What to do with small children and jet lag?
We're traveling from the west coast to the east coast for a week and are finding ourselves, on day 2, with kids going to sleep at 9 and 10 rather than their usual 7 and 8.
Any suggestions for kids and jet lag? Try and move them earlier or don't even bother for a week (so as not to deal with trying to move them back later)?
3 Answers
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Whenever we visit the in-laws in Atlanta, we don't even bother with trying to adjust their time. It makes coming back that much easier because you don't have to adjust their clocks twice.
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As a frequent traveller, mostly overseas, I learned that sunlight and sleep ( whenever and as much as possible ) is the best way of getting rid of jetlag. With a 9 hour time difference it takes about 4 days, then it's back to normal. It goes faster with less time difference of course but my advice is to " go with it " and minimize the effort.Less worrying, better vacation:) And if they wake up in the middle of the night or really early - make sure that they undetstand that it's really boring beeing up at that time;)
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Another advantage of keeping kids on west coast time when visiting east coast is that you can actually drag them out to dinner with you. When we were on vacation recently with a 2 hour time difference, our daughter's normal 6:30 bedtime translated to 8:30pm, so were actually able to all go out and enjoy a meal at a restaurant in town. Otherwise it would suck to be on vacation and stuck in your hotel room (or wherever) at 6:30pm just twiddling your thumbs while kids sleep.
