I'm sure it'll work through but I'm just so miserable with it - can anyone who's made it through the eye of the needle offer some words of comfort?
Pathetic I know, sorry! But glad to hear someone's had the good side of it

I can feel for you FenLondon but rest assured I think it will sort itself out. I took my two DCs to Australia at Easter and the jetlag when we got home was awful. And the youngest suffered the most. I had a 2am start to the first day back and then 3am etc. It did gradually get back to normal but a bit like this time (only of course this time it being good jet lag) it took about a week. Sorry if that is really not what you wanted to hear FenLondon. I used to get so much done though in those early mornings so at least I felt the early start hadn't been wasted. If your DC is just having lots of little naps though that isn't really going to be of any use to you huh?

mckenzie, that's exactly the kind of thing it's good to hear. I suppose last night she had three 30-40 minute nap periods where the internet could've been surfed

how are things now?

MUCH better thanks for asking. After the nights of waking every 40 minutes after 2am, we had a night where she lasted till 4:30, woke up again but we got her back to sleep, then next night was 4:30 but she stayed asleep till after 6;30, and then this morning she lasted by herself till 6:30. Alas, I was awake at 5, but I think now I know she's settling I might actually go to bed a bit later and that'll reset MY clock!

My take on the experience for anyone undertaking a similar trip : heading to a summer location with lots of socialising helps get everyone onto local time very quickly. Coming home to dark days it takes longer, but it's nice to do Tesco at 4 in the morning

glad to hear it's better now.