small children and time zone changes

[Traveller20074]

we will be doing the Caribbean out of New York and that will be a 3 hour time difference from the west coast. Is there a way to handle this after we arrive the day or so before to get them aclimated to the new tiime? It seems a little daunting to this grandma. They will be 8, 3 and approx 15 months old. thanks in advance :)

[Gatrcruzer]

I'm wondering if you could just keep them mostly on their old time schedule? A lot of folks let their kids stay up later on vacation, and many people sleep in, so maybe just plan on keeping them up a bit later? Hopefully you took the late seating for dinner, or are doing freestyle. The only time I could see a problem would be an early excursion, and even then I think it is workable. The closer you keep them to the old time zone, the easier it will be on all, especially given that they will need to get them acclimated back to the old time zone fairly quickly. You don't want to spend a week acclimating to the new time only to need to change back again...

 

Good luck and have a great cruise!

[Traveller20074]

I'm wondering if you could just keep them mostly on their old time schedule? A lot of folks let their kids stay up later on vacation, and many people sleep in, so maybe just plan on keeping them up a bit later? Hopefully you took the late seating for dinner, or are doing freestyle. The only time I could see a problem would be an early excursion, and even then I think it is workable. The closer you keep them to the old time zone, the easier it will be on all, especially given that they will need to get them acclimated back to the old time zone fairly quickly. You don't want to spend a week acclimating to the new time only to need to change back again...

 

Good luck and have a great cruise!

 

 

It's funny, I discussed this with my daughter after I posted this, and she said pretty much the same thing. Keep them on the old...we will be on the cruise for 9 days and a couple of days in New York before or after, so hopefully, that would work :) We'll be doing Freestyle (Norwegian Gem) so that is good I think:)

[TheCalicoCat]

We will be going from Md. to Ak. & right now we are going to play it by ear. Luckily on the return we have 3 days (including the day that we return via red-eye) before we have to return to life as usual.

[cb at sea]

Just "play it by ear"....they will do their own thing, despite the time changes...they can't "tell time", so it won't matter to them! They'll sleep when sleepy, eat when hungry!

[Kerry's Girls]

The only time we had a difficulty with time zone changes was when we worked to adapt to them. From them on, I've done as the others suggested and just kept to our usual schedule - which when going East is actually great for kids because they feel like they're sleeping in and staying up late. Over the week, we naturally adjust a bit, but it's so much better during the trip and on the return home when we don't try to match the time zone we're in.

 

Best,

Mia

[mikesteg]

Same here: the kids (twin 2YOs in our case) do just fine without parental help. In your case, I think you'll find that it's greatly beneficial to "lose" those 3 hours since you'll be able to see the shows and experience some form of the night life.

[Baxter]

Yes, thanks to the time change, we were up each morning at 5am with our very happy little one. She was up and ready to go!