At 3:47 a.m., my daughter sat fully upright in bed, wide awake and ready to start the day. It was still dark outside our hotel room in Tokyo, but trying to explain time zones to a 4-year-old is futile.
I’ve never struggled with jet lag. I run on caffeine and enthusiasm until my circadian rhythm catches up, and within a day or two, I’ve adjusted. But a 16-hour time difference is a different problem with a preschooler in tow, one that’s hard to manage, let alone explain to someone whose body is telling them it’s noon even though the sky is dark.
We flew from California to Tokyo
We’d flown from San Diego to Tokyo, the first stop on a long trip through Asia. We took a red-eye I had booked because it was the only direct flight, without thinking through the arrival schedule; we landed at Narita at what felt like 1 a.m. to our bodies, after only a few hours of sleep. By the time we’d wearily cleared customs and immigration and made the hour-and-a-half drive into the city, the sun setting behind skyscrapers, we could barely tell if it was morning, evening, or night.
I’d picked Tokyo as our first stop intentionally. It’s about as safe and efficient as a city gets, and I figured that ease would make for a gentler landing. What I hadn’t fully considered was the flip side: a city built on quiet and orderly calm, plus a jet lagged 4-year-old who still learning to modulate her volume. I spent more time than I’d like to admit picturing her having a loud, public meltdown in Japan.
The first night is about damage control
We checked into our hotel in the early evening, with immediate relief. The room was dark enough that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face once blackout curtains were pulled tight against a sky that hadn’t fully gone down yet. I set up her inflatable toddler bed, and we were both sound asleep by 8 p.m. local time.
I planned to keep us resting quietly in the dark until 5 a.m., even if we woke up early. But when she sat up fully alert before 4 a.m., I had already been up for well over an hour, so we moved to plan B.
We walked to the closest 7-Eleven to split an egg salad sandwich and explore the neighborhood before dawn. Japanese convenience store food has a cult following for good reason, and at 4:30 in the morning, it was the right mix of comforting and exciting. We ate it at Shiba Park nearby, dazed, watching a cluster of cosplay teens parade past in full costume. Then, we headed to the closest playground, which we were alone at except for a couple of stragglers that seemed to still be finishing their night from the nearby bar district. They kindly tossed their empty drink cans into recycling when they saw us approach and headed out.
It wasn’t until several hours later, once the hotel’s actual breakfast buffet opened, that the magic of dawn slipped away and reality kicked in. “MOM, CAN YOU GET ME SOME FRUIT?” she shouted, from clear across the room. I tried giving her my best mom big-eyes and gestured for her to quietly come closer to me, but she shouted it again, louder, standing up on her chair. A room full of quietly eating guests did not react, which somehow made it worse.
We got a kimono shoot with no one else around
Tourist Japan, the travel agency that planned our Tokyo itinerary, arranged our pick up at 7:45 a.m. for a kimono rental and professional photo shoot in Asakusa. The studio wasn’t supposed to open that early, but every morning slot had already been booked, so they’d arranged for it to open early just for us. After the buffet, I was grateful for it: we had the entire place to ourselves before any other guests arrived, no crowds and no audience if the morning went sideways again.
It didn’t. We spent close to two hours in Asakusa being photographed in front of temple gates while she held still, wrapped up like a present and loving every minute. Back at the hotel, we took a two-hour nap, then afternoon karaoke to lure my tired, K-pop-loving daughter out of her bed and back out into the day.
When in doubt, get ice cream
If day one is adrenaline, day two is when the bill comes due. We had a small-group Tourist Japan food tour through Tsukiji Market that morning, with an 8 a.m. pickup. I felt cautiously optimistic walking in, since she’d slept until 5 a.m. that morning, more than an hour later than the day before.
That optimism didn’t survive contact with the market. Tsukiji at full volume, crowds pressing in, dead fish laid out everywhere, was more than my 4-year-old could handle. She spent the first half hour hiding under my skirt, until our tour guide crouched down and asked if she liked ice cream. She emerged an eager, fully engaged tourist for the rest of the morning fueled by chocolate, vanilla, and Japanese strawberries.
Maybe it’s that she’s a born foodie, or maybe it’s how meals help regulate our internal clocks, but eating turned out to be the most reliable cure for her jet lag the entire trip. That evening, we’d booked dinner at NiNi, 38 floors up at 1 Hotel Tokyo with a panoramic view of the city, and it was the best meal of the trip. The restaurant brought out toys for her to play with at the table, and the wagyu hamburger steak off the kids’ menu was good enough that I had to stop myself after stealing just one bite.
Food didn’t, however, cure everything. Back at the hotel, someone else pressed the elevator “up” button before she could, and once the tears started, they didn’t quit. We were only a few floors from our room, and I have never been so relieved for a short ride.
She made me see Tokyo in a different way
One unexpected advantage of traveling with a jet-lagged preschooler is that you see parts of a destination that most tourists might miss.
Tokyo at sunrise feels entirely different from Tokyo at noon; it felt like getting a glimpse behind the curtain before the city officially opened. We lingered in small neighborhood parks. We spent time watching trains instead of rushing to the next attraction. We discovered quiet morning moments that weren’t listed in any guidebook.
The meltdowns I’d braced for did come, but they weren’t nearly as devastating as I had feared.
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