Posts Tagged ‘travel toddler’

The holidays are tricky for your baby’s sleep. Grandma and grandpa want to spend time with the little fella, since they don’t get to see him that much. Or, you have two parties to go to on the same day, babysitters galore, or you have a lot of family members over making it really loud during nap time. Some people even like to get babysitters just to go Christmas shopping, especially those of you with more than one kid or twins or triplets, or more! After all, keeping your eye on two kids running around makes it THAT much harder to actually look for gifts to buy for people (believe me, I know!). That’s one reason I do most of my shopping online, these days. You might think that I often link to Amazon because I’m an affiliate (I get a very small percentage of sales at no cost to you), but I actually LOVE Amazon! I’m an Amazon Prime member and my holiday shopping alone more than pays for it, not to mention all the birthdays, sleep books I want to read, etc. throughout the year.

If you travel during the holidays, this can make many parents anxious and I tend to get a lot of questions about it around this time of the year. Don’t fret. There are things you can do to make the transition easier including making “away” as much like “home” as possible, being consistent in your routines, and getting back to normal as much as possible when you get back. If you have holiday visitors, try including grandma or grandpa in the routines by letting them read the bedtime stories. For more tips on your baby’s sleep, please visit MomCentral this year where I go into your baby’s sleep and the holidays in more detail.

To help some of you even more during the holidays, I’ve decided to give the gift of sleep this year by giving away the following:

•   Two copies of my e-Book, Help Your Child Sleep, a Step-by-Step Guide, to help a tired family with their nighttime troubles.
(Value: $28.50)

•   Two copies of my e-Book, Mastering Naps & Schedules, to help a tired family with their baby’s nap struggles or to help establish a routine.
(Value: $24.95)

•   Two 3-month memberships to my exclusive Members Area, where you gain access to all our e-Books, case studies, weekly expert advice by yours truly, and much MUCH more!
(Value: $18)

AND

•   Two two-email personalized consultation packages, where I customize a sleep plan for your specific situation. I promise we can get a lot done in just two e-mail! Read other parent stories. (You can also feel free to save these to use later, too)
(Value: $24.95)

AND

•   Your choice of a $57.20 Target or Amazon gift card (so the total prizes equal $250 just because I’m a little anal and silly like that. Go ahead and check my math. I used Excel! )
(Value: $57.20)

Why am I giving away so much? It’s the holidays, we should all be generous and I LOVE helping people with their sleep struggles, that’s why!

How can you win one of these lovely prizes? Just leave a comment below and I’ll randomly choose winners (using random.org).

Make sure you enter below NOW, forward to all your friends and family, post it on Facebook, and tweet on Twitter! Share! Share! Share! The baby on his dad’s shoulder at the top is reason enough alone to share. Soooo adorable!

(Note: One person / e-mail address can’t win two prizes. If I randomly choose the same person, I’ll choose another winner, to be fair. You can enter up to once a day, though (Max 9 entries).)

A week ago my family and I went to the beautiful St. Maarten for our much-needed summer vacation and I thought I’d share our experience, particularly how sleep played a part since this is a website about sleep (and okay because I’m obsessed with it). Thankfully, I had some frequent flier miles to pay for one of the tickets and we opted to have my younger son (now 18 months) sit on our laps, since it’s the last chance before we are required to pay for him. Here’s our summer vacation story.

Trouble began when my “good” sleeper decided to stay up from 10p to 2am the night before our trip! Ugh! He has never done that, but of course that night he did. I attribute it to feeding off the excitement about the trip because I don’t think he fully understood we were going anywhere. The problem was our flight was at 7am! Our plan was to get up at 4 to get to the airport 2 hours early! Oh boy. Vacation was not off to a great sleep start AT ALL. My almost 4 year old (who inspired this site) was in our room at 3:45 a.m. (he was really excited about the trip), so we went ahead and started getting ready.

The travel portion of our trip was actually pretty good. I prepared a carry-on with snacks, new books and new toys along with a portable DVD player, and the boys’ loveys (see more travel tips here). Both boys miraculously napped on the way, too. This is a miracle because my eldest son is still a “sleep fighter”, but he willingly decided to take a nap on the plane. Woah. I can’t say the same for the way back and he was up from 6:30 until 11pm! But, he was good the whole way home, it was only the next day that he had some behavior problems, but a nap helped that immensely (even though he hasn’t napped since about 2 1/2).

Once in St. Maarten, after a rental car snafu, we had a great time swimming in the pool, going to the beach, the zoo, and snorkeling. Unfortunately, at the zoo, my son was bucked by a goat in the petting zoo and the reason for the title of this post is because while we were on a boat, my older son fell off the seat (okay I fell off too LOL) and his face ran into the side of the boat and he got his first black eye. Those were the worst parts of our trip, but on a positive note he learned to doggie paddle and LOVED the beach!

