Traveling across time zones with a baby

This blog comes to you from Bree, a JetSetBabies customer who recently traveled all the way to New Zealand with her baby. I wondered how the baby would handle the time zone changes and Bree was gracious enough to send us this story. I hope you enjoy it. If you have a great travel story to share with our readers, please contact me at patty@jetsetbabies.com. If we use your story, we'll send you a gift certificate to use on our website JetSetBabies.


From Bree:

We had a fantastic trip to New Zealand - it was everything we had hoped for and more. We really did love it there, and if it weren't so dang far away, we'd consider living there! we liked it that much. :)

As for the jet lag - interestingly, Logan did not seem to have an issue one bit on the way over. Our flight was pretty rough at first - he fell asleep on take off and slept for about 2.5-3 hrs, but then he woke up and just would not go back to sleep, for about another 3 hrs - I don't think it was due to any sort of jet lag at this point since we were still on our time here, and it was "in the middle of the night" for him. instead, I think he was just way too distracted with everything going on in the plane..... anyway, we finally got him back to sleep and then he slept for the majority of the remainder of the flight which was great.

When we arrived into Auckland, approx. 5am, we were all awake and met friends there -went out for breakfast and then walked around town to see some sights. We then hopped into our car and took a 2.5 hr drive to the cabins we were staying at for that night. Logan was fine the entire day - he took a couple naps, like he always does, but otherwise was fine. He didn't seem to notice the time change at all! He finally got super fussy and cranky while we were at a restaurant for dinner - but, it was about 8pm local time, which is when he normally starts getting tired anyway. He passed out on me, we took him back to our cabin and put him down for the night.

Throughout the trip, MOST nights he would wake up once in the middle of the night, take a bottle then go back to sleep. There were a few nights, usually when he had been more active the day before, where he'd sleep through the night. But, honestly, I'm not sure that had anything to do with the time change since that's how he's always been at home too.

On our flight back home, it was great. Our plane was delayed an hour or two - so we really wore him out playing and exercising and crawling, etc. in the airport. He passed out during take off and slept for 8 hrs!! he woke up for another 1-1.5 hrs and played at our feet and had a meal, then fell asleep again until we landed. We couldn't have had a more positive experience with the flight home.

The few days after we got home was another story entirely. It was a LOT harder to adjust back to "normal" life. Our schedule was really off those first few days back, since Logan seemed to be struggling with adjusting back to Pacific Time. But, more than that, I think he was also having a hard time adjusting to life without Mom and Dad 24x7 (since we both work so he goes to a daycare during the day). So, that probably was the MOST challenging part of the entire trip, was when we got home. He was very clingy, wanting me and only me, when he was super tired, exhausted and needed me to comfort him to put him to bed. He would also cry every time we dropped him off or picked him up from daycare (which he's NEVER done before), had a lot of trouble sleeping at night, often times crying WHILE he was sleeping (not sure how it's possible but he was doing it) but then the minute I'd pick him up to rock him he'd settle back down and snuggle into my shoulder fast asleep.

Each day was a tad bit better, but it took almost a full week before we started getting a full night's rest again and before he was doing better back at daycare. So, it's a good lesson learned for us. It won't stop us from traveling again, but it's good to know what challenges we may face when we get home *after* the next big trip. :)

Bree