Travel Tips
How do you travel with kids you may ask? You’ve come to the right place! It seems like we’re always catching a flight with two toddlers (we stopped counting after Joaquin’s 100th flight), schlepping car seats and diapers all across the world. Our biggest advice for traveling is bending before you break. All the planning and organizing seems hopeless after a meltdown or cancelled flight, so there’s a lot of room for going with the flow. We’re constantly learning new things about the kids and how to make things easier, but we wanted to share some of our tried and true tips that we use when traveling with toddlers.
Luna thriving in the Parisian time zone
Time Zones
We keep kids on West Coast time. If you’re going East this is awesome because they wake up later and don’t miss a beat when you get back home. The trick is you have to keep it dark.
2. How To Keep It Dark
Quick and easy for hotels is the hanger trick. But If you want to get hard core, you can buy these temporary blackout paper blinds. We keep a few in the suitcase. When worse comes to worse, foil and some tape work great too.
3. Make It Fun!
Is there a treat or toy or dare I say, screen, they don’t get often? Save it for travel days. We keep a special bag of Legos, a few halfway healthy treats (no one wants a sugar crash on a trip), and an iPad that only come out on long trips. Joaquin gets excited and tends to be on his best behavior to get to have these things on travel days. Super pro move: keep some unused balloons in your carry on. When all else fails there are a million entertaining things you can do with a balloon in an airport or hotel room and it takes up no space in a bag.
4. Keep It Small
If you travel or are on the move at all invest in a stroller that breaks down super small and fits in an overhead. No need to wait for your stroller at gate check and easy to get in and out of small restaurants and along small sidewalks. Or even to just have in the car. We love our Babyzen. We check all the car seats and go light. (Check out our full airport post here).
5. The Crib
Most hotels have Pack ‘n Plays or cribs if you call in advance!
6. Snacks Snacks Snacks
Pack lunches and snacks. A peanut butter and jelly holds up nicely in a diaper bag and is easy to eat basically anywhere.
7. Bend Before You Break
Be flexible and have a good attitude. Travel necessitates a certain amount of going with the flow. Flights might get delayed, hotel rooms might not be ready, diapers don’t hold up. It all happens and it’s all going to be ok. But the point isn’t getting from A to B as much as it is about the memories (even when you’re just getting from A to B). Kids are portable and adaptable and will pick up on your vibes so if you expect them to have good attitudes while traveling, make sure you’re modeling one as best you can.