Jet Lag & Toddlers

For some reason jet lag seems to be hitting DD hard this time around. Last year when we travelled she was 6 months and the time changes didn't seem to bother her. This time is a different story. She's 18 months now.

We got home on Saturday evening, she went to bed around 7.45pm and then slept until midnight, when she woke and decided it was time to play. So I just got her up (so DH could sleep) and then just waited her out until about 1.30am and then she went back to sleep at 1.45am until just after 7am. And then she had a nap from 11.30 to 1pm on Sunday.

Sunday night she went to bed at 7 and then woke up at 11pm, was up until 2.30 when she finally fell asleep. This time I didn't let her play she was either being rocked by DH or myself. Consequently DH went to bed at 1am and I didn't make it to bed until 4am due to having to wait until my cold meds kicked in. DD woke up at 9.30 the next day and didn't nap on Monday.

Monday night she went to bed at 7pm again, and then woke up at 10pm. Same thing DH or I trying to get her back to sleep which finally happened at 1.45am. DH went to bed after she fell asleep and I was up until 3 again waiting for my cold meds to kick in. DD woke up at 8.30 this morning. She had a nap at 11 for 2 hours.

Tonight! she went to bed at 7pm and just woke up at 9.30. DH is trying to get her back to sleep but I have the feeling it's not going to be successful until around 12.45 if the current pattern holds true.

We've been trying keeping her daytime routine the same as before we left on holiday: Nap from 11-12.30/1pmish (with the exception of Monday because she slept so late) and to bed by 7pm. I'm hoping this will just resolve itself but I'm also afraid that it's becoming a habit for her at this point.

Thoughts, Ideas or Suggestions?

Do you think keeping her up a little bit later will help her to sleep through the night because she will be more tired?  Not sure if that will work but it's a suggestion.  If it does work then you can move her bedtime back up to 7pm and hopefully she will sleep through the night without waking up.

Yep, tough it out! Sorry. That's all you can do. Just do your best to keep her daytime routine the same and also get her good and tired (lots of play) during normal hours. It's only been 3 days! It took a month for my kids to adjust to the clocks going back so I'd give her at least a week.

Thanks b! & Shrubs...

Ironically the munchkin did a funny thing with the time change. For some reason she wouldn't go down at 7 and would fight until 9pm ish. So we finally gave up and decided to push bedtime back to 8pm knowing that once the time change happend she'd be back at 7pm again! It worked like a charm!

Right now DH has put her back into her cot and is just letting her settle herself back down again (after 2 squishy nappy changes  ) and we'll see. I've never been a fan of controlled crying but we might have to resort to it if necessary. It's gone quiet in there now and I'm just trying to keep myself busy so I don't pop my head in and disturb her further.

Thanks for the support ladies, it's good to have your 'been there' wisdom as a first time around-er mom.

Yeah, that sounds like our son, who was 19 months when we flew US-UK in October. The first night he was up late, but then slept till 10. The next night same, by the 3rd night he was back to normalish. I think you have to just wait it out!!

My kids always took three days for everything to get back to normal - sleeping, eating and um, pooping.  It's hard though when you're feeling like crap yourself.

Well last night was a bit of an improvement. Each night she seems to be shifting back an hour and we managed to get her back to bed at 12.45am after being up since 9.30pm...She was up at 8.30 this morning.

If she holds that pattern tonight she'll wake up around 8-9ish and then back to bed around 11.45.   Maybe not as I plan on keeping her pretty busy today. I think we're going to head into Derby City Centre today and check out Santa's times and have a play in the children's centre while I have a Toffee Nut Latte!

Dunno, we'll see. I'm just glad that I'm starting to feel more human and my cold seems to be going away. Though my head is really stuffy still but I'll be ok...I ended up with about 7.5 hours of sleep last night.

Thanks for your experiences, suggestions and support. I really appreciate it.

I don't know if you could call the last 2 nights progress or not:

She's not awke during the night for the 3 hour faff about, however she has started randomly crying and wimpering in her sleep. Which lasted last night from 11pm to 4am and the night before from 10.30 to 2am. She's not awake when this happens, but I am, I just lay awake in bed waiting for it...and today she woke up at 5.30am.

I hope it's progress and tonight she'll actually sleep soundly because I don't know how much more of it I can take. I survived yesterday on 4 hours sleep (5am till 9am) and I'm running on 1.5 hours today. With all the other crap that happened on our holiday and the fact that I feel so much more exhausted and stressed now than before we left and DH in a funk about having to come back to England, I really wish that we had never gone in the first place. 

Sorry Webster. That sucks. I guess you may have to just ride it out, though I know that's hard when you are sick, and it isn't going to help you get well. Just try to keep her up a bit later, and don't get up as soon as she starts crying. We have found with DSS that if you don't get up when he starts crying, most of the time he goes back to sleep without us having to get up. If he continues to cry for more than 5  - 10 minutes, or sounds particularly upset or anything, then we get up with him and just tuck him back in. We don't let him get out of bed, though, we just get him some more milk or whatever, and tuck him back in and tell him it isn't time to get up yet. I don't know when DH started doing it that way, but we have done it that way since I moved here, which was just after his second birthday. Usually it works pretty well, but I haven't had to deal with jet lag. I feel for you!