Traveling With Kids- Strategies To Help Reduce Your Stress On Your Next Family Vacation
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You may have heard the saying, “Parents don’t really go on vacation. They just take care of their kids in different cities”. This blog is aimed at helping reduce some of the natural stress load that parenting brings, especially when traveling. From planning tips to packing tips, help yourself get more out of your family vacation and receive all the relaxation benefits that it can offer.
Vacations can offer new experiences and locations. This can lead to really beautiful and meaningful memories, but new locations also means stepping outside of your norm. As rewarding as that can be, it will often come with its own challenges. Being prepared for some of these changes can allow you to be more present in the moment during your trip so you can fully experience some of the mental health benefits that traveling can bring. Parents have an extra layer of stress that comes with the increased mental load and constant attention that parenting requires. I’ll cover some tips to help reduce that mental load and I’ll break it down to different age groups.
Thinking Ahead
First though, take some time to casually track what your children’s current norms are. Hopefully they currently have reasonable eating, sleeping, and activity routines for their age, but look beyond that as well. What are items they frequently use that you might not have thought of? What are items that you are consistently using with them? Casually jot down anything that comes to mind over a period of a few days. Many will seem like common sense to you to pack, but there may be some that surprise you. One surprising item for me was how often I was using scissors at home. Now I end up using travel scissors a lot on vacations to trim wrist bands, cut strings, open items, etc. Do they use sound machines or wipe warmers that could make them more fussy with out them?
If you are traveling to an area or resort that you aren’t as familiar with consider temporarily joining an online group for current information. You can learn about construction or traffic concerns, new operation guidelines, reviews on the area’s hotels or attractions, and more useful tips. It can save you the hassle of finding out on your own. I especially recommend this for destinations that require a lot of planning, like Disney World or when traveling out of the country. Groups can be found on facebook, youtube channels, dedicated websites with email newsletters, pinterest, apps, and more. This isn’t something that you need to check on constantly, but you may want to look at their update information during the booking portion of your trip and then again closer to your travel dates.
Planning Your Must-Do’s
When you begin to plan out what you want to do on your trip, try to keep in mind the benefit of maintaining your child’s current routines as much as you’re able. Keeping similar sleeping and eating schedules can benefit the whole family and reduce travel fatigue, digestive impacts, and emotional overwhelm for your kids. For adults, maintaining similar routines can assist with your own energy levels, cognitive clarity, and frustration tolerance.
So try to maintain their normal routines while still being flexible with your activity schedule. By this I mean try to keep their eating and sleeping times similar, but if you have to miss a nap or change their normal eating time, then prepare yourself for it by leaving the rest of the day more open and flexible so you can leave early if you need to or plan to eat a good energy snack if you need to wait longer on dinner time. Repeatedly over-pushing nap timelines though with your kids or using too many sugary treats for energy bursts can back fire. It can make it harder for your kids to sleep when you get back to your hotel or for them to stay asleep at night. So again, maintaining reasonably close routines can actually allow you to do more and enjoy more on your trip by reducing future meltdowns, even for the days ahead.
If you’re traveling with others, allow yourself to feel comfortable if your family needs to be on its own timeline at times. For some, this can feel like a very uncomfortable boundary to enforce or it may not always be received as well in some family/friend dynamics, but following what you and your family needs to reduce your stress load on your trip can allow you and your kids to have a more positive experience overall and you deserve that. It’s your trip too.
Organize Yourself More Easily While Traveling
Have your essentials in grab bags for the travel portion of your trip as well as during your site-seeing and enjoyment of it. While you’ll need to pack or purchase bigger items in bulk, like food or diapers, having smaller grab bags made for on the go- like changing diapers in a small airplane bathroom or cleaning up a mess when you’re not close to a bathroom, can be really helpful. You can pack a disposable bag inside it or even use a waterproof bag for those spit-ups or blow-outs.
