Nap and Bedtime Tips for Thanksgiving Travel

Heading to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving? Here is how to protect naps and bedtime through travel, time zone changes, and a busy holiday house. Practical tips to keep your baby or toddler rested without missing all of the fun.

Sleeping baby dressed up in chef outfit and surrounded by food

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. There is something about a table full of family, the smell of turkey in the oven, and a house full of cousins that just feels like the holidays are officially here. But if you are loading up the car or boarding a flight with a baby or toddler this year, you already know that Thanksgiving travel brings its own special flavor of chaos–and sleep is usually the first thing to feel it.

The good news is that a little bit of planning goes a long way. You dont ahve ot choose between seeing family and protecting your child’s rest. With some realistic expectations and a few strategic decisions, you can have both a wonderful holiday and a kiddo who isn’t a complete wreck by the time you sit down for pie.

Why Thanksgiving Travel is Uniquely Hard on Sleep

Thanksgiving travel is a little different than a typical vacation. For one thing, it usually falls right around the end of Daylight Saving Time, so a lot of families are still adjusting from the fall time change when they hit the road.

>>>Read: How the Fall Time Change Affects Your Baby’s Sleep

On top of that, Thanksgiving trips tend to be short. You might only be gone one to three nights, which doesn’t leave much time for your child to fully adjust before you are packing up again. And of course, there is the holiday itself: a house full of excited relatives, a later-than-usual dinner, cousins to play with, and a general sense that the rules are a little more relaxed than usual. All of that is wonderful and memory-making, and it is also a lt of stimulation for a little nervous system to process.

None of this means you should skip the trip or stress the whole time. It just means it helps to go in with a plan.

Before You Leave: Set Yourself Up for Success

The best thing you can do for your child’s sleep on this trip happens before you ever get in the car. Start the days leading up to Thanksgiving with your child well-rested and caught up on sleep, rather than already running a deficit. A child who starts the trip overtired has a much harder time handling the disruptions that come with travel.

If you are staying somewhere unfamiliar, think through your sleep setup ahead of time. Will you bring a pack-and-play or travel crib?

>>>Read: 12 Travel Beds for Babies and Toddlers to Sleep In

Does the guest room have blackout capability, or should you pack a portable blackout solution? Small, familiar items – a sleep sack, a favorite lovey, your white noise machine – make a strange room feel a little more like home, and they’re worth the suitcase space.

>>>Read: Tips for Packing for Your Baby for a Vacation

It is also worth talking with whoever you are staying with before you arrive. Let them know roughly when naptime and bedtime happen and that you’ll need to disappear for those windows. Most grandparents are thrilled to have the grandkids there and are happy to work around a nap schedule once they understand why it matters.

Handling Time Zone Changes

If your Thanksgiving trip crosses time zones, you have a decision to make: shift your child’s schedule to match the new time zone or keep them on their home schedule the whole trip.

If it is a short trip and you are only one time zone different, I would stay on your home schedule the whole trip. I even do that for myself at my current age when I travel. It is not worth disrupting your circadian rhythm for just a few days. This might mean an earlier or later bedtime by clock time, but it keeps your child’s internal rhythm intact. This usually means smoother days and an easier transition back home.

For a longer trip or one that crosses several time zones, you will probably need to shift your baby’s schedule for the trip. You can slowly adjust in the days leading up to the trip and then slowly adjust back when you get home.

If you need to shift schedules, you will want to get outside in morning light as early as possible. You ideally do this within 30 minutes of waking up in the morning.

>>>Read: Tips for Shifting Your Schedule (Time Change, Time Zones)

Protecting Naps While You Are Away From Home

Naps are almost always the first casualty of holiday travel. Two hours of nap time in the middle of the day can feel like it is eating into precious time with family you do not see often. It can also be hard to actually get that nap when you are traveling or when the house is noisy.

Just remember that a well-rested child is a much more pleasant guest at Thanksgiving dinner than an overly tired one, so it really is worth protecting sleep where you can. Bad naps can also lead to bad nights, especially in a new environment.

Where possible, try to keep naps happening in a quiet, dim space rather than in the middle of a loud living room full of cousins and football on the television. If your child naps well in a stroller or swing, don’t be afraid to lean on that on a busy day. A nap on the go is far better than no nap at all.

With our babies, we found that a walk-in closet was a great place for a baby nap. It is very dark if it has no windows. It is very quiet because all of the clothes insulate the sound. Then you can close the closet door AND the bedroom door the closet is in. Add a white noise machine in the room just outside the closet door, and your baby is set up for a successful nap.

If your schedule gets thrown off because of travel time or a delayed flight, do not panic about getting everything back to exact minutes. Focus on getting your child down for sleep before they become overtired, even if the timing looks different than it would at home. An imperfect nap beats a skipped nap nearly every time.

Bedtime in a New Place

New environments can make bedtime trickier, especially for babies and younger toddlers who rely heavily on routine and familiar cues. Keep your bedtime routine as close to normal as you can, even if you are in a guest room or sharing spaces with siblings. The same books, songs, and order of events will help. That consistency tells your child’s brain that it is time to wind down no matter where they are.

It also helps to give your child and yourself a heads-up that bedtime is coming, especially on a night with a lot of excitement happening around them. A gentle warning ten or fifteen minutes before you start the routine can make the transition away from the fun a little smoother. It might also be helpful for the extended family to know bedtime is coming.

If you are navigating an entirely new sleep environment for the first time, our sleep hierarchy approach can help you think through priorities when the ideal setup isn’t available.

>>>Read: How To Handle Baby Sleep When Traveling

When Grandma’s House Isn’t Cooperating

Sometimes, despite your best planning, the schedule just doesn’t go the way you hoped. Maybe the guest room is right next to the kitchen where dinner prep is happening. Maybe your toddler is so excited about the cousins that naptime turns into a 45-minute battle. This is very normal and doesn’t mean the trip is a failure.

Remember that a few disrupted days over a holiday weekend will not undo months of good sleep habits. Most will return back to their normal routine within a few days of returning home. But I will be fully honest that some babies do take a few weeks to get back on track after a trip.

>>>Read: How To Travel Without Destroying Your Babywise Progress

If you can, build in flexibility on your end. Maybe that means one parent steps away from festivities to handle the nap while the other stays at the table. Maybe it means an earlier exit from the meal so everyone can get home before things unravel.

You might have a late nap or an early nap. You might have an extra nap.

Communicating with family ahead of time about what you need and what your contingency plans will be can go a long way toward making this possible without hurt feelings.

Remember that a baby’s needs come before an adult’s wants. Yes, sometimes the baby is off schedule and that is fine. Other times you will just know your baby cannot handle what is happening and there will have ot be sacrifices.

Give Yourself Grace

At the end of the day, Thanksgiving only comes around once a year, and the point of the trip is connection with the people you love. HOWEVER, Christmas, birthdays, family reunions…all of those things also are only once a year, so gatherings and disruptions can pile up in some instances. So make your decisions in the context of your experience. If you are getting together with the same people often, you might not ask as much of your baby as you would if this is a once-a-year event.

Protecting rest matters because a rested child enjoys the holiday more, not because you need a perfect schedule to have a good trip. Do what you can do to plan ahead, stay flexible when things don’t go according to plan, and know that a few off days around the holiday are a small price ot pay for memories you are making.