Help / advice: how to cope with huge jetlag & travelling

[june2013]

I'm travelling to California in December with baby who will be 4months old. Baby is mad about routine, (not sure how this happened as I am not a routine person at all) so needs to be in bed by 7pm otherwise goes mental (uncontrollable crying and screaming). Flight is 11hours (we take off at 11am UK time and land 3pm local time, get another flight at 5.30pm local time and arrive around 8pm I think...) and time difference is 8 or 9hours. I breastfeed but that doesn't usually put baby to sleep. Baby is generally pretty easygoing otherwise...

Any advice from seasoned travellers or not, really welcome, in terms of coping with the trip, what to expect on arrival and how to make the best of 2 week holiday! Any advice for return home also welcome, though less anxious about that, if we have to stay at home and sleep weird hours for weeks that don't really matter...

In my experience young children cope a lot better with time differences and jetlag than you would expect. Mine has generally sorted herself out to local time after a day or so - We would put her to bed local time and wake her up in the morning local time, she needed a bit more sleep during the day to sort herself out but that was about it really.

Try to get a bulkhead seat with a bassinet to put the baby in to sleep. Get them changed into a sleepsuit and tuck them in with a blanket so they know it's bedtime rather than just sleeping on your knee in their normal clothes.

On the holiday just accept you won't do as much as you usually would in terms of sightseeing. We found with a baby/toddler half day trips worked well and instead of trips every day we would alternate them with lazy beach/pool days.