I can't promise that reading this will make you WANT to travel with kids, and I can't profess to necessarily be good at it either. I do, however, have lots of experience on road trips with young kids, so I will share my "wisdom" with those of you who have ever thought you might want to take a vacation at some point in your parenting career.
I should start out by saying that we have always traveled multiple times a year (I did not say we always wanted to, or enjoyed it) since our kids started coming along, and so any good behavior on their part NOW is probably simply because they have become used to being strapped into their car seats for an entire day several times a year.
For us, for a successful road trip, these are
MUST HAVES:
* Movies and DVD player (obviously)
* Snacks, snacks and more snacks. Also, snacks. (It helps if some of them are treats!)
* Minimal liquids, but not NONE (The key to a successful road trip is dehydration.)(I KID!)(Mostly.)
* Something fun. It could be a tablet, books, video game, coloring... something your kid(s) likes A LOT.
* Plastic bags, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and an extra change of clothes per kid.
* Optional: Headphones. Maybe for the kids, definitely for you.
Random tips for the road:
Do you have a newly potty trained or potty training child? A child who still wears a pull up at night or nap time? A child who gets car sick? A child who has wet the bed any time in the past 6 months? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you should always make sure you have some
Chux pads or
Piddle Pads in the car. After having to wash or attempt to dry a nasty car seat in the middle of a road trip - many times - we started putting chux pads under the child or children in question. Accident? No problem, just throw the thing away, change clothes, (here's where those plastic bags come in handy) and go on your way.
We keep a
portable potty in the car as well, although we very rarely use it anymore. You can buy their refills or just use a plastic grocery store bag and a diaper. It saved us
many times as some of our trips have us out in the middle of nowhere.
We usually have LONG trips planned, so we try not to give them a
ton to drink. Yes, we let them drink, but usually just water and not a gallon at a time.We do let them have juice boxes sometimes, as a treat, but if I gave them juice boxes all the time they'd drink it all in 10 seconds and have to stop to pee (again) in 5 minutes.
Speaking of pee (like all these other tips...), when one has to go, make EVERYONE go. Yes, it's a giant pain in the butt to get all 6 of us out of the car and use nasty gas station bathrooms, (hand sanitizer!) but it's worth it if you don't have get all buckled in and hear, "I HAVE TO GO POTTY NOW!" in approximately 3 minutes down the road. For that matter, we also always get gas when we stop to use the bathroom, even if we don't really need it. Less stops = faster trip and for us we usually just want to get there.
I used to think taking your time would be much more fun on these trips, but the two trips we make
most often have very little fun to be had along the way so now we just grit our teeth and try to get there as quickly as possible. The last two trips to Texas we decided that it was
less torture to spend 13-15 hours in the car in one day than it was to spend the night in a hotel with the kids. If your kids don't make hotel rooms into a torture chamber then you don't have to worry about that. I do suggest packing just one overnight bag with pajamas, necessities and a change of clothes for everyone in it so you don't have to unload all the suitcases for a one night stay.
If the weather is nice, I suggest getting take out from somewhere or packing a lunch if possible, and looking up a local park in your GPS. We've found some very nice little parks (and some not so nice) this way. The kids usually would rather play than eat, but we just let them play until we're done and then they eat theirs in the car. It works for us!
It's a whole different story when you have kids under 3, or nursing babies. They need to stop more often, and they just don't understand the whole thing so it can be ... challenging.
There's a member of my family who rode back from a beach trip in our car with a baby O who screamed almost non-stop (as he
always did in the car) and a little d who had the stomach bug. I imagine that provided some pretty good birth control! (I was already pregnant with C then so it was too late for me.)
Once you get there:
It depends on where you're staying/going and if the trip is visiting extended family or a vacation with just your little family. When we're visiting family, we try to make sure the kids get enough sleep so that they still want us to come back but not stick so strictly to their schedules that they think we're drill sergeants. It is vacation, after all.
Also, when we're in
certain places I try to
escape go to bed early too
even though I'm reading in bed. Grinding my teeth, biting my tongue and letting as many little things slide as possible get me through.
If you're going on a REAL vacation, like the beach or Disney World, well... may I suggest a high adult:child ratio?
1:1 is really most successful, as we learned on our first trip to the beach when Miss L was only 6 months old. (4 children who couldn't swim + 2 adults to watch them...)
Everything is really so much easier with an extra grown up around, but that's not always possible. We are doing Disney with just our little family of 6 and I know it's not going to be as easy as having another set (or two) of hands and eyes there, but it can be done!
First of all, if you're staying in a hotel, bring extra clothes. LOTS OF THEM. Perhaps it's because my kids are still young, but it seems like you just can't EVER have enough underwear and pants. They have
dozens of pairs each (except the oldest) and I bring them ALL on vacations where I'm not sure if we will have access to a washing machine.
Secondly, we try to save as much money as possible on food. (Plus, eating out with 4 kids who may or may not be overtired, wired and/or cranky is not all that much fun.)
Feeding this crew already costs a small fortune so we try to eat out no more than once a day on vacation. We always try to get a room with a fridge & microwave at the very least and a full kitchen at best. We hit the grocery store and stock up on easy stuff we'd buy at home, paper plates and plasticware, and plenty of snacks too. We typically eat breakfast and dinner in our room and lunch out because we're usually out and about then, and lunch is cheaper than dinner. (Plus by dinner the kids are usually tired and less likely to behave in a restaurant.)
Third is hardest for my husband. RELAX YOUR EXPECTATIONS. Yes, we're on vacation, but we don't
have to being going, going, going every second of every day.
We don't have to see everything.
We don't have to do everything.
If the kids really want to lay around and watch cartoons one morning rather than go play
another round of mini-golf? Oh well, at least it's free, easy, and they are contained to one room for awhile! I totally get the pressure to have The.Most.Fun.Ever. and "get your money's worth!" but vacations are really more fun if you can actually relax for a second.
Most important to me is to stay together. My kids are still young, so I am super paranoid about someone getting lost, snatched or left behind and I am hyper vigilant about keeping us all together when we're out and about, especially in crowds. (Yes, the thought of Disney World* is giving me minor panic attacks. Are we having fun yet?) I'm planning to order these
temporary tattoos, just in case.
The long and short of it is that traveling with kids (especially a lot of them) can be a lot of work, a headache, expen$ive, and sometimes? Just not even worth it. (Don't even get me started on the torture of sleep or lack thereof, on vacation.)
However, it
can also actually be
FUN and rewarding. One of our personal biggest goals as parents is to give the kids experiences and memories; not just things.
So... I'm sure there's more but this is long and that's about all I can think of, for now. If I think of more later, I'll add it in the comments and if YOU have some travel/vacation trips, please share!
*After Disney I'll update with whether that trip was a good idea or not. ( I'm scared. )
