Overcoming jetlag with 2 year old?

I'm taking my (then) 2 year old from Australia to the UK next year and wondered how others have managed jetlag with their toddlers?

On my own I have just tried to stay up as long as possible on the first day, is this what you would do with a little one also, or let them sleep when they need to?

Thanks.

It has been our experience that our children have suffered a lot less with Jet Lag that we have. The following might be useful: [http://thailand4kids.com/pages/longhaul.html]

I was an international Flight Attendant for 13 years and fly between Europe and California with them.

1. Don't mess with her schedule. Flying is tough. Let her sleep when she needs to.
2. When you arrive, get yourselves on a local schedule asap. Modify it. Bed can be between 8pm and midnight. Wake up between 5 and 10am. Set your alarm if you have to.
3. Get out in the sun, or go to a mall, somewhere with lots of unjetlagged people so you get into the rhythm of things. Stay away from beds, couches, etc.
4. At bedtime, turn down all lights, no screens (TV, computer, i-whatever) and keep things calm.
5. Night awakings-keep it calm, lights kept low and she might be hungry. Your stomachs also need to adjust. Small snack, not too salty, sugary or greasy and back to bed. Again, no T.V. etc. Maybe skip the teeth brushing just this once! (unless you can do it without bright lights and calmly).

You need to judge the naps yourself but I would have them do it in a stroller, not in a bed, to not signal nighttime (if that made sense).

Google "melatonin" and read up on it. I take it in pill form but only started giving it to my kids, in a 1/2mg dose, when they were school aged and I explained. I don't know where it's available. I've never seen it in Europe.

Hope that helps!

We've just done exactly what you are planning; travelled from Australia in March to the UK with our 3 kids (admittedly, a little older than yours - ours are 7,9 and 11) and have been on the road ever since. I've travelled long haul myself several times and most flight companies do a trip to Singapore then a long-haul (17hrs or so) direct to London or similar. Best thing we did was to travel on Qatar Air, several of my friends have done the same with kids and also had an excellent experience (flying Emirates is another choice that breaks the trip up via Dubai). You still go to Singapore, then do a Singapore-Doha (in Qatar, in the middle east) flight of about 7hrs, then a transit stop in Doha airport where there is an indoor playground perfect for small children, for about 3 hrs as I recall. Then another flight of 7.5hrs to London. Best thing was, they slept on the Singapore-Doha flight, got woken up and fed, had a few hrs to charge around Doha airport then another flight that was actually managable. On arrival in London they went to bed around 5pm and woke at 3am, got fed and got told to go back to bed - as a previous respondant commented, NO lights, NO TV, minimal lighting and disturbance! They didn't really sleep again but rested in bed, then got up around 6am. We kept them up until 6.30pm that night, they woke around 5am the next morning but stayed in bed, and after that were pretty well over jetlag. I'm pretty sure that the broken flight really helped.
If you want to try things like Phenergan to establish abit of sleep I'd definitely try it at home first. Some kids react the other way and actually get hyped up - this happened to a friend who gave some to her 2yo for the first time ON a long haul flight - both she and the other passengers had the flight from hell!

Anyway, good luck with your trip - it's all worth it even though the actual organisation and planning can drive you crazy initially!

Everything that EclipsePearl wrote, I would have written :-))

I've never tried melatonin with my kids, but it's not available in the UK and I've never needed it. My kids (now 4 & 5) do far better with intercontinental travel than i do.

We did the same trip with our son from Perth via Singapore (6hr stopover) when he was 22mths. We let him sleep whenever he wanted and he realised pretty quickly that he couldn't go anywhere so just shut himself down and went to sleep (maybe we were lucky!). He was absolutely fun of beans during the stopover and we let him run around everywhere (lots of play areas at Changi) then he settled down on the next flight and slept again.

Once we got to UK we slept and then had another day's bus trip to Wales (6hrs and 3 buses later) the next day.. I think we were all so exhausted that when we arrived at our destination... we went to bed as per the normal time there and seemed to quickly click into the timezone with not that much jetlag...

So to answer your quest - we let him sleep as much as he needed to and then just put him to bed as we'd normally do at home.. agree with #1 - he didn't seem to get jetlag as much as us.

oh Changi is fabulous - and they even have multiple breastfeeding rooms for privacy!

HI there
I travelled with my 3 year old London to Sydney. My advice. Let them sleep when they want to and deal with it in Australia. It takes some days and you are fine. We went to eat 3am.

Cheers

We did that trip when our son was 13 months old and at that age he adapted really well, up a bit early the first few days, and napped a bit longer during the day, but he coped much better than we expected. We just let him nap longer when we slept during the day and tried to get him into the normal night time routine straight away.