Traveling, the holidays and your child’s sleep!
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With the holidays coming up, it can be a really stressful time for parents who want to keep their kids in a good sleep routine, while still getting out to visit with friends and family! We recently had a discussion in our Facebook group about traveling, the holidays and your child’s sleep! We got some great questions about how to survive the holidays and we hope our answers help you too!
Question: We will be going to a celebration to ring in the new year and so will not be able to do routine. In addition we will have to put baby down to sleep in the stroller and due to music we are using ear protection so can’t use white noise as we do to help sleep. Any suggestions to help little guy sleep there as well survive the night when we get home?
Answer: Usually the excitement of the evening and the later bedtime will exhaust them enough to settle to sleep. If your child has a favorite stuffy, soother or sleep friend I would pack that along with comfy pyjamas. Chances are it will go easier than expected 🙂 Have fun and enjoy your night! Once you return home the goal will be to try and get back into the scheduled day (if your little one is older than 6 months) as quickly as possible. Wheeling the stroller around will most likely work wonders to get him to sleep if he does not settle at the event. If he isn’t falling asleep then try stepping out into a quieter area for a few minutes until he is asleep.
Sleep Tip: Whenever I travel anywhere in the evening for dinners at other people’s houses I always bring my children’s pyjamas to change into. That way when we leave if they fall asleep in the car, I can just transfer them to bed. I always go prepared! Even if you think the dinner will be served early, you never know! And you can’t control when other people serve dinner etc. So it almost always ends up being a later night.
STAYING OUT LATE: Christmas or Holiday get togethers are a great opportunity to be social and have fun with family and friends. For me, when possible I would also choose to put my children to bed wherever we were and transfer them as opposed to keeping them up late. The hour or so they may stay awake during and after the transfer is much easier than the 4-6 hours of staying up past bedtime… and then I got to hang out without responsibility and enjoy my time with other adults 🙂
Question: This is our first time being away since having our daughter. We are going to a very low key New Years party. We will need to do a “Cole’s” notes version of her night routine (she’s usually asleep by 730pm). Then transfer her to go back to my parents home at the end of the night. Any tips? Second part … my parents seem to forget what it’s like to have a baby and that they nap and need quiet and routine. How do I nicely have those conversations without sounding like a mother hen?
Answer: The tips in the video below will help with transferring her from her sleep space back to your parent’s house. She may need a little extra help to fall asleep as the room will be new but try and spend some time in there (if you can) before putting her to sleep in it – Oh grandparents! Funny how they all seem to forget what life with a baby is like 🙂 I would probably say something funny like – “well, not everyone can be as perfect as me” or “this baby missed that memo and if she doesn’t sleep well, I’m up all night.” “Remember me as a teenager.. that’s what I turn into when I get sleep deprived now..” Sometimes there isn’t much we can say and we just have to keep doing what you do.
TRANSITION FROM CAR TO HOME:
It’s always nice to be able to put your little ones down at someone else’s so you can continue the fun however, transitioning them from a comfy bed to the car and back into their own bed may not be the easiest.
Here are a couple of hints that have worked for us over the years to transition from car to home:
- Turn off the interior lights of the car – they are quite bright for a sleeping child and trust me, it’s only a mistake you make once 🙂
- Once you arrive home, remove your child from the car before turning it off. The humming of the car is quite relaxing and turning it off while they are still sleeping can wake them.
- If they are still asleep I try and get them into their bed and undress them (sweater, hat, mitts) in the crib/bed.
- If they are awake, I (when they were little) would sometimes feed and offer a little cuddle to help ‘reset’ bedtime and as they got older, I would sit with them and rub their back for a minute to help them resettle.
Below is a video of us explaining some tips on how to transfer a sleeping baby from the car to their beds. It does not always work out as planned but it is worth a shot!!
If all else fails and the transfer goes very badly, baby or child wakes up and is wired because of the little amount of sleep they got (let’s say they slept for 20 minutes in the car or you put them to bed at someone else’s house and woke them to take them home…) for the one time, get them up and play for 30 minutes or so and then do bedtime routine once again. Use this as an absolute last resort though because this can cause some expectation the next night for some children! You will also want to be sure that you set those limits again the following night and bedtime is bedtime. IE: they are not getting up to play again the next night! This will prevent it from becoming a new expectation of theirs.
As always, the goal is to try and protect your little ones sleep as much as you can during the holidays but it isn’t always realistic so you will really want to focus on getting back on track once the chaos settles. Make a point of staying home, getting the day started on time, working on the schedule and maintaining your consistency so that your little one gets back to healthy sleep quickly and the whole family can get back to sleeping well.
You can also read more about traveling and protecting your child’s sleep with our article here.
If you find yourself not able to get your child back on track after the holidays, check out our services and contact us for a consultation or a Pick Our Brain phone call!
e car to their beds. It does not always work out as planned but it is worth a shot!!
