Ten Useful Tips For Parents When Travelling With Kids
Spontaneous travel is something you can afford when you do not have kids. You surely do not want to reach a place and check with 5 hotels for room availability when you have your little one throwing up temper tantrums. Here are ten tips that will make your travelling with kids way more convenient. So, read on below…
#1 Pre-book everything
While travelling with kids, especially, toddlers it is really important that all your bookings are in place. Be it road travel by a Volvo or flight, it is recommended that you book every minor thing. Hotel rooms, extra mattress in your room(if needed be)meals on board, travel tickets etc need to be checked thoroughly before going stepping out of your home.
#2 Be prepared for the Weather
It is important to prepared pack as per the weather. You might be able to tolerate cold but your little one may have a weaker immunity so, do your weather check beforehand so that you can prepare accordingly. You might need to carry their swimwear, socks or gloves..do that well in time. If heading to the beach, keep swimsuits, swimming caps, sun lotions, floating tubes, sunglasses, beach bag, beach towel, waterproof footwear etc.
#3 Vaccination
It is important for adults as well as kids to get their vaccination shots if you are travelling to some place with some endemic diseases that are communicable. With due precautions, your child would not catch any infections.
#4 Carry your meds
It is important to carry important medications, including painkillers, muscle relaxant, antacids, anti-emetics, disinfectant liquid, cough drops and bandaids, to the very least. Kids are sensitive and playful and god forbid, you need any meds on your trip, these would be at your disposal.
#5 Carry dry food along
While travelling by trains or by road, you might not necessarily get food vendors or food joints along your way, plus the hygiene of such food might be compromised and you do not want to start the holiday with kids falling sick. So, dry food items like chips, milk powder, dry fruits, muesli, biscuits etc can be carried along to let your kiddies munch on. You can also get no drip disposable containers and pack some dry homemade food. This works very well for us.
#6 Engage them in games
Instead of carrying a toy box, for short trips, it is best to load some games on your mobile and let your children play. We do not encourage the use of mobiles and tablets in your regular life but when on a trip once in a while this is the best way to keep engaged. Put spelling games, scrabble, number games etc that are fun as well as educative. There is a chance that they might need your help in these games, so, you can get engaged in conversations with your children too. Here are some non-gadget games that you can play with them.
#7 When Travelling With Babies
Kids are messy and there is no doubt about that! Carry paper soaps, hand sanitizer, and baby wipes so that you can clean up your child’s face, feet, and hands on the go. Plus baby wipes are a great way to get rid of tea, coffee and food stains that might happen due spills. We have saved many disasters with wipes. Just remember to use them on a fresh stain for them to be most effective.
This list becomes longer when travelling with babies. You need a complete baby bag in place. Must-haves in your bag;
Baby Wipes
While travelling, wipes come most handy for a mommy – irrespective of the age of the child. We recommend Baby Dove Wipes as they are hypoallergenic and mild on baby skin.
Diapers
A must-have in every travel bag for all mommies out there. If your baby isn’t toilet trained, then you will most definitely need these. Make sure you are carrying enough number of diapers, for the last thing you want is to be running short of them on a vacation! In fact, throw in a few extra diapers as well as you never know when you may need them. Pull ups are best suited for travel.
Diaper Rash cream
Wearing diapers for long hours can get uncomfortable and cause rashes for your little one. Unavailability of restrooms on the journey makes it difficult to change them regularly and resulting in flare-ups and rashes. The Baby Dove Rich Moisture Baby Rash Cream neutralises pH in seconds and forms a protective layer to shield your baby’s delicate skin from the causes of irritation.
Baby Lotion
Air travel involves being in chilly environment for long durations and that could leave your baby with drier skin. Carry Baby Dove nourishing lotion to ensure that you can combat this dryness. It is more so important, if you are headed to cooler climates.
#8 Engage them in activities
While waiting at a station or airport, the best way to keep your children from getting cranky is to keep them engaged. Buy colouring books, mini jigsaw puzzles, small packs of plasticine etc to keep them busy or just some play counting games if you don’t have the above. For eg. when our kids were younger we played count the number of trains passing or airplanes now we point at objects and you have to define two unique characteristics about them. You can build your own games, the idea is to keep them engaged.
#9 Encourage your kids to keep a travel diary of their own
Travelling and trips in childhood are something we cherish for a lifetime.Get a scrapbook or a travel journal for your child and ask them to note the places you guys visited. You can also collect flowers or leaves that are particular to a place and dry them under heavy weight and preserve these for your kids in their travel journals.
A small kids camera that gives instant miniature pictures can be a really fun way to keep your little one engaged. Tickets to amusement parks, colourful wrappers of exquisite candies or maps of the movie world, aquarium etc can be preserved as timeless memories.
I have shared my kid’s journal with you in my previous post on Singapore Travel diaries. Once I got him hooked on he is continuing with it.
#10 Safety
Use a permanent marker to write your name and number on your kid’s arm on busy stations and airports. It is very important that your child knows your phone number.
We hope you have lovely summer travels and find these tips useful. Have anything to add to the list? Comment below and we will add it to the blog and feature you :).
Happy Travelling 🙂 !!
You may also like:
