Time zone change - sleep disrupted

M

Mini-me

Registered User
Hi,

I've just moved to HK with my husband and 7 month old daughter from the UK. Since then my daughter's sleeping has been really disrupted and she won't go to sleep until 11pm every night and she used to go to sleep at 8pm.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get her sleeping back on track?
 
We just took a trip back from the US- a 12 hour time difference with a 2.25yr old and a 8 month old. It takes roughly a week to get over jet lag if you start giving them food on the normal schedule(no middle of the night snacking) and enforcing morning and afternoon naps asap. I also enforced waking up time at 6:30am so the little one would automatically feel sleepy by 9am. Our morning naps were most variable as in how much because it accommodated when the child woke up. Our bedtime is 7pm. I also let him take the late afternoon nap (anytime bw 4-5 and as short as 15 min) if the early afternoon nap wasn't enough for him to last till 7pm. Cannot let them sleep after 4/ 5 pm if you want them to sleep on time.
 
I have struggled with this on returning from the UK too. I agree with Suv - but just start bringing the bedtime back by 20-30 mins every night to get to the normal bedtime.
 
We are going through the same thing...coming back from the UK this time which is much harder than coming back from North America. I think it's easier going west than east. It's just starting to normalize at we're at the end of the first week. I think it helps keeping them up late at night an then pushing the time back a little bit at a time...definitely try to keep as close to your old routine in the daytime...the daylight helps get them back to their circadian rhythm. Good luck...we're crossing our fingers that tonight she gets past the 430am wake up without having to come into our bed...
 
I just stuck to my son's daily routine until he was fully adjusted. It took a week to adjust his internal clock in Hong Kong and 2 weeks to adjust his internal clock in Canada.
 
Hi Ladies

Many thanks for your replies, I've been trying to stick to her schedule as closely as possible and she has more or less got her rhythm back in the day. Just needs more work on bedtime now and the night waking!
 
Yeah, nightwaking has been difficult because when we were away, she'd end up in bed with us, but I'm trying to get out of that habit and last night she woke up around 2 and I gave her a dummy and let her cry it out for about 5min and she went back to sleep until 645! Yay. So hope tonight is even better.
 
I am planning to take my daughter to Canada in July and she will be 1 yr old then. I heard from some that it takes a day to adjust for every hour of time difference.

That's scary!!! Would you all agree?

@ oi0io, do you mean it takes more time to adjust their clock when you go to Canada, vs when going back to HK?
 
That's the theory...going west is easier than east. It didn't take 2 weeks, but she didn't sleep as well for the time we were there in Canada than when we were here at home. I've heard baby benadryl works well, but I've always been a bit nervous with medications...maybe talk to your pediatrician. I know when we were in Canada and our little one was 9 months, we had to get up around 3am, let her play a couple hours and then she'd go back to sleep with us. We were there for 2 weeks only. Depends on your sleep situation (in your room or if they have their own room as well). When we went to the UK, the time change was a bit easier, but it's taken us a week to recover from that trip. Also depends on your baby and what you can put up with when you're away. She would start out in a cot, but end up in our bed, so we had to break that habit upon coming home and now that she's one, she was crying a lot louder. Cross our fingers, the last 2 nights she stayed in her room and cot, but with a bit of crying and a dummy.
 
Paris for Xmas in 2010, took a week to get over the jetlag. Vancouver for Xmas in 2009, took ~ 2 weeks to get over :)
 
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