When our little family was back in the states, Maeli and I loved to visit the west coast. We made a total of 4 trips during Maeli’s first 2 years. Probably the most challenging aspect of traveling across the country was the time zone change of 3 hours. Children are like clockwork with eating, diapering, and naps. A mere 3 hours can throw the whole family off for a while.
Experts say that it takes about a week for little ones to adjust to such differences. I’ve also read that it takes one day to adjust for every timezone crossed. Seeing that we’ve been in China for 13 days, that means we should be back on track today. That isn’t too far from the truth.
Aaron was the first to adjust to the time difference with no help other than his own will power. He forced himself to stay in bed even when he was wide awake. I couldn’t muster up such discipline and during the first week, you could find me on the computer at 3am. Consequently, I was the last to adjust.
To ease the adjustment I relied on melatonin extract. Taking one pill would knock me out in the nighttime but wouldn’t help me from waking up 4 hours later in a “go get ‘em” mood. After that first week of insomnia, I finally began to sleep through the night. And then my body wanted to play catch-up. In the daytime, I found myself napping with Maeli.
Between the two of us, Maeli benefited the most from the melatonin extract. Because they taste like peppermint, she had no problem chewing half a tablet which is about 1.25mg. In the beginning I experimented with a quarter tablet, as the bottle suggests not giving these pills to children at all. From past experiences I understand that almost all herbs are not recommended for children for no good reason what so ever. It took Maeli about a week to adjust. She would wake up between 1-3am and I’d quickly give her a melatonin. After a half hour of rolling around in bed, she’d fall fast asleep.
Slowing things are getting back to normal. But my mother is quick to point out (quoting Patsie Clairmont) that “normal is just a setting on your dryer”.
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