Air

Practicalities Getting There Air Flying Long-haul (including Jetlag) 

Jetlag

A degree of dislocation is likely with time differences of any more than a couple of hours. If your flight crosses more than three time zones (there are three in the US for example), you might experience jet-lag. This is one factor in favour of travelling north or south rather than too far east or west.

Symptoms are broadly tiredness during the day and insomnia at night. Potentially there may also be loss of appetite, irritability, stomach and bowel problems, plus increased sensitivity to light and sound. As a rough guide, in adults symptoms last up to two days per time zone crossed.

Jetlag seems to be less of a problem for children than adults but is still reported to affect a proportion of under 12s. From around 12 months to serious practical communication with your child, he will be aware of major time differences as something seriously out of the ordinary but one which you can't really explain to him. You may suffer at least one night and possibly more when the child is convinced that, despite the darkness, it is the middle of the day.

It is thought that the direction of travel affects the severity of jetlag, with travel east more disruptive as it involves shortening the day, while the travelling west lengthens it, This second appears to be something the human system copes with better. The explanation is that as the day/night cycle slows down, the body hibernates, something it may at one stage have been designed to do naturally. On the other hand, there are travellers who experience the reverse so this is by no means a hard and fast rule.

Individual experiences also differ, depending in part on departure and arrival times, and whether you manage to sleep on board the flight.

Measures to Alleviate:

• Plan a couple of easy days on arrival.



• Start adapting to local arrival time on departure, by setting your clocks to it and trying to eat and sleep in accordance.



• It is particularly helpful to aim to arrive late afternoon/early evening so after a short walk and meal you can all go to bed at the usual time to recover. If travelling east overnight it is considered better to depart later so that arrival time is closer to your normal wake-up time.



• Get into the sunlight as soon as possible on arrival and then go to bed when it is dark. The body clock takes its timing from natural light.



• Drink plenty of water, avoiding caffeine (including in colas).



• Try ‘strategic napping'. The idea is to make up your usual ratio of hours of sleep to hours of waking. For an adult this is generally eight hours of sleep to 16 of waking. For a child the ratio might be more like 11 hours of sleep to 13 of waking. The strategic napping system starts with a short sleep on arrival and as well as sleep at night, short sleeps until you have caught up.



• Lavender oil is an essential oil widely used even from birth, with a reported calming effect. You can either put a couple of drops on the pillow or a couple in a bath. Even if the effect is merely Pavlovian it may be helpful to put some of children's bedclothes for two or three days before departure so the smell is associated with sleep. Essential oil of peppermint applied to a tissue and inhaled is reputed to help pep you up when you arrive. For more on what to use and when for children, see The Fragrant Pharmacy: A complete guide to aromatherapy and essential oils, Valerie Ann Worwood, Bantam, £7.99.



• High protein, low fat meals before as well as during the journey are reported anecdotally to help, as is plenty of rest before departure.



• Massage is reputed to help and if nothing else, generally makes the recipient feel more relaxed so more likely to sleep when they need to.



• Isocones from the manufacturers of Sea-Bands are designed to help you get a better night's sleep after flying. [Suppliers]



• Jetlag supplements contain vitamins so the manufacturer reports they are safe for children. The suggested dose for under 5s, to give if showing signs of irritability, is one tablet in total. For 5s-plus the suggestion is half the adult dose, adults taking two tablets every two hours. Products include Jet Ease and No Jet-lag. [Suppliers].



• Magnets are an even less mainstream approach, available from Natural Dynamics and Norso Biomagmetics [Suppliers]. The theory is that the magnetic field in the wristband improves blood circulation, enhancing the body's own natural abilities. However, these are not recommended for children under three or five, or pregnant women. They are also not to be used with any mechanical medical device - pacemakers, defibrulators, and insulin pumps. Products considered most helpful for jetlag are a pillow pad to help readjust on arrival plus with circulation during the flight (and therefore reported to counter the rare likelihood of thrombosis). They are also reported to help with stress so if they work they might be particularly helpful for parents.



• Look at exercise ideas in any in-flight magazines. Part of the problem is that all that sitting still slows down the body and a little exercise, even if it is only stretching, can help.

Knocking Them Out

Drugs to knock out children may well have the opposite effect from that intended. Those used are generally antihistamines, for example Phenergan. However, if given in a larger doses than needed for its antihistamine effects, according to the Times newspaper doctor Dr Thomas Stuttaford, ‘the child does indeed sleep, but when it wakes the next day its irritability may be unimaginable'.

This may be because this kind of drug does not encourage the REM dream sleep periods - important to real rest and more frequent the younger a child - which means that the sleep does not mean real rest.

Alternatively, if you don't quite knock the child out, the drug can have the effect of removing worries, so the child becomes manic, talkative and over excited - though of course as the genuine tiredness increases this may combine with grizzliness.

Stopovers

Stopovers make flights for example to Australasia much more bearable. If you have only an hour or so ask as soon as you get off about shower facilities. They usually cost a few pounds - easier if you have some local currency - and make you feel human again.

Better still though is an overnight or even two. If staying just one night think about sleeping at an airport hotel so you don't have to worry about transfers. The lost time will probably be gained on arrival because you will feel in better shape to start moving.