Overtired and overstimulated - is there anything I can do?

[Miss E]

At the moment we are in the US visiting DH's family. Over all DS has done really well... But, as time goes on it seems to be getting tougher and tougher on him. I think he is chronically overtired and overstimulated, but feel that there is very little I can do to help the situation...

Generally he is happy and having a wonderful time, but sleep is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. We got caught up in the flight cancellations at JFK in New York, so have had to move around a lot more than we planned. We're now at the 4th place in 10 days, mind you we have been here for five nights now.

Anyway, when we first got in I sat with him while he went to sleep cos he was in a strange place etc. At home he goes to sleep without any probs, so we don't usually do this. But now it has gotten to the point of ridiculous as it is taking an hour and a half to get him to sleep! He seems to have adjusted to the time difference, but isn't getting nearly as much sleep as normal. All I can put it down to is being overtired and overstimulated, but then there really isn't that much I can do about that...

Anyway, thanks for reading, would love any tips you have.

[MummaSue]

Hey mate,

When we were in the UK in October I found the same thing with DD. There were days where the poor wee sausage didn't get any naps at all and wasn't getting to bed until 9.30pm - she was 6.5 months at the time. I stressed quite a lot about it and looking back she was actually fine.

Is he cranky at all? Or does he seem quite happy? I know that you're saying he is taking a bit more time to settle and like you say, that could just be because he is excited about being in a new place - maybe instead of taking the 1.5 hours to settle him, just keep him up a bit later?

What we did some days was just have quiet days. Not too much going on, keeping things low key etc. I don't know if that is a possibility for you?

Sorry I haven't been much help but I found that things pretty much went back to normal when we got home and I just went with the flow when we were away.

xxxx