[Carey]

We're flying in March, via Hong Kong, non-stop with our 3 kids aged 11, 8 and 3. What advice does anyone have for helping them adjust to the new time scale and get over jet lag in the first few days? We leave Heathrow at 9.15pm Uk time so am hoping they will sleep fairly soon, well the 3 yr old anyway, and arrive 10.45am NZ time, '2' days later.
Also any tips for how to entertain young kids en route, will the 3 yr old be allowed to move around in the aisle- as he's extremely active, he will be desperate to!
Thanks,
Carey

[gil]

Hi Carey,
We didn't do it with toddlers (our youngest is 9) and we went via LAX, so I can't help you too well. Ours loved the movies on board and the food, the stop in LA was hard work 'cos of the queues (3.75 hours queuing on a 4 hour stopover!!). However, they dozed reasonalbly and we did the usual trick of staying up the whole first NZ day (given that we arrived at 06.30 that was a l-o-n-g day!) and it worked: we all slept the first night and got straight back into synch.

I think it's nothing more than you've already thought: take toys/books/crayons etc and, in the end, it's "only" 26 hours! :D

Good luck with it, it's worth it!

Gil

[nippa&pippa]

Our both children amazed recovered from jag lag very quick in both trip to NZ last april and october. Just keep them awake on arrival!! ;) all day then have early tea so they can go to bed early at 6pm and just let them sleep till next morning, but beware of 2-3am awake, just tell them go back to sleep or what we did took them into our bed which they did fall back asleep quick and slept till 6am...Try encourage them to sleep much they can on the plane...
For your 3 years old as mine is 3 too, we flew with emirates and they had tv, movie etc and he watched all the way apart from sleep and eating!! so he didn't get bored with all cartoons to watch!!!! However during our emigrated flight last october, screen crashed during 2nd leg, so he was bored and he played with other boy down the alsie, so you get ideas them going up and down while people asleep... but they were good and quiet. Just pack something small, light but several items to keep going, like books, colouring book and objects of his favourite characters help to grab his attentions bit longer!!!My daughter took this chance to play silly games....running away from me!!!

[Carey]

Thanks for that encouragment; the older girls are looking forward to the continuous movies...is it also a good idea to take a pillow so sleep is easier or do they provide pillows? We're flying with Air New Zealand.

[sizzlingbadger]

As it's a night flight for the youngest you could change them into they're night wear and carry out their bed time routine, hopefully encourage them to sleep :D

We flew with a 13 mth old, 2 year old and 4 year old, yes we are mad :-) They actually slept most of both flights, the eldest watched about an 1 hour of tv before going back to sleep, missed all meals. Once we got to the hotel mid afternoon we went out for a walk to keep ourselves awake, managed untiil about 7 that evening before falling asleep and waking up the next day at 9 am :exit

[thepiesleys]

Carey - your doing exactly the same flight as us and our children are similar ages. We have a 13 YO, 8 YO and a 2.5 YO...The older two were fine and watched the constant films, TV shows (tell them to watch Bro Town, it's excellent Kiwi cartoon show although the general free for all on certain swear words is in evidence) and the food is served up on a regular basis - chinese for breakfast at one point. All the cabin crew were great and very helpful.

From London to HK the seats next to us were empty so we took it in turns to have a kip and the 2.5 YO slept for a good 5 hours, at HK they all ran around like idiots then we got on the plane first as we had a child under five, as was the same at Heathrow. HK to AUK the plane was full so sleep a little more difficult to negotiate, but 2.5 and 13 YO all managed it. As Gil said - it's just 26 hours of your life. If I were to do it again I would not take half as much stuff on the plane. Just a few small toys for the little to distract them at any given moment. The older two did not look at any travel games, coulouring books ar any of the other junk we took. They dish out a fairly good pack of crayons, stickers and that on the plane.

When we arived we were OK till about 4.30pm then I gave up and went to bed. The baby crashed at about 6.00pm and decided that 4.00am was time to get up, that was a long day. The next day we tried to keep things as normal as possible but were all tired, went to bed early-ish but the baby decided that 1.00am was time to get up. My life, another long day.

Day after all was fine and dandy and we had adjusted our body clocks.

Hope it goes as well for you as it did for us.

Regards

Dan

[willowshouse]

Thanks for that encouragment; the older girls are looking forward to the continuous movies...is it also a good idea to take a pillow so sleep is easier or do they provide pillows? We're flying with Air New Zealand.

I took full-size pillows for both my girls - 7 and 11 and they both used them .. they are ideal for cuddling into and provide a sort-of horizontal bed, and when they are awake you just stow them in the lockers above. The airlines do provide pillows but they are far to small to be useful IMO.

As others have said, by far the best way to deal with jet-lag is to get straight into local time as soon as you arrive. It is HARD and it is SOOOO tempting to have a little nap or go to bed early but resist it and it will pay dividends. When visitors arrive here we keep them occupied all day until bed-time, nothing too strenuous but a change of scenery/activity/breath of air/game of cards .. you can do it!

Have a good flight!

