ella'smom

Hi everyone,
I'll be going to France from NYC with my baby girl in September. She'll be just turning 9 months then. In the 3 weeks trip, we'll be moving around to visit grandma, step grandma and attending a wedding all in different regions of France.

I've read the posting about flying with kids (most of them older). Is there any advice for flying with not-so-infant baby? Also need help in dealing with jetlag when we get there and after we return. Since she's not a very good sleeper, I am really quite nervous about this trip. Any suggestion and/or advice will be appreciated.

After we tested this "short" Europe trip to be ok, we'll tackle the long flight to Singapore to visit her other grandparents.... Hahaha....

Thanks in advance.

FWAAA

Welcome to Flyertalk.

IME, kids don't know what jetlag is until long after 9 months. But then again, at that age, mine had no problems sleeping, especially on long-haul flights.

AandT

I would also like to welcome you to Flyer Talk, such a great place with lots of helpful info!

I have traveled several times with my small children back and forth between Asia and the USA, and they have traveled very well. The last time we did it our youngest was 11 months. She did very well, slept alot of the 12 hour flight which was nice. The time she was awake she was quite happy. The "white noise" of the aircraft tends to help them sleep (it also helps drown out their noise when they aren't sleeping!) I would suggest trying to spend the first couple days after arrival trying to convert them over to the new schedule, this means keeping awake when they want to sleep sometimes but with new activities and new people to play with it helps. I also know that every child and situation is different. Hope it goes well for you!

ella'smom

thanks FWAAA and AandT. Hopefully my child will be as cooperative.

Scigirl

I took my son to Hawaii when he was 9 months old. I found that he didn't sleep much on the plane. He was quite happy to crawl all over the floor. In fact, quite determined to do so. Fortunatly people weren't up and moving about so I was able to let him explore a bit. I ened up carrying him up and down the aisle for about an hour before he'd take a nap. At least I didn't need to worry about DVT from being stuck in my chair.

In terms of jetlag. I found it very helpful to get a schedule set from day one and stick with it. For us that meant being back at the house we were staying and having regular nap time from day one. No napping in the car or while we were on the go. We did our usual morning routine just as we would at home (a walk, play at the park), meals, naps, more play and meals, then to bed. On other trips when we've been more lax with the schedule we've had a lot more problems with jetlag. The predictability seemed to be hugely helpful to helping my son adjust to the time difference.

Marathon Man

Our 1 year old girl is pretty easy going and rather fun to be around, and she's even been overseas to see family in Holland when she was just 6 months old with mommy on a direct flight. Sleep patterns were all messed up the whole time, but hey, at that age, they kinda are for everyone anyway. Mommy has the whole family there to help out anyway.

This time Daddy is going too, and we are sadly connecting thru the dreaded Heathrow on the way to AMS.

We leave BOS on July 17 in the eve, so it will be bed time and our baby will sleep on Daddy's shoulder for most of the ride. But when we get to LHR, it will be their 630am and our 1 something in the morning. We finally get to AMS at their 11am and it's a 6hr ahead time dif.

Currently, we have been on a really nice roll, as our little child can sleep thru the entire night--I mean 7 or 8pm all the way to like 6 in the morning! woo hoo!

(all you single people and elderly persons can laugh now as you probably get up at like 10)

Anyway, my concern is this:

Are there any tips, tricks, ideas, advices, etc that people here suggest as to how to best overcome and adjust to jet lag, and what about with a 1 year old? (that is the real concern and the main question of this thread)...

I heard drinking OJ is good for adults, and ok, maybe I can forego the movie on the flight and take some cat naps, but when we get there, we have another 1.25hr drive to family's home and while they'll have a crib set up, I cannot be certain if the child will sleep but we sure will want to. Fam can take care of things too but what do people suggest for the first 1-3 days of adjustment some people may need?

thanks!
MM

PS maybe there have been traveling with baby threads before but I could not find one that matched unless I am blind, and at least we know a 1 year old's actions can still not make anyone accuse anything she may do on the plane a result of bad parenting. (We are good parents, BTW)

nd_eric_77

mrs. nd_eric_77 took our daughter to CGK when she was 10 months old (daughter; not mrs. nd_eric_77). The baby had her own seat and slept most of both flights. The adjustment was much harder on my wife than on our daughter. It did help that they had an overnight stopover in ICN to get some sleep at the hotel.

