Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months

Traveling tips?

We are traveling from East to West coast at the end of April...any tips for dealing with the time change with my LO?  We have flown before but never to a different time zone....

Re: Traveling tips?

  • mb314mb314 member
    We recently did a Central Time to Pacific Time trip.  Because we got in so late, DS's schedule was already messed up.  I followed his cues for when he would be tired for a nap, and for bedtime.  We were on vacation, so I didn't want to stress too much about his "schedule." 

    Now that we're back, and he's back at daycare, within a day he's fallen into his old schedule. 
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  • We traveled (+4h difference) and I slowly changed DD's schedule at home to lessen the time gap. I moved her wake up times to earlier so that it ended up being only 2h from the time at our destination. For example: she usually wakes up at 10 am here, which would be too late at our destination, so I started waking her up at 9, then 8 am. That way she was "waking up" at noon at the Brazilian time, so we only had to change it 2h. She went on the right schedule immediately upon our arrival.
    We kept meals and activities at the usual times, but on the new time zone from the very beginning. It helped to get her on schedule (ish).
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  • For my twins it was incredibly difficult. We traveled from east to west a few weeks ago and they were a mess with the 3 hour time change. They wanted to go to bed by 4/5pm and they woke up at 5am on the dot no matter what time they went to bed. It was difficult during meal times because the resort we were at had certain times the dining room was open so they were starving for breakfast and lunch, and by dinnertime they were asleep already so we had to scrounge around for food and get room service. 

    They've been on a really good/strict schedule since they were in the NICU so it was not easy. My DH and I ended up trading off who got to go to dinner since there was no way we could bring them out at that time. 

    I'm sorry, I don't have much advice. Maybe you will be lucky like the ladies above. If not, then plan to go to bed early and get up early to get out and enjoy your day. Personally I think traveling from west to east is so much easier because they can just stay up later and get up later. The good news is, my twins got right back into the schedule within 2 days of being home. Good luck! I hope you enjoy your vacation!
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    IVF #1 BFP b/g twins!; loss at 23 weeks due to I.C. and PTL. IVF #2 BFP 5/26/12; due date 2/6/13; TAC surgery 7/20/12, blessed with another girl & boy! 

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  • We just got back from traveling from central to pacific (2 hours difference). The time difference was not a big deal.
    DS born 8/8/09 and DD born 6/12/12.
  • Bring extra clothes. They can get easily backed up and then you'll have a few blowouts on your hands. I would recommend also having disposable bags to put in dirty diapers AND they also double as great storage for nasty dirty clothes.
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  • we did east coast to west coast with an almost 2 yo and 5 mo without any preparation and the first few mornings sucked. 2 yo was up at 4:30am the first two mornings and it took a few more days to totally adjust. :( i wish we'd changed the schedule a little at home first like a pp suggested; i think it would have been a huge help.

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  • We did the east to west coast trip when my LO was 9 months and it wasn't a big deal. It was harder for us to transition than her. Based on the time we got in she just took an extra nap from the airport to our family's house and we put her down at her normal bedtime west coast time. Going from west to east just made her a little tired the day after we got home and she took a longer nap.
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