Let me start with what I say to every family before they fly, because it takes most of the pressure off. On the plane, do whatever you have to do.
If your baby sleeps, wonderful. If they don’t, that’s the flight you’ve got. Do not sit at thirty thousand feet trying to hold a schedule together, because it won’t work and you’ll land already wrecked. Feed them, walk them up the aisle, put the screen on, hand over the snacks you swore you would ration. Getting everyone there is the job.
Let’s talk About it
I have sat with mums who are genuinely dreading a holiday. Not the flight or the packing, but the sleep. They’ve worked so hard to get their baby settled, and now they are handing it over to a hotel room, a strange cot and a five-hour time difference. They feel sick about the jet lag, then guilty for feeling sick about a holiday.
If that’s you, you’re not being precious. That worry makes complete sense. After all, you’ve built something, and you don’t want to lose it.
Here is the reassuring bit. Ten days away will not undo months of work. You will have some ordinary nights and some rubbish ones, then you will come home and it will settle.
Land, and go straight onto the new time
This is the part that genuinely matters, and where most families get stuck. The second you land, you are on local time. Not their old time, not a gentle three day transition. The new time starts that morning.
So you fly Dubai to London and touch down at seven in the morning. Go to the hotel, feed them, and if they normally take a nine o’clock nap, try to do one in London time. Then push through the day. Get daylight, fresh air, and a walk, and aim for a normal bedtime that night.
Is it hard work? Yes. But children shift faster than adults, and most are largely sorted in a couple of days if you commit straight away. Easing them across slowly just stretches the misery over a week.
They will wake in the night
They are overtired, and overtired children do not sleep beautifully, they sleep worse. Expect wake-ups, and at least one night that feels like a proper step backwards.
A few things help more than anything else.
Pack their sleeping bag, the comforter, the cot sheet if it fits. Smell is one of the strongest cues a small child has, and a bed that smells like home in a room that does not is hugely reassuring at two in the morning. Bring the toy and the book you always read. It costs a bit of suitcase space, but it’s worth every centimetre.
Make the room dark. Properly dark. Hotel curtains are famously useless, so pack a few clips or throw a dark scarf over the gap. Light tells a little body clock whether it is day or night, and at half past four in a bright room you have already lost.
And keep them in the room. When they wake at two thinking it is mid-afternoon, do not put the lights on and do not take them out to the lounge. Same low voice, same words, same dim light as at home. Get them up and about and you have told them the night is over, and now you have a party on your hands.
Try not to let it become a bigger thing than it is. You are going to have disrupted sleep, but that’s not a sign that anything has gone wrong; it’s just what travel does to all of us.
Manage it as best you can and try not to spiral. Anxious parents make wobbly decisions at three in the morning, and those turn a few messy nights into a new habit you have to unpick at home. Hold the routine you know, hold your nerve, and let the rest be a holiday.
Coming home
Same thing in reverse. Straight onto home time the day you land, dark room, normal bedtime, and give it a few days.
And remember, once you are home you can put them straight back into the routine. Their own room, their own cot, their own bedtime, exactly as before. That is worth holding onto while you are away. None of this is permanent.
If it wobbles, reset. Go back to exactly what they know, same order, same words, same room, for a few nights. They remember. That is the point of teaching them properly, you always have something to come back to.
Go on the trip. Just don’t expect a fortnight away to look like home!
Anna is the Founder of SleepBaker, one of Australia’s most trusted baby sleep consultancies, now also supporting families across the UAE.