Sleep-wise, we started at a disadvantage with the night before even with two naps on the trip there. I prayed I would be wrong, but if you’ve read any of this site, you know over-tired babies tend to wake extra early in the morning and start short-napping. My boys are no exception. The baby napped only 30 minutes (normally a 2 hour nap) the first day and every day on the trip started waking earlier and earlier every day. At the end of the trip we were at a 5:50 a.m. wake-up. He did have some good naps while we were there, but we were off routine and schedule so much, he just didn’t sleep well and oh, we started to co-sleep because he and his brother were in the same room and he wasn’t sleeping all that well in the Rent-a-Crib (though it was a nice one and I brought his crib sheet from home) and I didn’t need two boys up!

After our trip, it took about a week to get fully back to normal, but here we are back at 2+ hour naps, a reasonable bedtime and 11-12 hours at night for the baby and a normal 10 hours for the almost 4 year old. I do think our trip has seemed to tip the baby into a 6 hour wake-time before bedtime, which is challenging considering a few days he’s been going to sleep after his big brother. The trip has also seemed to increase separation anxiety for the 18 month old and I hope that gets better, soon!

All in all, the vacation was really great. Obviously, I didn’t get to catch up on sleep as much as I wanted, but I did get to relax, at least. I even read 28% of a book, for pleasure. I know I read that much because right before the trip I used an Amazon.com Gift Card my Dad gave me at Christmas (yes it took me that long to use it) to buy a new Kindle, which is essentially an electronic book reader. It is very cool and easy to travel with. I guess I’ll finish the remaining 72% of my book on my next vacation, since I rarely have time these days to read for pleasure (aside from sleep books).

I hope most everyone’s babies and toddlers were sleeping well while I was gone. I have fully caught up on sleep helpdesk tickets, now. Took a few days, but not bad enough that I won’t go on vacation again.

Tell me about your summer vacation!

Here in the U.S. (in most states), we are going to be “falling back” (changing our clocks one hour back) this year on Sunday, November 2, 2008. In Europe, they will be changing their clocks the last Sunday in October, or October 27th. The reason we have Daylight Savings is that it allows us to use less energy in lighting our homes by having longer and later daylight hours. Whether you are changing the clocks or traveling with baby through time zones, most parents want to know what to do with their baby’s sleep when the clock says one time and baby says another.

For some, they are anxious for the time change to happen because their baby is going to bed too late, but other parents are freaking out because their baby or toddler is already waking too early and now the clock will say it’s even earlier!

What strategies can you use to handle the time change?

The first option is to do nothing. Your baby is waking at 7 a.m. and going to bed at 7 p.m. The day the clock changes, it will say 6 a.m., but it really is no different than the day before. You will stick to the same schedule and put him to bed when the clock says 7 p.m. that night, which, to him, will really be 8 p.m. For babies or toddlers who are not sensitive to being overtired or go with the flow, this is a fine strategy and within a day or two, he will be all set and re-settle into the same schedule. If your baby is an early bird (lark) who wakes up at 5 a.m., for example, he will fall back to the normal routine of waking at 5 a.m. after a few days to a week and if you are happy with that, I would simply suggest going with this option and planning to wake up at 4 a.m. for a few days.

The second option is to slowly change your baby or toddler’s schedule over the course of a few days before the time changes. On Wednesday, before your time changes, put your baby or toddler to bed 15 minutes later than normal in hopes that he wakes up 15 minutes later in the morning (I can’t promise that will happen because of our internal clocks, but it does work for many). Also, offer him naps 15 minutes later. Keep putting him to bed 15 minutes later each night until the night of the time change. By the time the clock changes, you would have shifted his schedule by 1 hour, the clock will change, and you will be back to your normal schedule. Unfortunately, this option can have a rippling bad effect on babies or toddlers who are sensitive to becoming overtired, possibly leading to crankiness, early morning wake-up, night-wakings and short naps.

The third option is to stick to the regular schedule leading up to the time change and once the time changes, be flexible and alter the schedule only as much as she can handle. The first night, you may only get to a 6:30 p.m. bedtime, for example, and she will go to bed earlier than normal (clock-wise). It’s the light that stimulates our eyes and sets our internal clock as to when we should sleep or not, so after a few days, she should re-settle into her normal schedule. Unfortunately, this option is really hard on those with babies or toddlers who are already waking up at 5 a.m. You may want to consider shifting your baby or toddler’s schedule in the 3 weeks leading up to the time change and, again, a week after the time change (if you do not like the 5 a.m. wake-up).

There are a variety of things you can do that fall somewhere in between any of these options, but these are the main options you have. If you’d like help with a custom solution for your unique baby, please contact me by purchasing my baby sleep consulting services. I’d love to help you!

How have you handled time changes in the past that has worked?