Keep Baby on Home Time Zone When Traveling to East Coast
Don't Wake Up, Piffling Susie
How to handle your kids' jet lag when you're on "vacation."
Not going to sleep any time shortly.
Photo by Vladimir Surkov/iStock
Two years agone this month, my husband and I flew with our then-8-month-former to California to spend the holidays with his grandparents. I had focused my fears on the flight, which went surprisingly well—thanks, iPad!—and didn't anticipate how hard it would be for my son to adjust to the time difference. Every blasted morning time—until, naturally, the terminal twenty-four hour period of our trip—he started bouncing around in his crib between 3:30 and 4 a.one thousand., ready for activity. So we would drag ourselves down to the living room, suck downward 10 cups of coffee, and wait three hours for everyone else to wake up. A very Merry Christmas indeed.
This yr, we're going back. And I'll be damned if I'one thousand going to let the same affair happen once more. So I decided to find out if there'southward a better way to handle, or fifty-fifty prevent, travel-related kid sleep woes. It turns out there is, and although sleep experts disagree on one issue, most of the advice I got was clear and straightforward and totally not what I did ii years agone.
First things kickoff: Yous should exercise things differently if you're traveling west-to-east versus e-to-west. Normally, a due west-to-e time shift is harder to conform to, because you're not tired at your expected bedtime. (For kids and adults alike, information technology's far easier to strength yourself to stay up when tired, equally occurs going east-to-west, than information technology is to strength yourself to slumber when you're not, equally happens traveling westward-to-east.) But west-to-east trips that are less than a week long can actually be quite easy with kids, because, if the trip only spans a few time zones, you can only keep them on their old schedule. "If I live in L.A. and become to New York for five days, I can go along my child on L.A. time," says Jennifer Waldburger, co-author of the best-selling book The Sleepeasy Solution . "If they usually become to bed at 7 p.one thousand. and wake up at half dozen a.g., they're now going to bed at 10 p.m.—meaning I can get out to dinner with them and do other things in the evenings—and then they will sleep in until 9 a.g. That's a beautiful, wonderful thing." (Side annotation: Yes, even the author of a book titled The Sleepeasy Solution has vi a.m. wakeups on almost days. Other side notation: If you have fiddling kids who don't, say, do well in cool restaurants, keep reading.)
If yous're going west-to-east for more than than one week or if the thought of entertaining your child until ten p.m. in New York makes yous desire to throw upwardly, you are not going to want to keep your kid on West Coast time. To make the transition to the new time zone happen faster, in that location are a few things you tin do. First, move his social cues over to the new fourth dimension zone immediately. If you lot normally consume lunch at apex in San Francisco, swallow luncheon at noon in Boston. If your kid naps at one p.m. in L.A., try to nap him at one p.yard. in New York. Keep bedtime as shut to the same fourth dimension too.
If you've gone west-to-east, how can you lot coax your kid to slumber when he'south not ready? Start, make his new chamber as nighttime as possible—if you don't accept blackout blinds, tape upward some garbage numberless—and follow the aforementioned pre-bedtime routine you take at home, as the ritual provides important cues that say, psst, it'due south time to get drowsy. It can also assistance to skip afternoon naps. For instance, if you arrive in New York at 3 p.k. (noon in L.A.), skipping your toddler's usual noon nap might hateful your child is really ready to snooze at 7 p.k. New York time. "If not napping isn't an pick, then try to give them a short nap—20 to thirty minutes—considering in that amount of time, they don't fall into deep slumber," says Haviva Veler, director of the Pediatric Sleep Center at Weill Cornell Medical Higher and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Finally, in the morning, don't allow your kid sleep in, because doing so will keep her brain and body in the former fourth dimension zone. (Of form, ignore all this advice if you do want to continue your kid to stay on the old fourth dimension zone.)
What if, instead, you're traveling east-to-west across a few time zones? "That'due south a whole lot messier," Waldburger says, because "inevitably, your child is going to wake early that first forenoon." (Tell me well-nigh it.) To make things easier, when you lot arrive, keep your kid upward tardily. If Anna ordinarily goes to bed at seven p.k. in New York, try to put her downward close to seven p.m. in L.A. You might not brand it all the way without downing an entire bottle of scotch in the process, but stretch it as far every bit you reasonably can. "Entertain him, distract him—keep him upwards afterward than usual with the promise that beingness more tired, he volition not become up at 4 a.thousand. but sleep in until 5 or six," says Marc Weissbluth, founder of the Sleep Disorders Center at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital and writer of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. To complicate matters, notwithstanding, Weissbluth points out that if you proceed him up besides late, he could end up overtired and too wired to slumber, so the key is to "observe a sweet spot where yous do keep him upward after but non likewise late." (I said almost of the advice was clear and straightforward.)
