Travelling to USA with a 6 month old

[megano]

Hi all,

I am hoping for some advice on travelling long haul with my daughter from anyone who has had experience in this!

We are going to New York in April, it will be my daughters first plane trip and I am unsure the best way to go about planning the best flight times, jet lag, sleep routines etc. My daughter will be 6 months old at the time of the trip. We have sort of fallen in to a routine where she sleeps 12 hours a night with one feed after about 8 hours and on a good day 3 naps a day totalling about 3 - 4 hours. I am not strict on when these naps so hope we can just continue this when we travel but I dont know if like adults we should try and get her on the new time zone asap or just let her sleep when she wants to etc. This would also affect the flights we pick, are overnight flights better or day time flights?. We are only going for a week so I also wonder if it is worth spending days readjusting her body clock only to come back as soon as we do.

Any help/advice you can provide would be great!

Thanks

Megan

[Chippy Minton]

We did long haul to America many times when our daughter was young. I'd say let her sleep when it suits her (within reason!). It will probably mean you're up at 4am for a while the first night, but we found it's better to have that rather than worrying about routines that are going to be messed up anyway because you aren't at home.

When it comes to flight times, flights out will get you there late afternoon/evening which is perfect after travelling for that distance as you can get to where you're going and just sleep. Coming back, we've always done the overnight - we found kids that small generally seem to be able to sleep on planes much better than adults.

Whatever you do, don't stress. New York at that time of year is brilliant.

[jesska]

We have lots of experience of long haul flights with one and then 2 kids (try 12 hrs!). London --> Nyc won't be too bad. Once there, you will basically be ready for bed at 8-9pm in the evening and then up around 4am to start (with the nighttime routine likely the same). For a one week trip I wouldn't worry too much. You will probably adjust by about an hour or so everyday, but as your daughter is so small, she might adjust faster than you. Your first day there, just sleep when everybody is sleepy and then after that just go about the day as you would normally. There are lots of things in NY that will be open early, so that is a bonus.

And I would just pick the flight that is most convenient and least likely to make YOU tired. On a night flight you won't get a good night's sleep so you will arrive tired, which is not ideal. And you may feel stressed about the baby waking other passengers...or not. I find that the people who give you the hairy eyeball because you bring a child on an airplane are also the most likely to be loud/obnoxious themselves and wake them up if you do get them to sleep, so I have stopped caring.

Good luck anyway and just enjoy your trip. Everything will sort itself out again when you are back.

[Pickle]

We fly long haul to NZ on a regular basis - all our children have been in pretty good routines, for us the best approach has always been to opt for night flights so they sleep well. As soon as you hit the ground in the new timezone do your best to adjust the routine to the correct time. Generally within a few days we are settled again - and NZ is a 12 hour difference so as extreme as you can get.

Have a fab time!

[megano]

Thanks all! This is really helpful. With so many flight times to pick from I wasn't sure where to start.

I would like to think I can rise above annoying people on the plane giving looks but I am sure if she has a meltdown so will I :)

x

[nylonmeals]

Just to ditto what others have said, we did London - NYC with a 5 month old and found that in the bassinet craddle on the plane he slept pretty well. We opted for evening out and overnight back and actually we found that our son reacted better to jetlag than we did! Good luck

[JBoylen]

Exactly what Jesska said! We travel to the US (Boston) quite frequently and my daughter is also 6 months. I do find that the mid day flight there and the red eye back to London is better for us overall. Get her to sleep as much as you can and of course feed her on the way up and down to prevent ear aches. Remember that the plane descends over a period of time, not just prior to landing so keep and eye on your ear pressure to know when she will need a sip of food or a dummy (if you use them).

My daughter tends to have a hard time adjusting once we are back in London but it is not too bad that we avoid the flights. We let her sleep when she wants but try to keep her on the night time routine based on the current (ie NYC) time. We do try to adjust her time, even if we are there for a few days, but we keep a flexible schedule in general so we are not too strict..as few hours on either side.

We aso fly BA and if you can get the seat with the baby basket, do it. You have no place to put any thing but on the floor after take off which is warm so watch any food that should be kept cool. Also, it is hard to watch any movies and move about with that seat. however, it is easier than any other 'economy' seats...in my opinion.

Oh and these flights seem extraordinarily hot so I usually keep her in a thin sleep suit and unbutton her a bit, she will actually start sweating once we are on the plane. The air adjusts, but it is hot hot hot when we get on...good for sleep, but overall a sticky uncomfortable situation. I have not been on a shorter flight with her yet, so this may be normal and I am just more attune to it now.

If you have any other questions let me know!

[veryseriousgirl]

We travel back and forth between London and Boston or Dallas (and even Hawaii once!) a few times a year. My daughter was on a pretty regular routine at that age - we found that if we adopted the view that once we were on the plane, we pretended we were in the destination time zone, it was pretty easy to adjust routines. We normally fly a daytime flight to the US and the overnight coming back which has worked well for us. It means you get an extra feed / nap on the way out and a compressed day on the way back. As stated above, my daughter normally struggles a bit more with the return to London, but it has never been so bad that we've abandoned travelling.