For the monumental amount of travelling we’ve done with the kids over the years, we’ve blissfully avoided most of the pain of jet lag.

When we moved here, I guess we experienced it, but those first few weeks, we really didn’t have anywhere to be at any particular time, and we all kind of adjusted together (not to mention, Liam was about 6 months old and still getting up once a night to eat, so we were accustomed to being up a lot at just about any hour).  When we flew to the US a week ago, we arrived on Saturday afternoon and stayed up through the evening.  The kids fell asleep easily and woke up a little early the next morning, but, by Monday, we were all pretty much on track.

Not so on the return trip.  This is definitely the worst we’ve had it so far.  On our transatlantic red-eye, the boys each got a few (maybe 4?) hours of sleep, but Dan and I didn’t get any.  Our plan was to have our Sunday be as normal as possible and get ourselves back on track.  We had a normal (if slightly long) nap time on Sunday, but we figured we’d all be tired enough and ready to sleep Sunday night, putting us back on schedule.

For some reason, though, it isn’t working.  Although we’re putting the boys down around their normal bedtime of 9:00, they’re both wakeful for HOURS afterwards . . . until about 3:00 in the morning.  So, they aren’t really falling fast asleep until their US east coast bedtime.  Then, they’re sleeping late in the morning (until about 10:00 on Monday, and 9:00 this morning).  Which would all be fine, except . . . that our plan worked pretty well for Dan & I — meaning, we’re back on Austrian time, while the kids are definitely not.

Ouch.

So, basically, we’re tired and want to go to bed at a normal hour (around 11:00 – 12:00) after putting the kids down a couple of hours earlier.  And then we spend the next 4 hours taking turns getting up with both boys until we finally get them settled around 3:00, only to get up ourselves between 6:00 and 7:00.  I don’t want to wake the boys in the morning after such a short night, because I suspect it would mean a disastrous day.  Benjamin even missed school this morning because he didn’t get up until we were already supposed to be there.

It’s only been a few days, but I am so ready for this to be over.