Pakistan is either 9 or 10 hours ahead of the time zone I live in, depending on Daylight Savings Time. That's a lot of hours to adjust to. In order to lessen the effects of jetlag, we have a couple of things that we do.
First, we try to stay up later and later in the few days before we leave for Pakistan. That way we're already gearing up for the switch. This is easier for me than for M, because even though his job is really flexible, he does still have to work fairly regular hours. And the baby, well, what can you do? Kids generally have an easier time adjusting anyway, so I don't worry too much about him.
Next, since we take late night flights, we try to sleep as much on the planes as possible, as if it's a regular night for us. That's easier when there's a really long leg of the flight. In 2004, we had three legs, two of which were about 8 hours long. Last time, we had a long, 16 hour DC to Qatar leg that made a nice long, full night's sleep possible.
Then, when we get to Pakistan, we sleep a little bit in the morning if needed, but then we just jump right into Pakistani life. That way we only have one day of feeling tired and after a full day of activity, we go to bed at the usual Pakistani time and wake up the next day almost completely adjusted. This gets harder with age, I've heard, so we may have a worse time of it as the years pass.
Last time, the baby had no issues whatsoever, but he was still taking at least one - sometimes two naps, so he had several daily opportunities to catch up on missed sleep. This time he's doing pretty well too, but he's woken up both nights in the middle of the night kind of ready to start his day. We've just treated them like "night wakings" and kept shushing him and telling him to go back to sleep. Hopefully by tonight, he'll be totally adjusted and won't wake up.
Although, our first official wedding function is tonight and it starts - STARTS - at 10 o'clock at night. So perhaps we won't sleep very well tonight after all...?
4 comments:
Oh jet lag is bloody murder for me. I try to jump right into the new schedule and only take a small nap in the day with the girls and then get a full sleep only at night. My daughters also do the night wakings at first, too, and this makes it harder because they make it so nobody adjusts. I have just gone with the "treat it as a night waking" method, too. And they do settle after a few days. But it is just so hard. It feels like the floor is pulling me down to lay down and go to sleep sometimes, even when I am out in public. Anyway, you seem to do better with it, mashallah. Good luck with the adjustment.
Ooh, what wedding function is this that starts at 10 pm?
I'm loving the regular blog updates! keep it uP :)
Last trip, by first day in India was an absolute disaster - I kept falling asleep. The second day was much better thank goodness - it was my wedding day, so I had to be awake for it!
Do you try to time when you sleep on the plane? When traveling any distance, I try to keep in mind balancing getting onto the local time's day/night patterns while getting enough sleep to cover my needs.
Do any of you guys ever try taking melatonin tablets? I know, when my parents cannot sleep, or their schedules are off, they take one before bed and it helps (naturally) knock them out. Actually my little brother even does it too (24 yo). It might really help you guys adjust on overwhelming time change trips.
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