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Day flight or night flight?



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shabbatiscoming




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 7:18 am
for all of you experienced mothers out there, what seems better for a two year old, a day or night flight from israel to america?

my thought is day so that when we get to america she will be so tired that she will be able to go to sleep at bed time or thereabout.

but maybe y'all have good reasoning for why a night time flight would be better.

please share.
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cinnamon




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 7:24 am
IMO a day flight is better - there is no guarantee she will sleep well on a night flight and might just be overtired and kvetchy. On a day flight she will not be so tired and will be able to function better. Plus you will be a lot less tired after a full night sleep and have a lot more energy to entertain her. And when you arrive you can all go to sleep normally in a bed.
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Mrs.K




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 7:30 am
We just flew for Pesach. We took a night flight to America and a day flight coming home.

I thought the night flight (1am) would be easier since I was hoping the kids would just sleep as normal but was I mistaken! They were nuts! They were completely over tired from being up past their bed time while waiting for boarding and it was downhill from there. By the time all the hullabaloo settled down and we were in the air, they were so overtired and over excited that they barely closed their eyes.

The flight coming home (7pm) was a pleasure. They were well behaved in the airport and through boarding, played with stickers and colored through dinner time, and slept at night. No one was cranky and no one cried. After dinner was served and normal bed time rolled around they were tired and fell right to sleep.
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RachelEve14




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 7:31 am
I took the day flight when the twins were a bit over 2 and Rivka was 16 months or so.

It was not easy, no one slept, they got bored, I had to entertain them the WHOLE TIME. When we got there they crashed in the car, had a "nap" and were up at the same (Isreali) time they would have been up at otherwise (ie, around 12am).

We flew back on the afternoon flight and it was much better. They were up until dinner, fell asleep after, we landed in Israel around 5pm and the kids stayed up for supper, we put them to bed a bit late, and they crashed and slept the whole night.

Just my experience.
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Marion




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 7:51 am
Whichever one will keep them closer to their real schedules in the new time zone.
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sarahd




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 8:11 am
An evening flight is best, IME. A middle of the night flight is just crazy. I did that once with kids and never again. I find day flights difficult because the kids don't sleep; they don't even take their regular naps. On all evening flights taking off around 7 PM, they played, ate and then conked out.
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shabbatiscoming




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 8:14 am
sarahd wrote:
An evening flight is best, IME. A middle of the night flight is just crazy. I did that once with kids and never again. I find day flights difficult because the kids don't sleep; they don't even take their regular naps. On all evening flights taking off around 7 PM, they played, ate and then conked out.
right, except the flight would not be taking off at 7pm, more like 12 or 1 am so her regular schedule would already be screwed up.
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yo'ma




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 10:08 am
I fly from Argentina to America and vice versa and the time lenth is about the same as Israel and America. I always fly the red eye. I think that's the only way to go. When we've left at 8, my children always went to sleep better, but even when we left later, they eventually went to sleep. No matter how hard it is for them to sleep, it's much harder to keep them busy for so long. I've flown with all ages.

I do hate them all, though because I don't like to fly even without kids.
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shabri




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Apr 25 2010, 11:40 am
We fly from Israel-America pretty frequently. I once did a day flight and never again. The best thing that we have figured out is to take the midnight/1am flight. What we do is put the kids to sleep as usual (6:30/7ish) and then wake them up to go to the airport (usually around 9ish) They are half asleep in the car and then in Ben Gurion there is a play area where they can run around. Then once we get on the plane, they either fall asleep right away or are up until after the meal and then fall asleep.

When we arrive its morning in America. I keep the kids on a normalish schedule. The ones who nap do others don't and then just put them to sleep a little early if they need. Since we started this we have no jetlag going to America.

The way home is trickier but we have found the 7:00pm flight to be the best both sleep and jetlag wise
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