Help Me! 6month old and 2 year old with cronic Jet Lag
As you can tell from my title, we have just returned from Italy and our two kiddies are really out of wack. Does any one have any great tips to get our kids readjusted to Australia time? Currently they are waking at 11 and 2 or 3 am and getting them back to sleep is a real challenge. ANY ideas are most welcome please.
Ouch!! Sounds like a cruel form of torture to have two littlies with jet lag.
I would suggest as much sunlight as you can get into them in the daytime to try to naturally re-set their internal clock.
That and take things slowly. Keep the night time wakings calm and as quiet as possible. Low lighting and warm rooms. Maybe just spend some time in their room with them reading books etc till they are sleepy again.
If they are in seperate rooms you could try putting talking books on for your DD1 to help her resettle and relax. I have recently made up a CD of me reading stories for my DD who is 2.5 and it sends her off to sleep happily. I use it if she wakes during the night. She loves hearing mummy's voice. (I managed to find a voice recorder for my ipod and then transferred that onto itunes to burn a CD.) It has been a godsend for us.
For your 6 month old, simple resettle techniques in a quiet dark room are all I can recommend.
For your own sanity, when they get up, make yourself a nice warm drink like a cup of tea (if the caffeine doesn't tweak you too much ) or a hot choc/herbal tea). When I was going thorough night wakings with DD1, the simple act of commiting to getting out of bed and treating myself to a cup of tea made all the difference to my sanity. If I hauled myself out of bed, tried to resettle then went back to bed only to be hauled out again within minutes, I felt soooo much angrier about the whole thing and really resented sitting up with DD.
I'm not sure if that is the sort of help you were after- it's probably things you are doing anyway! Maybe someone else will have better suggestions. In the meantime, hang in there and keep in mind the wonderful trip (I'm sure) you had
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