Tag Archives: jet lag

Post-holiday blues

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You’d think a six-day mini-holiday to the UK shouldn’t take six days to recover from, but somehow this whole week has been all about getting back into the swing of things.

The time difference and arriving back in Dubai on the milk flight at 5am meant the boys then slept until past midday, setting me up for a particularly trying problem in small children: INSOMNIA. The Scrooge of Christmas travel.

Because it’s not like you can just tell them to count sheep, is it?

No, no, that would be far too easy. Instead, for several nights, between the hours of 9 pm and 1 am, the boys pummelled me with all kinds of strange symptoms, from “I’m scared, stay Mummy, please!” to “I’m going to vomit!” (Son 1), singing for two hours straight (Son 2), hunger pangs and even sleep walking (Son 1).

Trying to count sheep with Son 2 just turned into bonus stimulation time

Trying to count sheep with Son 2 just turned into bonus stimulation time

Son 1 would have re-set much quicker if it wasn’t for the fact that Son 2 was adamant his insomnia should be shared.

“Are you AWAKE?” he’d bellow at his brother, nearly raising the roof of his bunk-bed (and I couldn’t separate them because they’re really dependent on each other and hate to sleep alone).

“WAKE UP!”

Then Son 2 got his hands on the duck clock in their room and set the alarm off: “QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK QUACK!”

I’m surprised you didn’t hear the racket going on in their bedroom.

DH was safely ensconsed on the other side of the world (in Australia and New Zealand) for the first two days of their nocturnal shenanigans. Happily, he returned on the third day, only to fall fast asleep at 8.30 pm with jet lag of the polar-opposite kind.

Oh the glamour of our jet-setting ways!

Home sweet Dubai

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We arrived back in the sandpit on Sunday, but it’s taken me until today to resurface – because, despite there being a tiddly three hours’ time difference in summer, I always develop a flu-like case of jet lag when travelling eastwards (pathetic, I know!).

My pilot DH has to put up with me lamenting about needing to sleep, but never at the right time (at bedtime, I’m bog-eyed with a fidgety wakefulness for hours), and believe me, he shakes his head at me, absolutely dumbfounded that anyone could be so utterly *hopeless* at jet lag.

While this should only apply to mums travelling back from the US or Canada, with an 8-hour-plus time change, it's not far off.

She’s travelled back from the US. I have no excuse.

“But I think I was still on a mid-Atlantic time zone after the US,” I protest, with a yawn. “You have to fight it,” he responds, at a loss.

And so it goes on: me plodding through the day, which has a surreal, otherworldly quality when you’ve just landed in the post-apocalyptic 43° heat of the desert, and unable to sleep at night; him business as usual despite having flown to six different time zones while we were away.

Aside from the insomnia (which the kids also have. Ugh.) and the wading through hot treacle, the other thing about arriving back in Dubai after a long period away is the brain dump that takes place while travelling. Simple things, like the route to your local retail centre, making a packed lunch, or locating the cupboard in which mugs are kept, require deep thought, while grocery shopping feels like a thousand-piece 3D puzzle.

Still, even though I drifted onto the highway today in a daze rather than into the supermarket car park, and have climbed the staircase a total of eight times tonight to soothe the two riving insomniacs upstairs, it feels good to be home.

EDITED TO ADD: At 11.30pm and decamped to the children’s room with my laptop, I can now say, hand on heart, jet lag is the SCOURGE of summer travel. Sigh.

Musical beds, at 3am

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Last night, BB couldn’t sleep, again. And by couldn’t sleep, I mean he was wide awake, like an insomniac who hasn’t slept properly for years, or a coffee addict who’s been injecting caffeine intravenously.

His eyes would flutter shut for half-a-second, then spring open again. Every time I thought he’d drifted off, it was such a feather-light sleep that he’d awaken the moment I moved a finger. Eventually, his eyelids stopped looking heavy and remained wide open, as though propped apart by matchsticks.

I gave up and let him come downstairs. We’re fighting jet lag, after all, and the time shift means we’re trying to get the boys to sleep before their bodies think it’s bedtime (kind of like trying to turn the tide).

This was about 10pm.

“I’ll fall asleep in front of the TV mummy,” he promised, with a smile.

At 2am, we were still downstairs.

I know, I was gullible. I should have known the TV would just be bonus stimulation time for him, but I couldn’t let him start making a racket upstairs as LB and DH were already sleeping.

When you’re blimin’ knackered and the kids won’t sleep, this book cover does spring to mind

DH had gone to bed at about 7.30pm, as from 1.30am he was on stand-by. He doesn’t have to be awake to be on night-time stand-by – it just means he has to be rested enough to be able to fly, if needed – with the phone by the bed obviously.

I must admit, when he cheerily called it a day at 7.30pm, there was a bit of me that thought, “Hmpph, they won’t call him. He’ll get the best night’s sleep, ever.”

But, I was wrong. At 2am, he got sent to China.

