travel with small children

[kittb]

I will be travelling with two small children (4&7) and we're staying for 14 nights travelling from the UK. Realistically how fast do you reckon we will adjust to time differences etc? I'm thinking about staying up for fireworks etc. We don't do late nights at home ever so I'm thinking this will be a double whammy.

Thanks
Kit

 

[jtowntoflorida]

I'm naturally a night owl and traveling to Europe is easier for me than coming home (I generally do better traveling east than west...even trips to California, which is only a 2 hour time change, are hard on me). That being said, I adapt fairly well to European time in about 2 days, but coming home is closer to 4 days. You'll only have a 5 hour time difference, so hopefully it will only take 2-3 days. Your "problem" for the first few days is going to be super early waking, so I'd plan on taking advantage of that as much as possible and schedule early morning activities the first couple of days (pre-RD ADRs, early EMH, etc.) and aim for your later nights to be toward the end of your trip. Staying up later toward the end will help you adapt to the time change on your return home, too.

 

[ClaireW]

We've travelled from UK more than once with little ones and the pattern so far has been like this:
travel day - try to stay up as long as possible and go to bed very tired but closer to US bedtime than UK bedtime. Feels like a day and a half! Usually kids have napped on bus en route to hotel and we end up eating a small QS meal and trying to do something to keep busy to try to get onto a US schedule.

first day - wake up very early (occasionally so early that the kids have had some cereal and gone back to sleep!) and try to make the most of this by having a nice early breakfast and arriving at MK for rope drop (sometimes we've deliberately booked an early pre-rope-drop ADR at Crystal Palace because we know how the kids will be, this year we won't because our youngest will only just turn one and this will be her first trip and possibly less predictable!). Very early lunch + early afternoon nap. Try again to stay up until kids bedtime US time, although we are usually not far behind them.

next few days - fairly early starts, lots of early afternoon naps/rests and start to plan in the odd late night after about 4 or 5 days.


We haven't found it too hard to adjust from UK to US - we are all excited and that keeps us busy and awake! And natural light/sunshine/fresh air is a big help. It also helps us to have some snacks, cereal, etc in the room for eating quickly/at anti-social hours.
Coming home is always harder - we usually fly overnight, land at UK breakfast time and then struggle not to fall asleep mid-afternoon (therefore making it even harder to sleep at UK bedtime!)

Hope this helps

 

[nadira36]

We're heading the other direction - and smaller time difference, but when we've gone to the UK with small children, I've found they adjust better than my DH does.

For your scenario, at Disney, I'd plan the complete first day to be resort only - if up for more, go ahead, but just plan to swim, walk, go to DTD maybe. Enjoy the day, let the kiddos sleep as needed, BUT shorten naps to an hour. Up for at least 3 hours before another nap. Try to get them to stay up until at least 6PM - later gives a later wake up the next day (IME) before you let them sleep for more than an hour.

Aim for a nice hearty, early (buffet maybe) breakfast the next day - RD, and heading back to the resort in the afternoon for a nap and a swim - for us, our 7 yr old can have up to 2 hours of nap time and still go to bed IF she also gets to and runs/swims or something. So after a nap - get out and get them busy free playing - at a playground or pool. Then bedtime as per usual.

The 3rd day will be ready for whatever your Disney time happens to be.

Our Disney time is typically RD until 3PM, then naps (for the adults ) swim, dinner, swim, bed by about 10PM. We find this works well for us.

 

[amym2]

I've always found it easier to adjust when traveling west than traveling east. We flew to Hawaii last Oct with our kids (but they are older, were 9 and 11) and I was worried, but none of us really had jet lag. We were prepared to be up early and to bed early. By day 3, we were on a similar schedule to at home. I agree with the others who suggested planning early mornings for the first few days and saving nighttime entertainment for the later part of your trip (with 2 weeks, I'd probably wait 4 or 5 days). Honestly, when our kids were 4 and 7, even without a time difference we weren't able to do many late nights. The benefit to that was that it was no problem for us to get to the parks for rope drop and ride a ton of stuff before the crowds arrived. Chances are your kids will have an easier time adjusting than you will!