How to Travel With Toddlers — and Actually Enjoy It

Traveling with babies and toddlers can be hard – really hard. More stuff to pack, bags to carry, and emotions to manage! But this doesn’t mean we should stay home for the first 10 years until the kids are able to carry their own luggage through the airport. Travel is a great way to reset and unwind, and nobody needs that more than the parents of babies and toddlers. 

When planning a trip at this stage in your child’s development, it’s important to think carefully about if this adventure will be restorative for you. Consider if you will have enough fun to outweigh the potential sleep deprivation, and put off any trips that won’t fill you with joy. Factors in this joy to stress equation include time spent traveling to your destination, method of travel, number of time zones you’ll be crossing, sleeping arrangements, and activities you’ll be doing. Here are some tips for mitigating the stress, and increasing the joy:

Consider if you’ll have access to childcare.

If you’ll be seeing grandparents, are they up for taking care of the kids so you can have a date night with your partner? If you’re staying at a hotel or resort, call ahead and see if they have a babysitting service available! You can also contact preschools in the area to ask who they recommend for babysitters. After college I worked as a preschool teacher in a town that was a popular wedding destination, and we frequently had visitors call for babysitters. If you are part of a larger group, you can often ask for 2 or 3 babysitters to watch all of the children together. The standard pay for this is each family pays ⅔ of the regular rate. This is a great option because the families save money, and the babysitters make more money! Provide them with pizza for dinner and a new movie or game, and everyone wins.

Keep your regular sleep schedule and routine,

and be as strict as possible. Late nights out on the city are not part of your usual routine! Skipping nap time to go one more ride and meet Mickey Mouse? Definitely not. Traveling at this age can mean missing out on some of the fun stuff, but keeping with the routine ensures that the activities you do get to participate in are actually fun. Stroller naps are acceptable if your kiddo is able to get solid sleep this way, and a battery-powered white noise machine clipped on to their buckle can help make this happen. (Just make sure you remember to charge it!)

Adjust your schedule to account for time zones – maybe.

Traveling to a different time zone messes with your circadian rhythms, and it usually takes one day for your body change its schedule by one hour. This means that traveling across 3 times zones will take 3 days to adjust, and 5 time zones takes 5 days. And remember that you’ll have to adjust again in the opposite direction when you get home.

Don’t let nap time run too long.

Keep the day time sleep normal (kinda) so that excess day time sleep doesn’t keep you up all night. Often, we are more active during vacation days, and with all the new sights and sounds, your child will be more tired during the day. If they aren’t highly sensitive, extending a nap by 15 to 20 minutes is usually helpful. Starting the nap earlier by this amount is often the best way to handle this.

Bring as many familiar items as possible.

Of course your little one would never dare to leave home without their lovey, but also include some of the items you might not think of, such as their pillow (or even just pillow case), a favorite blanket, a stuffed animal they love, sound machine. Look around their room and pick up the little things that will make your hotel room feel like home. 

Practice first.

If you are bringing a travel bed with you, set it up at home and have a few practice naps in it! Hype it up, make it fun, make it familiar. 

Go with the flow.

That part where I said to be as strict as possible with your routine and schedule? It’s also important to recognize when your’re fighting an uphill battle. Sometimes, things are just going to fall apart and it’s not worth the stress! Sure, we missed nap time, only ate donuts for breakfast, and sand is sticking to the sunscreen on your legs, but that’s just the way it is on island time. Or something. When we get home, it will all get straightened out.

Ultimately, if you are prepared and excited, your family can have a great time on vacation. Expect some setbacks and be ready to be flexible with your plans. It’s common to have some sleep regressions when in an unfamiliar environment, but don’t let it keep you at home for their entire childhood. Adversity helps us grow!