On December 29th, we packed our bags and once again made the LONG trip back to the US. No one may be interested in this information, but I'm writing it down so I'll remember what our experiences were like.
Our first flight going home always leaves in the middle of the night, in this case it left at 2:00 in the morning. Usually we are able to put Savannah to bed for a couple of hours before we leave so that she gets a little bit of rest before we start our journey. This has always helped her go back to sleep once we get settled on our flight; however, this time we flew out of Bahrain instead of Saudi. Due to delays and other complications that are totally unpredictable, we had to leave Saudi at 7:30 in the evening. This meant that Savannah didn't get her normal couple of hours of sleep ahead of time. When we finally got on the plane Savannah had not had any sleep since waking up from her nap twelve hours earlier. To say that our child was tired was an understatement. Once onboard there is so much commotion going on that it is hard for her to want to lay down and rest, so we usually wait until they turn the interior lights off. Two hours after take off they finally turn the lights off, EXCEPT----- Houston, we have a problem! The massive light/beacon directly above us was broken and WOULD NOT TURN OFF! Savannah goes to sleep at home very easily- no crying, no fussing, no hassle; however, she has a hard time going to sleep in an environment that isn't "normal."We tried making a tent for Savannah, we tried rocking her, everything to make it a more sleep conducive environment- you name it, we tried it. Well, I'm guessing you can figure out where this is going- a nice long ten minute epic meltdown. I mean EPIC like we had never seen before! Who knew that our almost 18 month old could stay up until 5:30 in the morning- 15 hours since her nap, 23 hours since her last night of sleep. When she finally fell asleep she got about almost three hours of sleep before they turned they lights back on and started serving breakfast.
On our second flight, we were hopeful that she would go to sleep very quickly because she was soooooo tired and we had worn her out while waiting in London. Haha- were we wrong! She was great during the flight, but didn't have any interest in laying down After about three hours into the flight she was sooo tired and I bet you can guess what happened- EPIC MELTDOWN number 2. She eventually cried herself to sleep and onlytook a quick one and a half hour nap. Brent and I were both so tired we were ready to go cross-eyed! She finally fell asleep again as we were landing- literally 30 seconds before we landed (I'm not even kidding). Fortunately she stayed asleep all through passport control, luggage pickup, and rental car-pickup. So to tally it all up, our child had about six hours of sleep in a forty hour period!
Yes, we were pooped, but it didn't matter, because we were HOME!!! USA!
Our first flight going home always leaves in the middle of the night, in this case it left at 2:00 in the morning. Usually we are able to put Savannah to bed for a couple of hours before we leave so that she gets a little bit of rest before we start our journey. This has always helped her go back to sleep once we get settled on our flight; however, this time we flew out of Bahrain instead of Saudi. Due to delays and other complications that are totally unpredictable, we had to leave Saudi at 7:30 in the evening. This meant that Savannah didn't get her normal couple of hours of sleep ahead of time. When we finally got on the plane Savannah had not had any sleep since waking up from her nap twelve hours earlier. To say that our child was tired was an understatement. Once onboard there is so much commotion going on that it is hard for her to want to lay down and rest, so we usually wait until they turn the interior lights off. Two hours after take off they finally turn the lights off, EXCEPT----- Houston, we have a problem! The massive light/beacon directly above us was broken and WOULD NOT TURN OFF! Savannah goes to sleep at home very easily- no crying, no fussing, no hassle; however, she has a hard time going to sleep in an environment that isn't "normal."We tried making a tent for Savannah, we tried rocking her, everything to make it a more sleep conducive environment- you name it, we tried it. Well, I'm guessing you can figure out where this is going- a nice long ten minute epic meltdown. I mean EPIC like we had never seen before! Who knew that our almost 18 month old could stay up until 5:30 in the morning- 15 hours since her nap, 23 hours since her last night of sleep. When she finally fell asleep she got about almost three hours of sleep before they turned they lights back on and started serving breakfast.
On our second flight, we were hopeful that she would go to sleep very quickly because she was soooooo tired and we had worn her out while waiting in London. Haha- were we wrong! She was great during the flight, but didn't have any interest in laying down After about three hours into the flight she was sooo tired and I bet you can guess what happened- EPIC MELTDOWN number 2. She eventually cried herself to sleep and onlytook a quick one and a half hour nap. Brent and I were both so tired we were ready to go cross-eyed! She finally fell asleep again as we were landing- literally 30 seconds before we landed (I'm not even kidding). Fortunately she stayed asleep all through passport control, luggage pickup, and rental car-pickup. So to tally it all up, our child had about six hours of sleep in a forty hour period!
Yes, we were pooped, but it didn't matter, because we were HOME!!! USA!
