choupeo

Hi everyone,

I will be traveling with my 3-year old daughter from Vancouver, BC to a south east asia destination (that we haven't decided yet). There will be only me and my daughter. I'd like to ask for your help with making a few decisions about the flight.

Basically I have two choices of departure time:

- depart around 2 pm-4 pm, 10-13 hours flight. This will put us at our transit city around mid night at Vancouver time. Then we will have to wait 2 hours to get to the connecting flight (5-hour) to final destination. If I choose this option, I can imagine my daughter will be awake during the first flight and should be able to sleep during the second flight. However we will arrive at the final destination at mid night there and my daughter will likely be awake there while I will be overtired (as I normally don't sleep in flight).

I can have an overnight layover if I want to break the long trip. This requires going through immigration/custom, getting on a shuttle bus to an airport hotel and then coming back the morning after to continue to the final destination. Although it's not too difficult, it's also a hassle, but we can have an overnight rest. So, do you think it will be worth it to do an overnight layover or should I just take the 5-hour connecting flight right after the trans pacific one ?

- My second option is to depart at 2-2:30 am. My daughter usually goes to sleep at 9 pm. I am worried about having to wake her up at mid night and drag her to check-in then security then departure gate. I am afraid of possible meltdowns or disturbance to other passengers during night flight. On the other hand, she could also easily sleep through a few hours in flight. This departure time also allow us to arrive at the destination during the day and probably helps with time adjustment better.

I am not sure what to choose right now. Maybe I over think things. Please let me know what you think or your experience. Thanks.

vicarious_MR'er

I think both sound okay, to be honest, but I'd be interested in the layover status of option 2.

You know your kids best, but if it were me making this decision for MY kids, I'd go with option 2. My kids do better staying up past bedtime than they do being woken at ungodly hours. For example, there is the possibility of her falling asleep in the option1 plane at around 9 PM as per her usual but having to wake up at the equivalent of midnight and then truck around an airport after only a few hours of sleep.... that would put my kids over the edge. However, my kids would be tired but generally alright being kept up til midnight and THEN being allowed to sleep for a long time after.

I'd say that look at where your daughter does better and when she does worse, and judge based on that.

Eclipsepearl

First of all, don't do the overnight. Golden Rule of Travel With Kids; get there as quickly as possible! You'll start waking up just as you arrive at the hotel and she'll be bouncing off the walls, after sleeping on the plane, and you'll be staring at the ceiling, really regretting doing this...

I think I've flown with my kids at every hour of the day. I have three and they were fine waking up early in the morning. They actually did worse leaving late at night. They just become groggy zombies when woken up in the wee hours, cooperative groggy zombies but they held it up until they could crash on the next flight.

Parents over-estimate their children's schedules. Kids lose their comfortable routines quickly when they're in a new situation. They also pick up on others' cues well. If everyone on the flight is sleeping, that helps them settle down. If they're in a busy airport with light, noise and lots of people, even if it's the middle of the night "their" time, they'll be alert and active.

When you travel, you're kind of in a Zone of No Time Universe. You sleep and eat when you can and wake up if you have to.

Anna Phor

Option 2. And I'd do it like this.

Leave for the airport after dinner (so around 7pm, I guess, depending on when you have dinner?). Check in and go through security. Go to the bathrooms and get your kiddo changed into pajamas. Find a quiet spot near your gate, and set her up with some blankets and some sort of quiet activity like reading a book or watching a movie. Let her go to sleep at her normal time (or if it were my kid, a few hours after, since the airport is more exciting than bed!)

When your flight boards, get on as late as possible. Wake up your kid, try to get to your seat with the minimum of fuss, hope she falls asleep reasonably quickly. See if you can then both crash out and get 5-7 hours more sleep.

ama537621

I will not do another overnight. One important thing to think about. The airline might not let you check thru your luggage with an overnight stay. We tried that on UA at ORD after flying in from PVG. Had to take the bags to the Hilton and check in the following morning. The baby slept enough on the plane to be wide awake while we were trying to sleep in the hotel.

This time we are doing PVG-BUF with only a 3.5 hour layover. Get there as fast as possible is my advice.

Baritone73

I've done the overnight layover option and will never do it again. Depart mid-afternoon (US East Coast time). Arrive in Asia mid-afternoon Asian time. Immigration, customs, baggage claim, transfer to hotel, check-in, minimal unpacking, find dinner. Do you know who's happy in this circumstance? Nobody. Not Dad, not Mom, not the toddler. Then, of course, it's up and out the next morning (after an unsatisfying, jet-lagged night's sleep) to do it all over again.

You know your own kids best, of course, but I've found with my daughters (aged 5 and 2; the oldest started long-haul travel when she was 2, the youngest started at 6 months) that the time of departure doesn't seem to make much difference to their ability to handle the plane. We've tried leaving around 6am, around 9am and around midnight, and the only ones who seem to have been affected are my wife and myself.

Time of arrival does seem to make a difference, though -- arriving mid-afternoon means a few short hours of wakefulness before bedtime. Arriving in the middle of the night makes the initial adjustment a little more difficult.

