Our family recently returned from a 4 night trip to Hawaii (5 nights if you count the night we spent on our redeye coming back). It was a wonderful trip and we were able to bring my mom along to share the beauty of Kauai but boy oh boy, are we struggling with the time change.
Sunset - Our first night in Hawaii
Hawaii is 4 hours behind our home time zone so when it is 1:30 in the afternoon at home, it's 9:30 in the morning in Hawaii. While we struggled a little the first morning (kids woke up at 5am), the hardest part was coming home.
Our return flight departed Hawaii at 8:30pm. When we booked the flight, I thought it would be fantastic. It allowed us to have time to play in the pool before lunch and then the kids were able to take great naps. We ate dinner on the way to the airport and didn't end up having to wait too long before boarding which was great.
Once we got on the plane, I realized that the redeye may not have been the best idea. It took us an hour after take off to really get the kids settled in and get through drink service. So, our five hour flight quickly turned into four possible sleep hours. It took our two year old a little longer to get to a place where he was willing to fall asleep. By the time we landed at LAX, I think our two year old had probably slept three hours and our one year old had maybe slept three and a half (and I didn't sleep at all).
For those of you with toddlers, you know, that is not enough.
Our layover in LA was just over two hours, which was the perfect amount of time to eat some food and get a few wiggles out before boarding our plane home.
We were expecting that both kids would sleep some on our flight out of LAX but since it was light outside, and the flight was rather short, they stayed awake (and quite fussy) for the entire flight.
The kids and I were all exhausted when we got home and daddy had to hurry off to work so the three of us took much needed naps. I decided to set an alarm so we wouldn't sleep too late.
This morning, I let our two year old sleep until he woke up (10:30am) and then we woke up baby sister at 11:15am so we could make sure to still get them down for their naps.
Most days, I will let the kids sleep until they wake up in the morning. I'm a little more strict about wake up time after nap. After trips when the time has been more than an hour different, I do what I can to keep us all on schedule in our current time zone. Often, that means waking the kids up before they would wake themselves.
What our two year old looked like when I forced him out of bed after nap
Tomorrow, I'll be waking the kids earlier than usual since we have to restock our kitchen after our trip and hopefully, between waking up earlier and being out and busy during the day, it will kick us right back into our regular schedule.
What have your experiences been with dealing with time zone differences? Are there things that work really well for your or your child? What about things that failed miserably? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
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