Adjusting Baby to Time Zone Changes

[Tee2072]

so we are flying London to San Francisco for Christmas. DS will be 6.5 months old.

So when we land in SF it will be 10pm in his head, but only 2pm there.

So do I try to keep him up to his regular bedtime of 7:30, which will be 330am to him? Or do I just let him sleep when he can that first day/night and hope he adjusts?

Any tips? Ideas? Suggestions?

Anyone?

We flew to San Fran when dd1 was 8 months old. To be honest, I don't think there is much you can do. It was no where near as bad as I thought, baby adjusted fairly quickly. Set your own watches to the new time as soon as you get on the plane, and maybe try to delay his sleep a little at the other end so you are on the new time scale. Good luck!

Hi Tee

We flew from London to Boston (for a month-long trip) in September -- we found our DS (3mo at the time) took a few days but adjusted naturally to the new time zone. We didn't 'enforce' any sleep times just let him doze off when he wanted to ?

We also tried to get him exposed to daylight in the morning to get him used to the new time zone.

It was basically about ditching the routine for that whole trip though. Its all a bit of mayhem for the first week or so, but you muddle through with a vague idea of naps and feeding times besides routines are vv hard to enforce with family/friend visits, outings, etc much easier to forget about it all when you're travelling -- when you get back to the UK you can get back to regular times for everything!

HTH

I took DD to Australia when she was 3 months old, for 5 weeks. Each way I just let her sleep when tired. We had a couple of 2am parties, but it wasn't too bad.

We will be going to Oz again soon and DD will be 20 months. I think I will mostly go with the flow again - if she is really tired she needs to sleep otherwise she turns into a monster. However I will try to not let her sleep too long during the day and get her out in the sunshine. Hopefully that way she will be tired enough at night. I find the return to the UK is always hardest because it is so cold and dark all day!

So in your case, I would suggest that your DS might want a nap when you arrive, but then wake him up for a few hours and try to get him back to sleep when you go to bed.

Hope you have a good Christmas in SF.

We took our DS to New York last year - he had just turned one.

I'd agree with Kazookazoo's tip about daylight - you need to 'show' you baby what time of day it is.

Also agree you have to be prepared for a bit of mayhem - that hard-earned routine will be out the window for at least the first couple of nights of your holiday.

Try and do it in chunks, rather than going hardball on it. Start a few days before you go and shift his nighttime sleep back an hour or so in 30 minute-chunks. Half an hour early to bed etc.

When you get there try to edge them closer to the local time in hour or two hour chunks. This'll get easier after the first couple of days/daylight etc.

Other tips:

• Talk to your airline and make 100% sure you've got an air-cot booked!
• Remember you and your DH/DP will be jet-lagged too - try and take it in shifts to stay up with your baby. It's no good if baby is adjusted and you're both too tired to do anything!

Happy holidays!

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Thanks everyone. I am planning on not worrying about routine, and we are getting two hotel rooms so we can tag team the parenting!