As his suitcase clunked down the stairs, I looked at DH with surprise – and he, in return, looked at BB with surprise.

“He can’t sleep,” I sighed, our tired, ashen faces lit up by the glow coming from Disney Junior on the TV.

With three out of four of us up, we saw DH off, then I took BB upstairs and told him he could sleep in the big bed (mistake no. 2).

Five minutes later, there were three in the bed. LB was up too and they were fighting for pole position next to me.

“Go to sleep, both of you,” I growled. “It’s nearly 3. Mummy needs to sleep, now.”

Miraculously, they did fall asleep before too long – and I crept stealthily out of the room and straight into BB’s empty bed.

Oh the joys of musical beds at 3am! It’ll be melatonin jet-lag tablets all round tonight.

Jet lag: The scourge of summer travel

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I’ve never been one for keeping a really strict routine. When the children were babies, the Gina Ford-esque Open the curtains at 6.24am regime didn’t suit me. But, like all mums, I’m well aware that if certain things happen at the same time each day, then life is a lot more enjoyable.

Bedtime is a case in point.

At no time is a routine more appealing than when it’s all going pear-shaped: I’m talking about jet lag here – that dreaded circadian rhythm sleep disorder that can hold you in its steely, fatigue-inducing grip for days, especially after an eastbound flight.

With her jet-lagged children up for hours in the night, Mom felt like she’d been run over by the airport bus

It’s a disorientating condition that people in our community know well, especially the Americans and Canadians who travel half way round the world to get back, with small children, who then spend the next two weeks mixing up night and day.

We only had a three-hour time jump between London and Dubai, but to be honest, even this is enough to play havoc with your family’s sleep.

Making it worse this year was the fact that BB and LB hadn’t really adjusted to British time anyway. After returning from America, and with no school to get up for, they stayed on a mid-Atlantic time zone, treating us to 11pm bedtimes in England.

No surprises, then, that our first full night back in Dubai went like this:

11.30pm: BB and LB finally succumb to sleep

2.20am: I nod off at last

2.30am: Pitter, patter … BB comes running in. “Mum, I can’t sleep!”

5.30am: BB, who I [foolishly] allowed to climb into our bed, falls back to sleep after three hours of fidgeting

6.15am: LB wakes up – for the day

Tonight (yawn), my overtired boys were also resisting bedtime, in a can’t sleep/won’t sleep fashion.

“I’m NOT tired!”

Then, just before nine, BB lost it, despite being allowed to watch some extra telly. “I want Nanny,” he wailed, in between distraught, heart-breaking sobs.

“But you’ve got me,” I soothed, feeling a bit like the booby prize.

I took him and his brother upstairs and tried reading a book, but it didn’t really distract my by-now-exhausted BB.

More raspy, uneven sobs.

So, I pulled out all the stops: I started singing.

“Show me the way to go home. I’m tired and I want to go to bed,” I crooned, trying to replicate a song my mum used to sing to me while drying my tears years ago.

BB went quiet, finally, and his breathing slowed as the song worked its magic. But then LB, who until now had been quite placid, started crying.

“Mum, don’t sing,” he spluttered, visibly shaken. “I really don’t like your singing. “It’s bad singing,” he snivelled, and sat up in bed, wide awake again.

There really is no pleasing everyone, is there?

People-watching in summertime

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Pretty girls are walking by in cut-off denim shorts and bikini tops, heading for the surf in high spirits. The atmosphere is laid-back. Casual. Anything goes.

A bright yellow, almost sunny-looking police car just drove by, followed by a slightly battered red vehicle with a surfboard on top.

There are elderly people doing their weekly shop, noticeable because their faces look weather-beaten and wrinkled. But they’re smiling and relaxed. As are the throngs of scantily-clad shoppers and beach-goers who are milling around, some sipping on a ‘flat white’ before resuming their Saturday-afternoon activities. Others heading straight for the waves.

If this doesn’t sound like the Middle East, you’re right. I’m far, far away, in Sydney, Australia (a country I fell in love with 10 years ago when I spent three months here as a backpacker), and I’m writing this post while people-watching at a cafe in Manly.

My body thinks it’s the middle of the night – such is the jet lag when you fly for nearly 14 hours straight. But it’s worth it: I love the vibe here – the way it shouts ‘Life is better in board shorts!’ I love jumping on and off ferries to get to Sydney’s beachside suburbs, the opera house, harbour bridge, botanic gardens, pie shops and the fact zebra crossings actually work.

Best of all is spending some quality time with DH [whispers: without the kids]. I literally ‘went to work’ with DH, tagging along on his 5-day trip to Australia and New Zealand. He’s flown on to Auckland now, which I chose not to do because I’m a complete amateur when it comes to jet lag. He’s used to it and not phased by doing both countries in 72 hours.

So now I’m solo in Sydney. Just me and the credit card. And a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, before DH gets back tomorrow night!