jet lag

It's a funny thing jet lag. Travelling over time zones. Resetting your body clock for a couple of weeks at a time.

A lot of it is psychological. Getting out in the morning to see the daylight, eating at the right time for where you are and talking yourself into being sleepy at bed time or when you wake up in the middle of the night (depending on which way you are travelling). When we get on the plane, we change our watches to the local time at our destination which helps too.

England is 5 hours ahead of us and we flew overnight so having left Detroit at 10:30pm, 7.5 hours later, we arrived into London at lunchtime. A doze in the car on the way to Bristol and we made it through to bed time on the first day.

For most of the trip Charlotte resisted going to bed and was wide awake at 8 or 9pm which is only mid afternoon in Michigan. The second or third night she woke up at midnight crying, saying we had put her to bed when she was not tired. To be fair, we found her asleep on the landing so I'm pretty sure she was tired!

The adults adjusted pretty quickly, thanks in part to a trio of tablets before bed time - melatonin, calcium and magnesium which all help you relax and fall asleep. Unlike sleeping tablets, there are no side effects and they work really well.

Coming back and the kids are now going to bed no problem at 7pm but are waking up 2 or 3 times a night at 2am, 4am and 5am. So we are going to bed at 8pm just to get enough sleep!

Charlotte came in to see us a couple of times last night and got taken back to bed by Daddy. At 5am she was crying for me (good tactic lady, knowing Daddy said to stay in bed!) so I went in to see her. I got into her bed (loving that she now has a full size bed) and snuggled up to her. She held my hands and said "Mummy... I love you". So sweet. She fell asleep and I managed to get back into my bed with 5 minutes until the alarm went off (run camp this morning meant a 6am start for me).

So it's not all bad.

And I hope we will all be back on the time zone by next week. Until then I am embracing early morning cuddles with my little girl and lots of coffee!!