Time differences on holiday with baby

[hannamaren]

How do you "deal" with time changes?
We are travelling East Coast to West Coast. 3 hour difference. Do I change her sleep? Or just see how she does? Eating?

Any experiences? I am scared we will be exhausted!

[ijack]

I would just see how she does and be prepared for some weird hours.

[Deleted]

I would keep it the same. 3 hours is not much. When we go back East, we just try to keep West Coast Time.
We just got back from Paris (Live in California). 9 hour time difference. We adjusted to that time, but didn't worry about it too much. Middle of the night hunger pangs were the worst of it, really. We are now back on schedule here and mostly good.

[Deleted]

We took DS on a trip with a 4 hour time difference at 11 mo and just went with the regular schedule right away. He did wake up at 4:30 in the morning the first day, but then adjusted quickly--same thing after we got back.

[ECB]

I'm dealing w/ this in a week! East coast to Denver - 2 hours. We did Chicago for a long weekend when he was under a year old. That wsn't a big deal.

But this trip- we land Friday and basically have a weekend packed of family activities. I have NO IDEA what to expect. We're just going to try and push through and hope it works out. We'll probably end up driving around to get him to crash out in the car for a bit .

He's 3.5 - so he's better able to understand what's going on, but still - when he gets tired, he's tired and his coping abilites decrease.

So - all I can really say is good luck!

[hannamaren]

Its going to be tough, because like you, EcB, we have plans. We are going to a wedding, so getting up at 430am would be unwelcome. I guess H and I can take shifts and nap all day. I was planning sight seeing, but maybe surviving the weekend will be our priority.

[Mrs.Syntax]

We went to Hawaii when DD was 11 months old, which is a 4 hour time difference. She refused to go to sleep until 9:30 pm Hawaiian time the first night (1:30 a.m. our time!) and then she slept in the next morning and adjusted to the new time that day. Babies can be really flexible. Or sometimes they aren't. I'd take the wait and see approach.

[ECB]

Jul 24, 2012 11:08:25 GMT -5 hannamaren said:

Its going to be tough, because like you, EcB, we have plans. We are going to a wedding, so getting up at 430am would be unwelcome. I guess H and I can take shifts and nap all day. I was planning sight seeing, but maybe surviving the weekend will be our priority.

We're staying for almost a week, so we figure the weekend will just be focused on making it through and seeing family. THEN we'll do a little sight seeing during the week.

[Shreddingbetty]

We fly to the East Coast regularly (2 hour difference) and it is usually no big deal either way. Our flight are always really early so that sort of takes care of it. Usually we are p by 330-4 and napping is usually limited so by the time we get there Dd is exhausted and goes down what would be her usual time at home. We have been to Europe twice (8 hour diff) at 4 month and 16 months and going there was easy (again between the long travel time and screwed up sleep). Coming back she was up early a few days from like 3-5 and then went back to sleep til 7. After 3-4 days she was back to normal.

I would say don't stress over it and go with the flow. Your LO will like adjust fairly easily.

[jennlin]

how old is your baby? i would just use visual cues and go with what your baby wants/needs..