For those of you who don't know me, I'm HippyFreek's hubby and proud father of Moire. We're planning on a trip to Europe next year right before Moire turns 2 years old. While it's a ways off, I do have to wonder how she will react to a 8-9 hour time difference once we get over there. Have any of you taken your little ones overseas at that age? If so, how well did they handle the time change? And is there anything we can do to make the adjustment easier on her?
I've never travelled overseas, just from the east coast to the west coast several times, and I've personally never experienced jetlag, not even when I took my first child when she was about 15 months old to California. I always sleep on the airplane, but set my watch before snoozing. When I wake up, it's the time my watch says and I've never had any problems. Kids are much more adaptable than adults, I wouldn't worry much about it. Let her sleep when she seems sleepy, don't force her to lay down if she's not tired yet, and just go with the flow. I doubt she'll be bothered by the time adjustment at all. You might wish she were in bed earlier, but that's really your problem, not hers. Even travelling within the same time zone throws off my kids' eating and sleeping routines a little bit, but it's really no big deal unless *I* make it a big deal.
In the 90's I was doing lots of business in the middle east and kept an apartment in Amsterdam. My kids travelled multiple times from the west coast to the Netherlands with me. I did the same with them as I did with myself, I made sure no one went to sleep before dark. We would typically arrive in the late morning or early afternoon and so long as no one napped before dark they were fine.
I took my son to Turkey when he was 16 months old. It took us almost 24 hours to get there, including cars, 3 planes, and layovers. Mavi was on my lap the whole time on the flights and he did great. I did not notice that he had jetlag or acting any different on the way over there. He slept just fine at night while we were there for almost a month. But on the way home, I think he got lagged. He slept almost the whole way home. He would only wake up to eat, then fall back to sleep. When we got home, he slept for a whole day straight (day and night). It took a while to get him used to his crib again, but only a few days then he was sleeping great at home again. You co-sleep, so it should be even easier for you. He co-slept with us in Turkey. I think it is easiest to travel with babies than it when they get older. Honestly, now I would be hesitant of taking him on a trip like that because a 3-4 year old is much harder to travel with!