Dawn

[vixxann]

Good question Carey! (I knew you and I would be swopping lots of info!) :p

My kids are also looking forward to Movies and games (we are going Singapore Air) and I'm hoping its pretty much enough to keep them occupied with nothing else! (They will have never watched so much non-stop TV!)

Sleeping on the plane is a bit of a worry - we once went to Florida and my eldest (then only 5 or 6) just wouldn't sleep on overnight flight at all - he is still a complete pain to get to go to sleep now at 13 - only seems to want to sleep at 8am in the morning when he needs to get up for school :roll
Might try taking pillows (and do they sell extra strong sleepy calpol!)

Looking with interest for any more useful suggestions!

[Ana&Steve]

is it also a good idea to take a pillow so sleep is easier or do they provide pillows? We're flying with Air New Zealand.ANZ has the little airplane pillows, as willowhouse said, but if you're in the last groups to board, you might not even get those, as the earlier boarders grab extra for themselves :( . I think next time we're gonna bring our own, I hate waking up with a kink in my neck. :yes
Ana

[the emery family]

hi there. Our little girl was just 2 when we flew. We had a mixed experience - leg 1 to singapore was fine, she loved the novelty and sat watching her mini dvd player (a godsend!) with pingu on repeat, and charmed everyone in the seats around by peeping through at them , then slept for about 7 hours. Second leg wasn't so great and she had a couple of major tantrums and just wanted to lie on me which isn't great for 10 hours when you are already uncomfortable, but hey, easier than to fight it! We tried keeping her up as close as possible to normal bedtime and used the stopover in singapore to adjust her gradually. First two nights she woke crying at midnight but went back to sleep pretty easily and slept through till 9ish, despite falling asleep at 5.30pm our first night here - she was pretty much standing up with her eyes closed as she was so exhausted! Has been totally fine since then so don't worry too much about it. For the flight itself i'd just suggest some healthy snacks as our inflight kids meals were half full of chocolate, cakes and sticky drinks, not so great for the calming effects you need!

[Tia Maria]

There is a theory that children know more intuitively how to get over jet lag than adults do and apparently they adjust more quickly, as they sleep and eat when they need to rather than when is practical. Having no responsibilities probably helps also!

Ours woke at 2/3am and we all got up and had a midnight feast (we'd bought supplies earlier), they actually really enjoyed it and went back to sleep about 1 and half hours later. I think they did this for 2 nights then everything went back to normal.

We had the middle seats which worked really well as at 'bedtime', we changed them in to their PJs, lifted up all the armrests which meant they could lie completely flat and they top and tailed (they were 4 & 2, obviously this wouldn't work with older children). The blankets were awful though and kept giving them static shocks, so I just put my cardi over them instead.

If you know your airplane model you can look up seat configurations in advance, so you know the best seats to go for. You can also look where the larger spaces are for stretching your legs. On our plane there was a space near the toliets where you could move around without getting in everyone's way, so perfect for spending some time with an active toddler.

We also found our portable DVD invaluable and they really found comfort in watching some of their fave DVDs. However, we didn't need it on the flight but used it a lot in the transit hotel and in the hotels that we stayed in for our first few weeks.

Make sure you order the kids meals if you're children are picky, we didn't and our 2 weren't too impressed by the exotic meals presented to them (we flew Singapore Air). Also agree with the healthy snack idea. If our 2 acted up the hostess would appear with a chocolate bar, they then learnt ....act up ....get a chocolate bar!

Good Luck

Cheers

Tia

[Carey]

Thanks for all the above very useful advice. One more question; can you carry pillows onto the flight as hand luggage? Could all 5 of us do so!? On Air New Zealand?

Carey

[Trigirl]

you can do so long as they fit in your bags. you are only allowed one piece of hand luggage so you can't take a bag then a pillow as well.

[willowshouse]

We took 3 full size pillows as well as our 4 pieces of hand-luggage which were all small suitcases (2 adults, 2 kids) and we just carried them on loose. I have done this a number of times on various airlines (Quantas/BA/Singapore and numerous European short-haul flights) and never had any difficulties. They do roll up fairly small if you wanted to be cautious but I think you'd have to meet Mr/Mrs Picky Stewardess to run into difficulties... they take up no more room than a body-warmer would.

Dawn

[Trigirl]

i'm amazed - when we came through heathrow they were being pretty strict on the one piece of luggage thing - its a BAA security rule so the different airlines don't have much say in the matter. prior to the security changes i'd have agreed and said no problem but now? we did see lots of people getting stopped and made to repack before they were even allowed to enter the security queue.

still thats just one experience and you could get lucky

[migratory birds]

5-HTP (5 hydroxy-tryptophan) a serotonin precursor (available OTC in the US but maybe not the UK) has worked great for me when I've traveled overseas for any length of time. It would be fine for the adults and your two older kids but not the little one.

Adult dose 100mg two-three times daily for 3 days before leaving/after arriving. Kids dose 5mg/kg body wt in divided doses throughout the day (ie 40 kg X 5mg = 200mg total dose -> give 50-75 mg three times daily).

Side effects if dose is too high are drowsiness, dry mouth and nausea - just decrease the dose if these side effects arise.

Good luck! You'll be there soon enough and the adjustment period will be quickly forgotten!