When to sleep on long haul flight?

[Dinoswearunderpants]

Hi all

Wondering how you'd play this flight. I appreciate it might not even go to plan but it's always good having a rough plan.

Flight to Orlando for son's 3rd birthday. We fly at 1420. He would usully nap 1300-1500 so flight right in nap time.

I'm thinking of not doing a nap in the airport as it would only be about an hour and 'skipping' nap all together in favour of trying to get him off to sleep around usually bed time.

Let him sleep for 2-3 hours then gently wake him up before we land. I may ot go to plan but does this sound reasonable or would you simply put in for a nap at airport?

He's generally a great sleeper so trying to do whatever I can to help him settle into the new time zone.

Honestly, your going to be firefighting this one! Go with him. If he falls asleep let him, you don't want an overtired toddler on the plane. We walked up and down the plane ALOT 😆 just get through it best you can. Keep telling yourself it will be over soon!

I really wouldn’t plan for it. I think flights are when you suspend all the usual rules and routine for screentime, snacks and naps. If he wants to nap at the airport, or falls asleep on the plane just let him. The last thing you want is an overtired child you’ve pushed past a nap or an angry upset mess that’s been woken up before he would naturally wake. Equally it’s not worth trying to force a DC to sleep when they don’t want to in an unnatural environment. The flight is what it is and if they’re quiet and happy then you’re winning parenting 🤣 so let them be.

Adjust bedtime when you get there based on how they’ve slept on the plane. Presuming you’ll arrive early evening so you can either do an early bedtime, or keep them up a bit as needed but their main sleep should be overnight which usually stops any jet lag. Maybe an early wake day 1 but then they’re adjusted and all good.

Or at least that’s how we do it and it always works! We lived in the US until our eldest was nearly 4 so did a fair few transatlantic flights with her.

Hope he has a good holiday! What a lucky boy to be getting a trip to Orlando!

Thanks so much for the replies.

We've flown long haul before but this was when he was on two naps so easier to navigate.

He's a pretty chilled flyer so I'm not too worried about him causing issues (famous last words maybe!).

He's one that would simply continue playing unless I say it's sleep time so I will need to be the one to decide when to go in for a nap.

I'm now wondering if it would be better to put him down for a nap shortly after we board and maybe that might work better.

Gotcha! As you know after take off it’ll be food service which can be pretty disruptive, and he also probably won’t want to miss his meal as it’ll be the only proper one all flight so if it were me I would suggest a nap after the meal service. Of course if he wants one before and is showing signs of tiredness then you let him sleep! But if he seems fine then I’d leave it until then. It also passes a decent chunk of the core flight and napping later is advantageous to getting him through to a reasonable bedtime on EST. So in short I’d suggest the nap either after the first meal service, or when he seems like he really needs it- whichever comes first!

That sounds like a good idea.

Thanks so much. We have lots of fun toys, snacks and activities to keep us entertained so hopefully it'll go well.