Tips For Children To Sleep Well On Trips
Taking vacations when we have young children represents, in many opportunities, a huge challenge. A question that is essential is to know multiple tips for children to sleep well on trips.
First of all, we must consider that we will change the environment and that we will carry out many different activities. However, it is necessary to try without affecting the rest routines that the little ones need, including their naps.
This consideration is very relevant, since children do not perceive in their mind the change from one environment to another in the same way as adults. Observing new objects and locations can over-excite them and make them unable to sleep.
Tips for children to sleep well on trips
It is clear that, during the holidays, the rest routines are relaxed. However, this does not mean that there is a detriment in the hours of rest of our children.
In order for them to play, learn and enjoy what they will see in the new environment, be it the beach, the mountains or the recreational places, their mind and body must have had a proper rest.
Hence, in order to win the battle against distraction and get children to rest, we must follow certain tips so that children sleep well during trips. Those that we will present to you below reflect the list of the most recurrent and effective according to the experience of hundreds of parents.
1. Take the pillow, blanket or stuffed animal that the child sleeps with on the trip
The most important tip for when you are packing before leaving is to attach part of the child’s bedding. You should include their pillow, blanket or stuffed animal that the infant sleeps with. You can choose between one of these pieces; If it is within your means, include all you have.
This action will produce a feeling of familiarity in your brain. Even by seeing, touching and smelling them, you will understand that bedtime has come.
2. How to combat the so-called jet lag
Once the trip begins and if the destination is long, jet lag is the next enemy of your children’s sleep. The jet lag is known as an imbalance regarding our biological clock which is responsible for marking the vigil and hours of sleep when we moved in a plane through different territories with different time zones.
In order for children to keep their sleep cycle stable in the face of a long plane trip, a week before leaving, parents should add an hour to the sleeping and eating routines. In this way, the schedule of going to bed for the little ones will be more similar to that of the destination country.
When arriving at the place, they should try to do some activity outdoors or that the children can observe the natural light or darkness of the city; in this way, the child’s biological clock can gradually adjust to the cycle of the day of the country in which they are.
3. Keep the same rules for going to sleep that you established at home.
Children should not think that, due to a change of environment, the rules for going to sleep have already been discarded. Therefore, you must be firm but patient so that the child can go to bed when ordered.
This action is necessary because it takes children three days to acquire a new sleep habit and one day to lose it. In such a way that the ideal thing to maintain as much as possible its stability during the trip and when returning home is to follow the rules for going to bed that were previously established.
This includes things like: time to rest, take a bath before going to bed, turn off the television or light, or sleep with the bedroom door open or closed.
As a final recommendation, whenever possible and convenient, do not share a bed with the child if the child sleeps in a separate room at home ; It can generate a new attachment in him and, when he returns home, he will not want to sleep alone again.
