My husband and I love to travel. Which I’m sure is just like many of you. Prior to having our daughter, we were able to travel the world at the drop of a hat. We were worried after many conflicting messages from friends and family that traveling was going to stop after kids.
I’m here to tell you that you can still travel with kids! Kids do definitely change the way you travel for sure. But let’s get real, just traveling to the grocery store changes a whole lot after having kids too (whole different post) =) My daughter is two and she’s been with us internationally and I believe she’s up to 5 different states already, so there is hope!
What really changes is the amount of stuff you take with you when you travel. HOLY MOLY does it change! I get a lot of questions from friends that are first time parents asking about what you bring and most often the question I get is where do children sleep when you travel. GREAT QUESTION!
As a first time mom, believe me, I had the same questions, but quickly realized that every situation is different. For us, early on we relied heavily on the pack-n-play. Especially when camping or on road trips where we were able to throw it in the car.
When you’re traveling on a plane, a few other factors come into play, like extra baggage cost and the fact that there is typically only two adults able to carry it all. Try and keep it to a minimum.
Here are few tips we’ve picked up along the way that might be able to help:
- Most hotels (Sheratons, Hiltons, Marriotts, etc) have roll away cribs – use them. (Especially international) Bring your own sheet and/or blanket if you feel the need, but it definitely cuts down on amount of stuff you hauling with you.
- If you staying in a room with two beds and the baby is still pretty young, you can always line up the bags and pillows around one of the beds and its turns into a make shift crib.
- When visiting family or friends, ask if you they have a pack-n-play or one they can borrow, so you don’t have to bring one. We’ve also found that air mattresses are great for the toddlers and young kids. It keeps them close to the ground and if you need to line the outside with pillows you can still do so.
One last little secret you may not know, is that kids grow out of the pack-n-play pretty quick. Especially if the little ones tend to measure tall. Planning ahead for alternative sleep arrangements saves a lot of worry and money, and lets you enjoy what you’re there to do, have an adventure!
Do you have any Traveling Tot advice? Please share it with us!
Comments
With our toddler I like to bring my Ipad with me everywhere. Even to stores it’s great to have. I load it up with games for his age and he plays them. I work for DISH Network and recently got the TV Everywhere feature with them. It was $99.00 for the adapter you need for your receiver, but definitely worth the cost. I can access any of our DVR recordings on my Ipad and even put on live TV for him. He loves it and it keeps him busy in the car on our road trips.
My wife and I have three kids ages 6-3-1. We take our kids everywhere when we travel. One of the best things we did when we had our third was instead of having to buy the “mini-van” we purchased 3 Radian car seats for our car. These are the most narrow, folding car seats on the market. We love them because all three kids easily fit in the backseat side by side. Why it works so well is because the can entertain themselves and pass things back and forth. It also works for our oldest daughter helping with the baby. (e.g. reaching for a dropped soother) We are also a big fan of the umbrella stroller over the big ones. They take up little room in the trunk and easily move through large crowds.
P.S. Great article!