How to deal with jet lag?

[jetsetbaby]

Ive had the most horrific day ever with DS, 6mo. Got back from hol on Sunday and he has been out of sorts ever since due to the 9hour time diff. He woke up at 2.30am this morn, managed to get him back to sleep 3.30-4.30 but then he was up for the day with a 2 hour sleep in the morning. I then spent the rest of the day trying to keep him awake until a reasonable bed time tonight which I managed to do til 5.30pm but it was awful, he just cried on and off all day and I felt so bad for not letting him just go to sleep. Have I done the right thing? Feel terrible!

Poor you. Bumping for you.

IME (although I've never travelled with a baby, I do a lot of international travel) the only way to cope with JL is to make yourself be in time zone. And the best way to do that is to be outside as much as possible during the day as the sunlight helps to tell your body that it is day

Could you not just give him little 3/4 of an hour power naps during the day.

IME travelling to a later time zone is worse for jetlag than travelling to an earlier time zone. Moving later I reckon you need to allow about a day per hour of time difference for children to get over it, and moving earlier perhaps half of that.

Agree with cmot -- getting outside in sunlight. Try to limit "off-schedule" naps but unrealistic to eliminate them altogether. And sleep when you can yourself so that you're in a better place to deal with jetlagged children (twenty past four this morning mine were up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning).