Travelling with kids of any age can certainly present a number of challenges for any family. Long haul flights, long waiting periods, long car trips, getting on and off public transport in a foreign country along with luggage and personal belongings, is made that much more stressful if you have young kids with you.
But it doesn’t have to be a nightmare that you swear that you will never repeat, and with a bit of savvy planning and patience, you might even find the experience to be pleasant. There are many factors that will have to be taken into consideration when traveling with kids, such as their age, your destination, how far you will be traveling and the time it takes to get there, as well as how you will be traveling.
So if you are about to embark on a long haul trip with one or many kids, here are some ground rules and some of the best basic tips to be followed in order to have a relatively stress-free journey.
Luggage
If you are going to be traveling with your luggage and your child’s belongings, you are going to want to carry as little as possible. You may think you need all of those extra clothes, various changes of shoes and 4 different jackets and comfortable, warm and sexy pajamas with dressing gowns to match. But you will regret every minute you packed it when you are hauling/dragging/pushing luggage, cases and bags all over the place.
Put everything you want to take with you on your bed before you go – next to a sturdy back pack. Everything you take with you needs to fit into the backpack. Choose clothing items that are light, take up a small amount of space, don’t crease – you can buy plenty of clothing items that are crease free- and just the bare necessities.
You will be very grateful when you are travelling around that you can carry everything you need on your back, leaving your hands free to hold kids and extra bags, bottles, jackets, tickets or whatever else you need.
Boredom
Bored kids start to complain, they wriggle, they moan, they whine, cry, perform, pick on siblings, throw tantrums and generally just cause havoc before they end up crying themselves to sleep – sometimes. Prepare for impending boredom by making sure you have a plan for long periods waiting for flights, sitting in cars driving to destinations or the endless hours on long haul flights.
For little kids many good airlines help you out a bit by providing your kids with activity packs, with things like wax crayons, pencils, activity books, coloring in pages, stickers and that kind of thing.
If not, pick one up or a few things like that in the airport or train station before you board your flight or train. You can chuck it away afterwards, or leave it on the plane if you have to – so you don’t have to haul it around everywhere.
An iPod loaded with music, stories or soothing sounds will be an invaluable boredom fighting tool that will be great for all ages – from toddlers to grumpy teens to insomniac husbands. Load some kids’ stories onto your Kindle – a much more space conservative choice than a bag of books – and read to your kids en route.
Food
A hungry and thirsty child is as miserable, if not more unhappy than a bored one – which will make your trip a nightmare. Pack some snack packs with nuts, dried fruit, high protein snacks, energy bars, fruit sticks and plenty of water so that you can make sure your child’s blood sugar doesn’t plummet after 4 hours or more without eating or drinking anything.
If your child has food allergies, this will be a great way to make sure that your child gets the energy they need during long travel periods. Try to stay away from fizzy cool drinks with high sugar contents – it will make them cranky and sleepy and leave their blood sugar levels raging.
Jet Lag
Jet lag is a nightmare for an adult and for kids it’s even worse – which will make it worse for you as a parent. If you are landing at your destination in the evening, try to keep your child awake during the long haul flight, and only let them go to sleep when they get there at night time. They will kick into the new surroundings and time zone much quicker than the adults – which will make your transition much easier as well.
If you are landing in the morning, try and get your child to sleep on the flight over and when you arrive at your destination, keep them awake until it is time to go to sleep again. No afternoon naps no matter how tired everyone is and make sure you keep busy during the following day. Everyone will crash that night, but you may be able to bypass the worst of it.
Sun Protection
If you are traveling to a foreign country, especially one that is known for being particularly hot, make sure that you lather your child with the highest factor sun protection lotion you can get your hands on every day. If your child’s skin is not used to the sun – and you can get as sunburned, if not more sunburned in overcast conditions – they are going to burn very quickly.
Make sure that their arms, legs –especially the back of the knees -, hands, ears, face and feet are adequately covered with sun protection. For those kids who don’t like being fussed over or even like sun cream at all, you can buy great ‘’flavor’’ smelling sun protection lotion that is nontoxic and even comes complete with glitter in the cream. You can buy flavors like cream soda, vanilla and other milk shake scented sun protection for your kids. Luminous sun cream like the surfers wear may also be a great hit amongst the little ones. Sunburned kids on holiday can be very miserable and best avoided.
Korah Morrison, writer on College-Paper.org that helps students achieve their academic goals.
