Twins in jetlag mayhem

By Jane Han

After my most recent entry on flying with twins, I received several e-mails from parent-readers sympathizing with my tough trip and asking questions ahead of their much-dreaded, long-haul flights with babies.

Many of the questions had to do with coping with jetlag, to which I unfortunately couldn’t respond. Why? Because I’m still wrestling with two heavily jetlagged, tired-but-wired babies. Every. Single. Night.

Yes, it has been three weeks now. I repeat, three weeks. How can they still be jetlagged? You tell me.

I don’t know what went wrong where. I thought I did all the right things — or at least what seemed “right” for jetlagged adults — to help make the transition smooth for them. Obviously, none worked.

I cut back their naps, kept them up till way past their normal bedtime, took them out even in this freezing cold for sun exposure and even bought all kinds of teething-relief remedies, thinking that maybe it’s the teething that’s messing with their sleep cycles.

After three weeks of trying every possible solution I can think of, the answer is — I don’t know.

No matter what I try, the girls wake up at 1:30 a.m. like clockwork, play till 4 a.m. and finally give in to sleep around 4:30 a.m., right when my husband and I are about to reach our breaking point.

The twins have been sleeping in two separate bedrooms, one with me and one with my husband, since we returned from our month-long trip. But they somehow magically wake up at the same time, as if they planned it.

By the way, sleep training went out the window the moment we left home. Both sides of the family in Korea weren’t too happy with what they saw as “abandoning” the babies to fall asleep “lonely and scared.”

Regardless, we meant to reacquaint the twins to their usual sleep routine as soon as we got back, but first things first. Right now, jetlag is our biggest problem. We need some sleep here.

There is one thing that I’m crossing my fingers over. This just might be our long-sought solution — swimming. Of course not full-fledged swimming for these tiny seven-month-olds, but close enough as it involves a lot of leg and arm action, just enough to get them to knock out.

I put them in their little neck floats so they can comfortably relax in the warm bath tub and let them exercise their arms and legs and much as they can — for one hour.

Does sound pretty long, but that’s what it takes to tire out these energetic munchkins.

Tried it for the first time last night and, although they did wake up at precisely 1:30 a.m., they played for a lot less time before going back to sleep again. Good sign.

We’ll see how the swimming approach pans out.

In the meantime, for those planning travel to a different time zone, I’d say it’s not the plane ride you should be dreading. It’s the jetlag.

So frustrated, I asked my pediatrician for advice. At first, she, too, was surprised that the twins have still not adjusted to local time. I told her that I’m famous for being a very slow adjuster myself and that it usually takes me a good month or so. And she had one simple answer: They must take after their mom.

Yes, that might be the real answer I’ve been desperately seeking for the past three weeks.