turkeytickler

Sorry to ressurect this old chestnut, but I seem to recall in previous similar thread some mention of a product you can give to babies to send them to the land of nod for a long flight (or at least part of it).... does anyone know what it is and whether it will be suitable for a 5 month old?

tt

Joshlin

Hi TT
you may be thinking of phenergan but it's not suitable for children under 1 and not much else is! Plus - it wouldn't do a baby of that age much good sleeping for too long - as you know the flights really dehydrate you and babies even quicker so your little one will need to feed regularly to avoid this. I'm sure it will not be as bad as you fear - having done the journey 3 times with babies I have been amazed each time at how well they've done and how much they slept - try and get a basinette / sky cot so that you can put your little one down and try and sleep yourself when they do
Good luck for your flight back and hope you settle back into your UK life with ease
Vicki

babybella

Hey TT,
Def do not go down the phernegan route. Your child will wake up with a major hangover. I used it once on a flight from NZ to the Uk and not on the return. The pay back was not worth the sleep they and I got.
On another flight I used a homeopathic tonic, can't remember what it had in it, sorry. You could look up your local practitioner. Mostly though they are night flights and the babies do sleep. If your baby is young enough make sure you get a bassinet, reconfirm this and double check when you book in. Believe me I had to witness a young mum travelling alone with a very young baby crying as she did not get a bassinet, while a toddler who could not even lie down in the bassinet got the place.
Hope it goes well
KAZ

micged

We took our son when he was only 4 months old and he was fine. He slept lots and just sat and watched everything going on. In fact he was far easier than our daughter who was three! We managed to pre book a sky cot which made life a lot easier as we could put him down to eat etc.
I'm sure you will be fine.

turkeytickler

Thanks for the advice guys - very helpful..


We have a sky cot booked so no worries there...... i guess I was thinking about his long sleep - he goes from 10pm through to 7am and wanted to simulate that but I suppose whichever way you look at it his routine is going to be broken so we may as well let him decide when to take his naps...

thanks again

tt

P18PPS

In my experience I don't think you can simulate a good night's sleep on a long haul - but you'd be surprised how much they do sleep for a few hours, wake up - food - poo - little play - then sleep again. We found that inbetween was sufficient for Mum and Dad to get a bit of sleep. My advise is take double the amount of nappies you think you need - nobody warned me that the high altitude makes babies poo and poo and poo!!!
Good luck!!

thebears

Do long haul on night flight - Medisec is what we use. In with the milk. Check length of sleeping cot. At 5 months our daughter was too tall - lucky we booked and paid for additional seat.

Always check milk or any food, drink that is given to airline staff for heating - what they determine as warm can be scalding.

Lisa T

I have done the flight to NZ quite a few times, always with 2 children and sometimes on my own with children. I buy some spray from Origins which is called "Perchance to dream" and the minute we get on I spray everywhere around us with the stuff, seat covers etc etc. It smells fabulous, eliminates the smell of airline food and helps people to sleep.

We've never had a flight when we didn't all sleep quite well all things considered and this includes coming back in January on the flight via LAX when I was on my own with two childfren and we had no entertainment, music etc etc and we were on there for 23 hours!!!

Definately wouldn't travel without the stuff.

uk+kiwi

Ditto this re: phenergan (my 5 year old is allergic so please do a trial run as I now know that 1-2% of kids are allergic, which brings on the opposite effect - ie wide awake- so they can fight it off apparently). I just don't think it's necessary to be honest (from experience), but you should obviously choose what you think is best.

Used camomile and arnica on my young children long haul from Boots. Plus NZ's homepathic 'no jet lag' pills. Better still would be something from an homeopathist, but as others have said, you will more than likely be amazed at how well your baby/other children sleep - but broken into more smaller sleeps than usual. I actually think this then helps with time acclimatization also (we had no jetlag except one 5am wakening at xmas which i though was unbelieveable, and nothing to write home about really - 5am that is - saw a lovely sunrise on the beach!).

So my advice is to take loads of stuff with you just in case - ie calpol, medicine, snacks, new toys etc. This reminds me - I did take a nighttime cough mixture in case of emergency last time in the chance that I may need to resort to sleeping drugs! Would also recommend a DVD player/Ipod loaded with noddy/baby einstein/tubbies etc if they like this sort of thing. Anything that may come in handy at all, especially if you get delayed anywhere.

Good luck - it will be fine - carmen.