Take the First Couple Days Off

The first day or two you will not only be living in a different time zone, you will also be dealing with the exhaustion of missed sleep due to the long flight. Few children sleep well on airplanes, so your child will start off more tired than usual. It’s best to leave the schedule adjustments until the initial exhaustion is under control. Treat the first day or two like you would if you had just brought a new baby home. Sleep whenever you get the chance and give your child a chance to get over that initial fatigue.

Don’t Let Your Child Get Overtired

By the second or third day, you should start trying to adjust your child’s sleeping patterns back to a normal schedule. Do this gently. If your child is staying up most of the night and sleeping in, start by waking your child a few hours earlier. If your child is waking up in the middle of the night, keep the house dark and promote quiet play until a more reasonable hour. You can start the day earlier than normal, but try keep your child quiet as long as possible.

During the day, encourage activities that require some physical activity, but aren’t too exhausting. Outdoor activities are best. If going outside is impossible, try to keep your child in a brightly lit room during the day. This helps change your child’s schedule by exposing your child to adrenaline and sunlight during the day, two things that tell your child’s body it is daytime. If your child gets sleepy during the day, don’t try to keep them awake longer than they want to. Doing this will cause your child to become overtired which will further complicate the change back to a normal schedule. Instead of trying to keep your child awake, shorten daytime sleeping to nothing more than a long nap.

Eat Regular Meals During the Day

An essential step in helping your child adjust is making sure they eat enough during the day so they aren’t as likely to get hungry during the night. A good rule of thumb is to wake your child at each meal time, feed your child, and then promote activity until your child is too tired to stay awake. This should lengthen the amount of time your child stays awake during the day and help them spend more time at night sleeping.

Keep Nighttime Quiet

When normal bedtime arrives, get your child ready for bed using the normal routine and then darken the room and encourage them to stay quiet. If your child is not sleepy provide a dim light and allow them to play with toys quietly. Discourage physically active play that might promote adrenaline. If your child is falling asleep earlier than usual, allow your child to take a nap and then wake them at least an hour before bedtime. This will allow you to follow the usual bedtime routine, signaling to their body that it is time to sleep.

Jetlag can last for up to two weeks; however, your child will most likely adjust within the first week. Be careful not to force anything, either daytime play or nighttime sleep. Your child’s body will naturally adjust to sunlight exposure and nighttime darkness. If you find yourself fighting exhaustion, don’t be afraid to enlist outside help to care for your child while you take a nap. With a little time, both of you will be back on schedule.

Going to high attitudes requires time for acclimatization and it is best to avoid alcoholic beverages, tobacco, excessive food and exercise and to take more frequent rests for the first few days at attitude. Similar adaptations and restriction are necessary on arrival into a tropical area.

A great hazard to the traveler to the developing countries is contaminated water. Unless it is absolutely certain that piped water is potable and safe bottled water should be used for drinking purpose alcoholic beverage, hot tea and coffee and hot milk are safe drinks.

Sunstroke and heat exhaustion can be avoided by abstaining from prolonged exposure to the sun or overly strenuous exercises. Its important to drink more fluid and to add salt to food or to use salt tablets, effective sunscreen should be used since insects are important carries of diseases and as well a great nuisance mosquito exposure may be lessened by wearing clothing that covers the arms and legs and applying mosquito or insect repellent a to exposed areas.