 |
| ZOMG IT'S THE EIFFEL TOWER! This is a few minutes from Stacy and Jason's flat! |
Our first day with Wilder in Paris was pretty uneventful. We arrived at Stacy and Jason's flat in Trocadero around noon, had lunch and Wilder went down for a nap. When he got up, we went for a walk in Paris!
We went to the local market and picked up things for dinner. We went to Passy Plaza and visited a toy store, a Monoprix supermarket and an eclair shop, where we got some of these beautiful goodies.
 |
| eclairs like you've never seen! |
 |
| Not your average cheese selection |
We came back, gave Wilder some dinner and he was out like a light! We enjoyed a nice meal at the flat with Stacy and Jason, finished off with the eclairs. After turning in for the night, Zach and I looked forward to finally resting.
 |
| Perfect little sleeper... |
Ha!
Our usual way of dealing with jet lag going to Europe is as follows: stay up late the night before packing. Turn our clocks to Europe time when we get on the plane and go to sleep when it's night in Europe while on the plane. Wake up on Europe time, be tired for the day (NO NAPS) but stay up till a reasonable bed time. Sleep well, wake up and no jet lag by the second day.
What happens with a baby is completely different. We stayed up late packing, got on the plane and didn't sleep well (if at all) because of the baby. Powered through that first day (though we took a nap, oops!), went to bed at a reasonable hour and... at about midnight, Wilder was up. It's morning back home! He's wide awake. Party time! No sleeping! It took two hours to get him to go back to sleep that first night. I rocked and nursed. Nursed and rocked. My arms wanted to fall off. Eventually he did go back to sleep. I got up early to go to a meeting with Stacy, and I was so tired! Wilder slept in till nearly lunch.
After lunch at the flat we visited the Left Bank.
We got hot chocolate and did a little window shopping and partook of some STRONG coffee. Thank goodness!
 |
| Nectar of the gods |
 |
| Traveling Wild is so stylin in his baby Ray Bans |
The highlight of that second day was visiting Shakespeare & Co. A famous bookstore frequented by such literary greats as J. Fitzgerald Scott and Ernest Hemingway.
It was crammed full of all kinds of books. I bought A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, just because it seemed fitting. We stopped at two more dessert places (tired parents love sugar!) before heading home. Wilder was so very tired, but he was a little trooper. He went down for a late nap and we made another delicious dinner at the flat.
That evening, again, Wilder was up in the middle of the night for two hours. We shared a room with Wilder for much of the trip, and the one benefit was being able to tag team trying to put him to sleep. The third night in Paris, it took Wilder three hours to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. I wish I was kidding. We tried everything. He napped fine during the day, but his little body was so confused by the time change.
Luckily, by the fourth night, Wilder seemed to have adjusted to the change. I would like to say it's because of our mad parenting skills, but we didn't do anything. The main point I can share is that jet lag is no joke with kids. NO JOKE. It is hard to get over. Coming back to the US, he had much less trouble. I hear going west is easier. That could also be because he was in his own bed.
I don't have much advice, but here's some things we learned:
Jet Lag is Tough. If you are traveling with kids, be prepared for having a hard time adjusting to the time change. As parents, the whole staying up that first day technique doesn't work well when you might be up in the night. The really nice thing about having kids on a trip is built in down time thanks to naps. I would definitely recommend taking a short nap that first day. But short! Not lots of hours long! Just enough to recharge.
Put your family on the new schedule ASAP. I would also encourage you to do your best to eat at the right times for your new time zone and work on the right bedtime. You can't make a baby sleep when they're not sleepy, but you can encourage going to bed on time. Wilder was more than happy to nap, even in a new place. And if you baby wear or bring a stroller, they can nap. So middle of the night was our only issue.
Domestic travel is a bit easier, but still needs an adjustment. We have only experienced an hour or two time difference when it comes to domestic travel. Going west seemed to be easier than going east. Again, we tried to implement the new bedtime as soon as possible. Going west, we would let Wilder stay up a little later the first day or so since he wasn't tired yet.
Good luck, parents of kids! Actual travel and jet lag were the hardest parts of taking trips with Wilder. The rest was a lot easier to navigate!
Veteran travelers - do you have any tips for conquering jet lag?
Veteran travelers - do you have any tips for conquering jet lag?
The age of the kid makes all the difference! I've travelled on overseas flight with so many different ages it'd be ridiculous to list them all. But my summary would be that the hardest age range is from around 1 year to 3 years. After 3 my children have all been able to handle the fact that if they wake up at night they have to stay in bed even if it takes a while to get back to sleep. They are allowed to look at books or read with a flashlight, but I think only my 4 year old has taken me up on that. Before a year old I just nurse them back to sleep for the most part. For 2 year olds, we have Daddy be near the pack n play (preferably I'm in another room) and he just keeps telling them to lay back down while he drifts in and out of consciousness. They listen to him and pop up and on and on until they fall asleep. We only sleep in one day and then I start waking people up earlier each day until we're back on schedule. I also keep them up later at night, gradually moving bedtime back to normal. And for small time changes on short trips we just stay on our regular time the whole trip. For longer trips, I adjust the time in small increments. Don't know if that helps!
ReplyDelete