Top Tips For Surviving Jet Lag (for kiddos and you!)

I love to travel, but let’s be honest jet lag can be brutal! Having a little person with jet lag can be even tougher. Here are my top tips for you and your little ones to help get over/minimize jet lag! I am not a doctor, simply a mom who loves to travel and has found these things work for my family!

On the plane:

• Drink water! I try my best to drink at least one glass of water for every hour I am travelling.
• Sleep… if you can. Travelling can be exhausting and I have rarely found that sleeping was a bad thing… perhaps because usually I can’t sleep on planes!

At your destination/home

• Don’t go to sleep till bed time (seriously push it as much as you can!). Yes a nap would be glorious but if it is 5 and you can make it a bit later do yourself a favor and push it!
• Wake up at a relatively normal time! It’s brutal being on vacation and setting an alarm, but setting an alarm for 11 the next day might not be a bad thing if you want to do things in the morning
• Get outside! This helps you and your little one’s bodies realize… oh it actually is morning you’re not just being a jerk (speaking from real life experience here! Haha)!
• Eat food at a normal time! This is good for you and your little one is helping your body adjust to a new time zone. Particularly if your little one has a fairly predictable meal and snack times… this will help them adjust way quicker!
• Stay busy so when it is time for bed you are ready! This particularly applies to at home. On holiday I always find it easy to tucker myself out, it’s when I get home that sometimes I just want to lounge about… but then regret it come bed time!

Specially for the little ones:

• Sometimes you might have just a tiny time change, or be gone for a very short amount of time, if this is the case you might want to evaluate if you really want to change your little one’s schedule all that much. Perhaps getting up at 4 and going to bed super early for a few days might not be such a horrible idea!
• If you have a tiny human try nursing or a bottle when they wake up at night, not solid food… this goes along with the tip about eating food at normal times.
• If you have any sort of nap routine it can help to stick to this (we totally didn’t in France, but it would have been nice!)

Hopefully these tips will make travelling a far more enjoyable experience for you and your munchkins!