Kids - Routines

Wednesday afternoon at about 1500, we decided a trip was in order for the long weekend. We searched for cheap flight deals and the winning flight was to Mallorca, Spain. Nothing like last minute planning... I was up until 1am booking us a place to stay Wednesday night. I'll post a full trip report later this week when we've had a chance to upload some photos. In short, it was awesome! Great food, great friends, great weather and great family time! But I'm exhausted today from getting home at 2am and so are the kids.

 

Poor Lily lost it on the flight home at about 11:30pm. She just couldn't fall asleep and was so overtired. Never seen her cry so hard and it broke my heart and I was a wreck too. Nothing would cheer her up. In fact, any attempt at making her laugh or eat or do anything besides cry just ended up creating more sobs. She finally crawled into a corner on the floor by the seats and passed out on her belly under Cooper's feet. Cooper never batted an eye and stayed up until we drove home at 1:00am. Lesson learned though.  Cheaper priced late night flights aren't worth the stress for me! Without little ones? No biggie. With little ones, we'll be paying for the routine disruption for a few days.

 

Which leads me to a question for you parents out there. Do you tend to stick to fairly strict schedules with your kids? Or do you just wing it on a daily basis? Or are you in between and try to break routines on vacation and special occasions?

 

I feel like we always attempt to be more laid back, especially on vacations and let the kids stay up later, skip naps etc, but I feel like it always ends up biting us in the end. My parents say they used to let us stay up much later than we let our kids, and that we adjusted. With Cooper, every time we put him to bed late, he wakes up earlier than his normal lovely 6am... Last night it was 5:30am after going to bed at 2am. No joke. Our sleep sagas continue. Hoping to be back to a normal schedule by Wednesday. They say three days is all it takes right?

 

Missing the sun and beaches already.