Bringing 3 YO from East Coast

[Go Vols]

Any tips for bringing a 3 YO from the east coast this December? The 3 hour difference is a concern as our daughter's bedtime is 9PM which would be the equivalent to 6PM at DL. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Chris9ty]

How Long is your trip?

 

[Go Vols]

We are staying 5 nights.

 

[Chris9ty]

I read about it before we left and it said to keep the kids on the same schedule if it was only a weekend trip. We went for 10 days and we switched to a West Coast schedule. I was hoping my boys 2 & 6 would take afternoon naps, but really my 2 yr old slept in the stroller or car/bus depending on what we did that day- sometimes he was even napping by 11am which is unusual for him and falling asleep in his stroller on our walk back at night. But they never napped at the hotel- they were too excited for that!
We just went with the flow. One night they were tired so we came back early to swim and go to bed, another night we were going to come back early, but then after a snack we decided we could make it to see WOC at the last minute.
It took us a few days to adjust when we got home.

 

[grnflash]

Traveling west (with the sun) is not so hard to adjust. Our brains make it a bigger deal than our bodies, particularly for just 2-3 hour time differences. Let her go to sleep a bit early the first night. She'll get a great night's rest and should be fine. Going home will be the bigger transition.

 

[Angel Ariel]

If you can, take an early flight out west. We are also traveling with a 3 y/o. Our flight leaves at 8:25am, and we land at 11:30am Pacific. With how early we have to get up to get to the airport, DD should nap on the plane. If, for some reason, she doesn't, I am pretty confident she'll fall asleep on the way from LAX to Anaheim in the car. Either way, having that nap should be enough to get her to at least 7:30pm or so for bedtime which should help get her on a "regular" schedule in CA that mirrors what her normal schedule at home is (she normally goes to bed around 8:30-9 at home).

On the back end, we're coming back on a Friday so that she has the weekend to readjust to an east coast schedule before going back to preschool.

 

[Go Vols]

Thanks for the information. We we'll be heading east on Friday which will give our child the weekend to readjust.

 

[mad hatter fan]

How long until your trip? When our kids were little, we tried to adjust their schedule a week or two before the trip by an hour and that eased the adjustment a little.