It seems that babies adjust to jetlag pretty well. Big piece of advice is to be very careful during the boarding and deboarding processes. A dude dropped his laptop bag from the overhead bin right onto our daughter's head when they were deplaning in Jakarta. Our daughter was startled and cried a lot but did not receive any permanent injuries. My wife was understandably furious but controlled herself.

IAHflyer

Our daughter, now almost 2, has 2 TATL trips (IAH-OSL) under her belt. First one when she was 9mo's, second when she was 15mo's. Looking back at it, I can't remember that we did anything in particular or had any specific strategy for dealing with her jetlag. And we didn't have any major issues.

Even though at 1 year, she's not a baby anymore, I would still say that she should adapt pretty quickly and you shouldn't worry too much about it.

Siempre Viajando

My kids have always travelled pretty well and haven't had much trouble coping with jet lag. That said, there's no way to explain the issue to a 1-yr old, so be ready for some odd sleeping and waking times.

I think your biggest risk is the 1.25-hr drive on arrival. A few years ago a colleague of mine fell asleep while driving on the autobahn after a transatlantic flight, and the results weren't pretty. Make sure whoever is going to be driving (a) drinks no alcohol in flight or in airport lounges, and (b) gets as much rest as possible---that is to say, the non-driver should accept the lion's share of child care en route.

fleet7

Hi
We have just returned from travelling half way around the world with our 11 month old.
We flew AKL - BKK- CDG return. The time difference is huge, when it's day in NZ it's night in France and like you we had just got him sleeping through the night before we left.

When we landed in Paris (after a fairly horrible flight involving very little sleep for mum, dad and bub) it was early morning. We managed to keep him awake until we got to our apartment, then we let him have a morning nap just like he would at home. I'm sure he could have slept all day if we'd let him but we thought getting outside into the fresh air would be a good idea. We basically just tried to replicate what he would have been doing at home. The first few days were pretty tough with lots of tears at bedtime but he eventually slotted into a really great routine. It's amazing how adaptable babies are.

He did start waking through the night (and I spoilt him with a bottle when he woke so he would go back to sleep) so upon returning home it's taken us three weeks to get back into the sleeping through the night routine (without a bottle). It's probably been harder beating the jetlag coming home than it was going away.

Good luck with it all.

Richard60

Our son, now 2, has enough flights that I'd have to check his passport for a count. We've never had any real trouble on the flights (except one time when we had adapted our meal times to local time and could not figure out why he was fussy - until it finally dawned on us that he was hungry now).

Anyway, usually after a big trip there are several nights where one of us will get up when he wakes and quietly play or read books for a few hours until he gets tired again. Keeping the daytime naps down to a couple hours helps him adjust in a few days.

I will say that younger was easer due to the longer daytime naps - which became nighttime naps during the vacation.

Marathon Man

thanks for these tips!!
we have a rather involved itinerary but she did well on her first trip. that was direct and this one is not, but we will at least be with family for nearly 2 weeks once we get overseas.

MM!

FlyinHawaiian

Hello, Everyone:

Some helpful posters have pointed out that there were a few threads in the archives that discussed jet lag and how to best manage it when travelling with children. We've merged the appropriate threads into one, single "one-stop" thread and hope you'll find the information helpful.

Enjoy!

BoyAreMyArmsTired and FlyinHawaiian, Moderators
Travel With Children Forum

p.s. Now that the threads have been merged, we'll be trimming some of the older posts to focus the content on-topic and make it easier to follow and read. Thanks in advance for your understanding on any editing we may have to do.

schwarm

Conventional wisdom holds (and I concur) that, for adults, it is easier to adjust westbound than eastbound.

For an infant, I would suggest that the opposite holds true. Our 10-month-old had a very easy time making the 8-hour eastbound adjustment on our recent trip. In fact, it was enjoyable having him up later in the evening and waking up mid-morning. Upon the return, however, things have been more difficult. He continues to wake up in the middle of the night. A very slow adjustment in this direction.

Have others had similar experiences?

legionnaire

A friend's arriving into SIN at 0100 local time from SFO with a 4 and 8 yr old. Considering that 0100 is 1000 (AM) SFO time - any suggestions for dealing with Jet lag?

This is the SQ15 flight departing SFO at ~1400 SFO time (0500 Sin) via ICN - 3 am SFO time (1800 Sin) arriving SIN at 1000 SFO time (0100 Sin).

Their SIN-SYD flight departs at 2035 SIN time in the night.