traveling

[amywiz24]

Happy Holidays everyone! I am so excited to go visit our families for the holidays, but I am so concerned about schedules. My son is 15 1/2 mos old. He is an even tempered well adjusted child that is so pleasant to be around and I think that is because we keep him to a structured routine. We are traveling acoss the country to a 3 hour time difference; we will be there for 1 week. This wasn't a big deal last year becuase he was on the 3 hour EASY schedule. My question is do I keep his eating and feeding schedule on my local time or to the time we are traveling to? For example: should his 7AM PT wake up time move to 10AM ET? Any assistance is appreciated.

[mrsmynub]

I traveled with my son at around the same age - the first day or so, keep to your routine times in your time zone, eventually, he will adjust to the new time zone.  My experience was that he slept a lot the first two days and then woke up the third day at his normal time in the new time zone.

Good luck!!!

[amywiz24]

thanks for sharing your experience

[mrsmynub]

If you're traveling West to East, my experience has been that the red eye flight is best.  They sleep on the plane and then most of the first day....Good luck

[amywiz24]

we are taking the red eye, which I am thankful for. I cannot even imagine trying to keep him still for 4 hours when he was awake!

[mrsmynub]

Oh that's great!!! We have done that each of the three times our DS#1 has traveled and it has REALLY helped.  Each time, when we would get to our destination, he would eat breakfast like he normally would (because by the time we got to wherever we were going it was maybe 7AM - then he would pass out and I would keep his EASY schedule on my time zone once he got up for that day.  THat will make SO much of a difference. And I agree, I can't imagine what people do with their kids while they fly for more than an hour. 

We will be traveling with both boys on red eye in January - I will think of you!