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Traveling is amazing until you have to factor in another human being. If it’s a kid, calm down. We’ve been there.
Our family trips are usually challenging. Kaleb’s favorite pastime is antagonizing Knox and Knox’s decreased threshold for pain/teasing/annoyance has hit rock bottom. Meaning, it doesn’t take much now to start the record player of his ceaseless, shrill, fingernails on the chalkboard, kind of whining. There is almost nothing I won’t do to prevent that in a two-hour car ride or a six-hour flight. I’ve had to get creative on how to distract them and also not lose them during family trips. Here are the travel hacks for kids I’ve accumulated over the years to make traveling with your kids more fun and less stressful.
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Dress them in NEON
I used to shake my head in judgment when I’d see those parents who put cute little leashes on their kids. Adorable as they try to make them, they still made me think the parents were carting their children around like dogs. That was before parenthood and the reality of two children in the phase of life that eludes reason who decide, at the same time, to run in separate directions. If this happens in a giant field free of hazards, then no problem. If this happens in a busy airport, a dark campground, or a small park lined by moving traffic, it can become a major problem. Dressing the boys in neon helps us spot them if they’re trying to get wiley.
Not going to lose these knuckle-heads
Have them call you by your first name
Every time I go out with my kids and they are not immediately by my side and I start hearing the call “Mom! Mom! Mom!” I spin my head in alarm like a Pavlovian dog, but after a while, my system gets overtaxed, and I become desensitized. So, if my kids actually need me because they’re being kidnapped or drowning in a vat of sewage waste, I might miss it. I’ve told them if they can’t get my attention with “Mom” to just call me “Rina” and that always works. Not sure it would work as well if my name was Jennifer but maybe.
They all have mommies with the same first name © Rina Nehdar
Sit them in different rows
Yes. Don’t do it. Don’t put them all together. You’re just asking for it if you do. Book your airplane seats in different rows – one child per adult. If they beg and are behaving, then you could sit them together. But if they start to act up again, you have a place you can plop one of them for instant peace. Your sanity and the other passengers will be very grateful.
Big smiles because we’re sitting in different rows
….and if they behave they can sit together.
Traveling board games
OK, you’ll probably find this one elsewhere but it’s new for us. There are cute little versions of your big boards games that have magnets attaching them to the board to make it less likely you’ll lose them during turbulence inside and outside of the airplane. These are great alternatives to electronics and have the benefit of adding positive memories of you interacting with your children. After that, they may forgive you for isolating them and dressing them in neon.
Yuggler
This is a great app that will provide you with information and ideas for child-friendly activities where ever you are. They’re broken down by gender, age-range, and even type of weather. This is great if you just want to go and use your research time to get an early start to the vacation.
active kids are happy kids
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Nursing on take-off
For the veteran mom, this is an eye-roller. Of course, you’re going to nurse on take-off and landing. The sucking equalizes the pressure in the little nugget’s ears and brings comfort in a new situation. For the new moms, you’re welcome. I just saved you from split eardrums and the dagger stares of your plane mates.
a sleeping baby is a happy mommy Photo by Laura Lee Moreau
Cups with hot towels
This is genius. And not something I’ve tried but a new friend I met in Israel, Twirzah, told me this really works. Hot towels, though I suppose napkins would work because where would you even get small towels on a plane, tucked into the bottom of cups then placed over the ears. The suction gently relieves pressure as the plane is changing altitudes. When I was five, I remember flying with a head cold and the excruciating pain that accompanied the plane’s descent is still with me today, decades later.
stuff those cups Photo by Annie Spratt
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