As someone posted above, you're in a weird temporal vortex when you travel. Don't be too rigid with bedtimes and mealtimes en route. If your three-year-old's meal has to sit on the tray table for a few hours before she touches it, it's not the end of the world. She'll eat when she's hungry. Do yourself a favor and steal whatever sleep you can while she's quiet. It's amazing what an hour or two of rest will do for your mood on the other end.

roknroll

I like option 1. Definitely don't do the overnight layover, and I agree with Eclipse... get there as fast as possible. Having a tired toddler leaving airport, getting on shuttle, checking into hotel won't be so easy, and then you have to go back through security and sit at the airport, etc.

Leaving during the day means you're daughter will be awake for the first half of the flight and probably sleep a few hours. There's a lot of distraction/excitement on planes for young children, so if you take Option 2 with the late flight she might not sleep and be overly tired/grumpy. Plus you will DEFINITELY be more tired since you say you don't sleep on planes.

adamak

I always do #1 when I fly to SE Asia. I prefer late afternoon departure, cause my kid will wake up when we board (noise, sitting upright...etc). And then he'll get too excited to go back to sleep. Worse off, if my kid was woken up and cranky, everyone hated us at 2:30am.

When we depart in the afternoon, I'll make sure he gets plenty of exercise in the morning and at the airport. He may get a quick nap on the way to airport. Then food, TV on board for couple of hours, and crash at 8pm regular time. And we may get lucky that he'll sleep all the way to destination.

So it really depends on your kid. Do you want him/ her to stay awake in the beginning of the trip, or towards the end?

msiamsia

This is our plan this summer as well. We depart late afternoon that connects to the evening departure of a long haul. When we did (solo parent taking a toddler) the late morning departure non-stop long haul, my kid stayed up almost entire flight, making my time in the flight so miserable (I mean, I anticipated that, but it was a bit of pain trying to eat my food and going to the restroom while at the same time entertaining toddler...)

Erasmus

We've had great success with the latter option (although, honestly, flights usually leave closer to midnight from SoCal). Our kids are always super-excited about the airport, so will easily stay up way past their bedtime. Then, when we board the plane they crash hard and will sleep almost the entire flight.

IME, there's no good solution for the second hop. It will not be pleasant no matter what. Just short for the shortest connection and grin and bear it.

LapLap

My view is that you might want to consider how your child "resets" to the new time zone on arrival and not just focus on the journey.

Haven't done the crossing dateline but have travelled from East to West alone and with a child a couple of times.

For our next E-W journey, Beijing to London, my plan is to thoroughly exhaust my daughter, day of sight seeing and then a swimming pool session before we set off to the airport for a 1:30am departure. Prediction is that she'll be asleep by 11:30pm and will awake somewhere close to England. Knowing her steely determination to experience "fun" she may even stay awake for boarding.
Every kid is different. My problem is that my own child LOVES flying, doesn't matter if the lights are dim and everyone is asleep, an aircraft cabin with kind crew members, packed with hundreds of people is the most exciting, stimulating environment imaginable for her.
Purely selfish on my part, but a co-operative & benign zombie child is so much easier for me to deal with than a preternaturally alert and active little girl in surroundings that are beyond fascinating to her.

Best part of our E-W overnight flight is that she'll be waking up in the morning which will make her internal clock adjust easily to the new time zone. It's a completely different story when travelling in the opposite direction

Eclipsepearl

East to West is always easier for everyone, not just children.

My advice is to do whatever makes the journey itself easier. Worry about resetting internal clocks when you get there. Don't let your child oversleep naps. Don't let them watch screens past the bedtime in the new time zone. Careful that they're not waking up because they're hungry. They'll never sleep on a rumbly tummy and it'll be two weeks of jet lag! Keep lights low before the new bedtime.

Making the journey more difficult to somehow accommodate the new change just doesn't make sense to me. Survive one then face the other. Even the dreaded West to East change is easier with the visual solar cues. I know I feel more like going to bed if it's dark and everyone else is doing likewise.

Since we're discussing Asia flights, remember to always calculate it in less than 12 hours. This means, if the time change is 16 hours ahead, that's really only an 8 hour behind time change for your body. Hope that made sense!

Also, all this tiring out tots might work but don't put yourself in an ugly situation where you have an overstimulated toddler and are faced with a delay. You want the crashing to happen ON the aircraft (as opposed to TO the aircraft) and not in the boarding area, check-in, etc. I've seen this plan go wrong so many times! Delay=meltdown time. Your child still needs energy to get through the check-in, security and boarding process so keep this in mind!

LapLap

Consistently on this thread/forum I've found that whatever you advocate as being "the best way", opposite works for us.
Just the way it is, I guess. All kids are different.

Eclipsepearl

Maybe your kids are better/calmer/more cooperative than the rest of ours? Congratulations!

After dealing with a 9 hour time difference, twice a year, for 15 years and three kids, just sharing what works best!

LapLap

That's rather snotty isn't it?

Just stating that my one kid is ENTIRELY different from how your three children are, just as I seem to have very, very, very little in common with you as a person and as a mother.

Surely you wouldn't infer from that that I am proclaiming myself to be a better/calmer/more co-operative person.

Vive la différence!

And thank goodness for it, is all I can say.