Those with younger kids how does time zone change affect them?

[toni1227]

We are getting there in the evening and plan to go see the fireworks in the park that night. I am central time and so when it is 9:45 there it will be 11:45central time and my kids are used to going to bed by 9pm (or 7pm california time). Just wondering what others experiences are with the time change?
I am thinking about letting them stay up really late the few nights before we go possibly? My daughter who is 5 gets really cranky once her bedtime passes and I am worried about it..well I am really just hoping they will be so excited it won't matter. Thoughts?

 

[rainwatter]

We havn't taken DD (6) to the west coast in several years... but we head out east quite a bit, so it's one hour the other way. We just tried to roll with the change and were prepared to take naps in the middle of the day to make up for getting up at 6am on our vacation We also tried to have dinner either early (if we didn't get a nap) or later (after the nap).

I should mention that DD was NOT a regular napper since she was 2, but the time change messed with her and it really helped. I think keeping her up late a few days might really help.

 

[carj]

I have worried about that too. We are not going until the end of June though.

My plan is to keep them up late for about 2 weeks before we go and let them sleep in and get on a little different schedule. We usually have them in bed at 8:30 in the summer, central time. I guess we will have to get them to be night owls for a while before we go! They will be thrilled with that prospect!

 

[buzzandzurg]

We live on the west coast, and I will tell you that my DS age 2 stays on pacific time with any trip to the east coast. This really killed our Caribbean cruise as he slep in late everyday and napped during our early dinner seating. As long as he stayed on his usual schedule he wasn't grumpy at all, we were just 3 hours behind everyone. Good luck.

 

[MichaelColey]

On our 12 day trip to San Diego and Anaheim a month ago, our DS5 and DD3 stayed on Central Time (waking up at 5am Pacific Time!!!) every day, until the last day when we actually needed to get up early to catch an early flight. At bedtime, they went to bed a little later than normal (and DD3 didn't get a nap), but they slept REALLY good. It's normally a challenge to get them to bed, but they were EXHAUSTED every day.

 

[Brady's Mom]

We're on Mountain time and my kids still wake up at their usual time. They usually get up at 6:30 to get ready for school - so that makes it 5:30 in Anaheim. But, they are ready for naps in the afternoon and at 4 and 6 they don't usually take them. Then we can stay up a little later in the evening and because the hotel room is usually VERY dark they sleep really well. We take a white noise machine with us to block out any strange/unusual noises for them and that seems to help, too.

I love the rest/nap for myself to get away from some of the overstimulation and noise and since we usually go for about 5 days we still can see and do everything we want.