Jet Lag Survival Guide: Traveling 1-3 time zones westward
Traveling across time zones with a baby or toddler can be daunting. Adjusting your child to a socially typical bedtime and wake time at home is challenging enough; adding jet lag and a new environment can feel overwhelming. While adapting to jet lag isn’t easy, your child’s circadian rhythm is designed to be flexible. With time and careful management of light and darkness, your child can adjust to crossing time zones with minimal drama.
Note: Travel involves more than just dealing with jet lag. For additional tips, check out our travel survival guide here.
The Science
Jet lag earned its name with the advent of air travel, which allows humans to cross time zones faster than the internal body clock—or circadian rhythm—can adjust. The "lag" refers to the time it takes for your circadian rhythm to align with the new time zone’s social schedule of sleep, wake, and meals.
The circadian rhythm is naturally flexible, making small daily adjustments to stay in sync with the 24-hour day. For about 70% of people, the circadian clock runs slightly longer than 24 hours, while about 30% have a clock that runs slightly shorter. Imagine your internal clock as a watch that runs 12 minutes fast. In order to keep accurate time, you would need to reset it each day. Like a watch that's a little off, your child's circadian rhythm also needs to reset each day to keep sleep and waking aligned.
How does this reset occur? The primary mechanism is exposure to light. Specifically, light enters your eyes (they must be open) at certain times of the day to keep your circadian rhythm aligned with the external world. Without regularly timed daily light exposure, your body’s internal clock—and, consequently, your bedtime and wake time—would drift later or earlier each day.
When you travel across time zones, your child’s circadian rhythm begins adjusting. However, light exposure in the new time zone can sometimes shift the clock in the wrong direction. Light in the morning shifts the circadian rhythm earlier, while light in the evening shifts it later. The challenge lies in the fact that "morning" and "evening" are relative to your child’s body clock—not the clock on the wall. Moreover, during the biological night, there’s a transition point where light’s effects reverse. This is what makes jet lag particularly tricky; managing it requires thinking in terms of your child’s internal time, not just the local time. The figure below illustrates this change.
The circadian rhythm also governs more than just sleep—it regulates hormones, urine production, cognitive function, and meal timing. When your child is jet-lagged, all these systems will be out of sync.
Traveling 1-3 Hours Westward
Do You Need to Shift Your Child?
Before you begin adjusting your child’s schedule, consider whether it’s necessary. If your trip is short (e.g., less than a week) or involves traveling only one time zone, it might be easier to keep your child on their home time zone schedule.
If you decide to shift, use the guidance below to make a plan. Managing light exposure is key.
Sample Adjustment Schedules
Babies (4–12 months): Babies in this age group can typically handle a 15–30-minute shift in their circadian rhythm per day. Note that wake times will adjust more slowly than bedtimes, so full adjustment may take 3–4 extra days. If your baby wakes earlier than desired, keep the room dark until the target wake time, even if they’re awake.
Toddlers (12+ months): Toddlers can usually handle a 30–60-minute shift per day. Like babies, their wake times will adjust gradually. If they wake early, keep the room dark until the target wake time.
Managing Naps During Westward Travel
Unlike nighttime sleep, naps are not tightly controlled by the circadian rhythm, giving you flexibility.
For babies under 4 months: Offer nap opportunities approximately every 60-120 minutes as you would at home, as their sleep patterns are still unpredictable.
For babies with established nap patterns: Shift naps incrementally, in line with bedtime adjustments. For example, if bedtime is being shifted by 15 minutes per day, do the same for naps.
Strategic Nap Use: You can use "off" nap timing to your advantage. For instance, if your child stays awake too long between naps, allowing a long, late nap can push bedtime later. However, this strategy is temporary; the following day, you’ll need to revert to an earlier bedtime to maintain the biological adjustment.
What should you do to help your child shift eastward when returning home?
We have a blog for that! Check it out here.
We know that travel can involve all sorts of other chaos. Check out our general travel tips in this blog. If your child regressed during travel, you can use this blog to get back on track.
As always, we are here to help. Let us know if you don't see a blog on an issue that you are facing by contacting us on social media or through info@babysleepscience.com (note that while our goal is to help, we can't keep up with personal questions via e-mail. It takes away from our time with our own little ones). If you are struggling, feel free to book a one-on-one consultation with us or check out our sleep training class or newborn sleep class. We developed these classes based on our work with parents and offer many different approaches to sleep problems. We have lots of positive feedback on the class and you can join our private Facebook or Instagram groups for extra support while taking our classes.
Print the chart below to plot out your own westward jet lag plan.
References
Arendt, J., 2009. Managing jet lag: Some of the problems and possible new solutions. Sleep medicine reviews, 13(4), pp.249-256.
Arendt, J. and Marks, V., 1982. Physiological changes underlying jet lag. British Medical Journal (Clinical research ed.), 284(6310), p.144.
Deacon, S. and Arendt, J., 1996. Adapting to phase shifts, I. An experimental model for jet lag and shift work. Physiology & behavior, 59(4-5), pp.665-673.
Roach, G.D. and Sargent, C., 2019. Interventions to minimize jet lag after westward and eastward flight. Frontiers in physiology, 10, p.927.
Akacem, L.D., Wright Jr, K.P. and LeBourgeois, M.K., 2016. Bedtime and evening light exposure influence circadian timing in preschool-age children: a field study. Neurobiology of sleep and circadian rhythms, 1(2), pp.27-31.
Akacem, L.D., Wright Jr, K.P. and LeBourgeois, M.K., 2018. Sensitivity of the circadian system to evening bright light in preschool‐age children. Physiological reports, 6(5), p.e13617.