Anyone who has traveled across multiple time zones knows full well that jet lag is a rough state to be in.  You’re exhausted, your internal clock is all out of whack, you find your self wide awake at 2 a.m. and yet struggle to make it through lunch without your face flopping into your bowl of soup.  All that is bad enough, but when you have a jet lagged baby on your hands, it is down right brutal.

In my experience, young children are either completely immune to jet lag or completely derailed by it and you can never be quite sure which outcome will occur.  Having a baby that is jet lagged is no picnic, particularly because this usually means that you, yourself will also be jet lagged which only compounds the situation.  The rule of thumb is that it takes 1 day per time zone to get over jet lag, but that time frame can be quite a bit extended if you don’t actively try to help your child adjust to the time change.   You see, when adults are wide awake at 2 a.m. they can be disciplined enough to lie in bed quietly in the dark and try to rest but when a little one is wide awake at 2 a.m. it’s time to PLAY and EAT!

So I share with you some of my tips to help get your tiny tot back on track.

Firstly, stay hydrated.

Next, try as best as possible to stick to your regular nap and sleeping schedule, even if this means that you have to wake them up.  Raf and I found that when Asher was awake in the middle of the night, the ONLY thing that would get him to sleep was to put him into our Beco Gemini baby carrier and wear him.  This of course meant that one of us had to be awake,  so we took turns, but honestly, being awake in the dark with a sleeping baby was preferable to chasing an active baby around from 2 a.m – 6 a.m.  Just saying.

Lastly, sleep when they sleep!  And be lenient.

Asher was hit super hard with jet lag both going to and coming back from China.  It was awful.  I literally could not keep him awake during the day no matter what I did, after days of struggling to stick to his 2 hour naps I decided to just let him sleep as much as he wanted (not to mention I was really tired too). So we both slept from 8 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at which point I bolted out of bed and woke Asher up (who was still sleeping like a log), we ate lunch and 1 hour later Asher fell asleep sitting up in the middle of the living room floor before toppling over onto his face. So, like I said, be lenient, you will only stress yourself out of you are too ridged about getting back on track right away.  Do your best, but also gauge the situation and make adjustments where necessary.

Good luck!