This works really well for older children as well. Having travel wipes on hand can be great for any age (sometimes adults too). Getting hangry is a real occurance for children and adults. Having convenient snacks on hand, especially good protein based snacks and water, can quickly and effectively help with mood regulation and frustration tolerance. It can be the necessary reset for the whole family at that moment. So packing a snack, water, and wipes for everyone in a go-bag (or purse) can be a travel essential. Also have plenty of back-ups packed back at your hotel to refresh your go-bag. Depending on your destination, it’s important to have those typical essentials- sunscreen, hats, bug spray, etc. But where ever you are, a few bandaids, sanitizer, etc in your bag can always be helpful.
I often have children wear their own mini backpack as soon as they’re able that can be stocked with not only some of their snacks, but also a pack of wipes, a change of clothing, and some fidgets, toys, or activities that are easily accessible and can stay with them on a flight, in the car, while exploring, or attached to their stroller.
Flight Tips
If traveling on a plane you may want to pack a travel blanket in your kid’s carry-on backpack or if it’s a long flight maybe an inflatable foot rest for napping or resting. Older children can carry their own tablets or electronics and headphones in their bags once they get through security. Just make sure if you’re traveling on a plane that you’ve downloaded their videos first (free or paid wifi on a plane is not always working), make sure electronics are charged, and that you’ve checked the volume level on young children’s headphones. Have or know any passwords that may not automatically connect when you are away from your home wifi.
Flying with younger children and infants will have it’s own planning needs, like checking with your specific airline about family boarding or seating, checking strollers or car seats, guidelines for formula or breastmilk, and if there is a bathroom changing station located on plane. Also keep in mind that flights can dehydrate us, so plan to help your children stay hydrated during longer flights. This may mean nursing or feeding babies after take off or prior to landing.
Flights can also cause some ear discomfort so packing gum for older children and pacifiers or something to stimulate chewing motions for younger children can help during take off and landing.
If you are traveling internationally, keeping your passports, tickets, cash, etc. organized together and easily accessible for you, while safeguarded from others, can be very important. A family size passport holder can do all of this while also storing your pen for your declaration forms. Keeping a picture of your passport and tickets on your phone can also be helpful. I recommend making a vacation folder on your phone to keep pictures of these important items as well as passwords, confirmation codes, or any other travel information you may have screen-shots of. Keeping them all in one area on your phone means you’re not wasting time or building your frustration while trying to scroll to find the log in for your children’s apps or the address for the hotel, restaurant, or attraction you’re heading to.
Here’s some final tips for getting through security screening at the airport more smoothly. Children no longer need to remove their shoes during the security screening process. You may want to bring a collapsible cloth bag to hold all of your electronics and liquids (in their quart size clear bags) that you can take out and put into a bin yourself during the screening process. Then once you are through security you can put everyone’s tablets in their own backpacks or pack away your liquids in your carry-ons and then stash away that cloth bag for the return home. This saves you the hassle of taking these items out when you’re in line or getting pulled aside if you forget to remove them.
Staying Organized During Your Stay
When you reach your hotel or resort, staying organized in the room can help reduce your chance of forgetting items on your way out the door to enjoy your vacation. If you want to be really organized, some people keep clothes and essentials in individual ziploc bags or travel cubes for each child for each day or they pack a collapsible closet organizer to keep each day separated. If you’re not that concerned, just having a separate location for dirty clothes- a pop-up hamper or packed garbage bag can help keep yourself more organized and the small room less chaotic before you head out the door each day.
Also, using cheap organizers can help you keep your snacks from being smooshed inside your luggage and they can save space as a lot of packaging is just wasted room. It can also help you have an organized and accessible snack station. For younger children you can leave out only the snacks you want them to see and add to it as you wish. It’s also a great location for bandaids, medicine, or quickly accessible items that you want within your reach and out of the reach of littler ones. Leaving some water bottles next to it can also be a great visual reminder to stay hydrated.
Finally, remember that planning ahead in these ways are not meant to be an added stressor. They are meant to help your experience somewhere new go more smoothly and reduce your mental load on your trip. So if you find yourself over stressing about it, take a step back and ask yourself why. Is there something else that can be fueling it and how can you go about addressing that? You deserve a great vacation, new experiences, and a break from your daily norm, so let yourself get the most out it! Your brain will thank you.