And when she does wake up at 4 a.m.—considering let's face it, she volition, as I've found that no matter when I put my son to bed, he wakes upwardly at the aforementioned time—go over to her with the lights even so out and explicate that it'south withal nighttime and she needs to go dorsum to sleep. Information technology may assistance, Waldburger says, to bring forth ane of those sleep-training clocks that signals whether it's time to get upwards or not; information technology tin be better for bad news to come from an electronic device than from a parent. Look, love, the situation is out of my easily. (I placed my Amazon order this morning.)
If that fails, and your kid refuses to entertain herself with the backpack full of crap you've packed for only this situation, well, you lot may take to get up. But keep her playing in a semi-nighttime room until a reasonable wake-up time, because depression low-cal helps to train her brain that it's even so nighttime and that dammit, she should still be snoozing—hopefully, she volition then slumber in later tomorrow. (And so, note to self: This year, don't plough on every unmarried living room light at four a.m.)
Indeed, when it comes to retraining your kid'southward internal clock, light is your best friend, because it is an essential cue for regulating circadian rhythm. When it's nighttime in your new time zone, keep the lights depression inside. When it's daytime in your new locale, betrayal her to bright low-cal—ideally, natural outdoor lite. One study found that when you're traveling east-to-w, the all-time time to expose yourself and your kids to light is between the hours of 2 and 3 p.thousand., considering this tells the brain it'south still light out at a time when, in the old time zone, information technology would exist getting nighttime. If you're traveling w-to-east, on the other hand, you should expose you lot and your kids to natural light between the hours of half-dozen and viii a.m. In general, make your kid's indoor light environment emulate what's exterior as much as possible, and become outside equally much as you lot tin, too.
So let's say you've gone e-to-west and your child has woken up at four a.grand. Y'all know she's going to be ready for her offset nap manner earlier than she otherwise would exist. What do yous do? Non what I did, which was to put my son in bed as soon as I saw him yawn. (Hey, I wanted a nap too.) Instead, endeavour to keep her awake longer, Waldburger says. If your kid ordinarily wakes up at six a.m. and takes a ix a.yard. nap, and then when she wakes up at 4 a.m., try to stretch her nap toward 9 a.one thousand. anyway—even though, yes, she's going to be a holy terror starting at vii. And let her (and you) have a good nap, Weissbluth says—the cutting-naps-brusk communication applies mostly to w-to-east trips when y'all run the risk that a nap could cut to close to the new bedtime.
What if you're crossing far more than iii fourth dimension zones? Wardburger suggests flying at night, because kids sleep better on nighttime flights, helping to start the holiday off on a more well-rested note. Again, try to manipulate naps so that your kid isn't taking a nap close to her expected new bedtime; expose her to natural light cues and switch over all of her meals to the new time as quickly as possible.
There's one other controversial idea that'due south worth bringing up, and that is the notion that you should start shifting your child's schedule over to the new time zone a few days earlier you lot travel. In theory, this approach makes sense—if yous can push your kid'southward bedtime alee or back by an 60 minutes before you go, it'll have less time for her to acclimate to the new time zone. Just Weissbluth warns that while this approach might work for adults, with kids information technology can backfire. "I don't recollect any parent can really do it," he says, because y'all need switch over all of their social cues, too. You demand to move lunch an hour before, nap an 60 minutes earlier, dinner an 60 minutes before. If your kids are at home all twenty-four hours with y'all, this feat might be possible, but if they are in schoolhouse or daycare, yous are probably out of luck. Ultimately, Weissbluth says, many parents who try to move their kids over to a new fourth dimension zone in advance terminate up traveling with tired kids, which can make sleep bug worse on vacation—not better.
The bottom line is this: Unless you take gone due east with kids y'all want to hang out with until late nighttime, switch everything over to the new time once y'all get in—mealtimes, naptimes, bedtimes. Expose your kids (and yourself!) to natural lite when it's light out and darkness when it'south nighttime out. And don't be agape to break a few rules. Yous commonly sing ane song before bed just she'southward asking for two? Sing two. Traveling is tough on everybody, merely it'south far harder on a immature kid, as she'southward been torn, often unwillingly, from her familiar surroundings to go somewhere that smells and looks weird, gets dark and low-cal at strange times and is full of people she doesn't really know. Remind yourself of this the fifth time your beautiful child wakes upwards in the middle of the night screaming: She'due south probably more scared than you are exhausted.
Update, Dec. 18, 2013: This post has been updated to clarify that parents traveling from the East Coast to the Due west Coast should attempt stretching the nap as close to ix a.g. as possible, simply that making information technology to ix is unlikely.
Keep Baby on Home Time Zone When Traveling to East Coast
Source: https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/12/jet-lag-and-kids-how-to-avoid-the-4-a-m-wake-ups-when-youre-on-vacation.html