We're going to Europe with our 2 1/2 year old in about 3 weeks, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to help her through the time change, which will be 9 hours. She really adheres to her schedule at home (much more by her own desire than mine), and I'm afraid she'll be sleeping all day while her dad and I are ready to go exploring. I've thought about trying to gradually adjust her schedule, by an hour a day, so she'd be better adjusted by the time we go, but then I think that would leave us exhausted even before we left. It would also make it really difficult to get prepared for the trip if we are up in the middle of the night and have to go run errands. Any experiences with this? We're arriving at our destination early in the morning, so the possiblity of sleeping all day is very real.

Everything I say will not address your daughter's concern. However, Kids do recover from jet lag faster than us - old foggies as long as they get their pre-sleep meal in time.

Give her favourite meal 30 minutes before the evening flight cross-atlantic, so that she might sleep across the pond.

That's the best I can give, without havibg taken a child of that age across the pond. Kids rebound faster than us from jet lag.

We've not taken our children a trip with a big time change, but I've found with them, the best thing to do is just start our first morning at the destination with our usual routine. When they were tiny babies, they sometimes got an extra feed in the night to keep them going. She is bound to be tired, so maybe let her nap longer than usual, or have a short nap in the morning to get her through to her longer nap. I wouldn't bother with adjusting her schedule in the days before you leave, because as you say, that will be tiring in itself. Also, you don't know how she'll adjust to the time change until you've tried it, so it might be a waste of effort.

I travelled back and forth the Atlantic extensively as a child, and I can only remember jet lag affecting me on the first day. When we arrived in NY from London, my brother and I would wake up at the crack of dawn and spend a few hours looking out of the window while my parents slept. You might need to give her an early breakfast or snack if she does this. Travelling west to east was always easier as far as I can remember.

Our child is a little older, she was 5 when we started our open ended world tour 4 years ago, but we have had no problems at all with jet lag. Kids seem to adapt easier than adults!

We started in Ca and flew to Amsterdam. We had her sleep on the flight (bring PJs & do bedtime routines) & we are big believers in immediately adapting to local time without daytime naps.

We returned to CA/US for a short visit last fall then back to Europe, again with no problems. It was even easier as we stopped in NYC both ways.

Good luck!