Traveling with Children: what made it easier for us.
Traveling requires planning. Traveling with kids is a whole other realm of packing & planning. Recently we took a road trip and I took note of what kept us sane traveling with 3 young children for a week. This includes having them out of routine, too. I’m not an expert, but I’d call the trip a massive success!
Ahead of time, I put together a canvas bag for each of the older kids (using iron on patches), creating activity bags. This feels like a no-brainer but we’re getting back into the habit of traveling again since Covid arrived on the scene and now we have 3 instead of 2 kids to work with. The bags were a hit! I kept everything in there with the exception of snacks/food. So, anytime they couldn’t find something or saw what another one had and said “I want that,” we could easily direct them to their bag.
But, for the real heroes in this story. Below is a bunch of items that helped us a ton! Again, some of them might feel like a “duh” for parenting on-the-go, but we’re all learning how to exercise our travel muscles again, so go easy on me.
Amazon Fire Tablet(s): yeah, we’re a tablet family and these can handle a lot. / 2. Washable Wetbag: the moment you think you wont need it is exactly when you do. / 3 Headphones for Kids: allowing for (some) peace and quiet towards the front / 4 Disposable Toilet Seat Covers: this went right along with the folding travel potty seat. Again, the moment you think you wont need it is when you do. / 5 Handheld Water Games: they come in a set and yeah, sometimes we play with them, too. / 6 Liquid Motion Sensory Toys: need to stare at something other than the road? These are an awesome choice. / 7 Pop Tubes: If you know, you know. These are golden to have on hand. / 8 Water Wow: reusable mess free coloring / 9 Sensory Slug: weird but the kids love holding it, and if they’re holding it, that means they’re not hitting each other / 10 Travel Pillows for Kids: they crashed fast with these / 11 Car Seat Tray: a lifesaver for activities on the road, snacking, and essentially everything they kids would want to do in a car.
1 Saranoni Toddler Blankets: each boy has one and we swear by them. I admittedly have one, too. / 2 Eyemask: nightlights, new rooms, etc. don’t stand a chance. / 3 Coop Home Goods Pillow: I swear these are the most comfortable things and having one with me helped keep me collected. / 4 Canvas Bags: for the activity bags and giving the kids something specific to keep up with. / 5 Visual Timer: this visual timer allows for easy handling of free time and also trying to stay on routine / 6 Water Wipes: we’ve got a 3 year old and a 1 year old. It gets messy and these wipes are my favorite for dirty hands/face wipes. /7 Hatch Rest: our household runs on Hatch so you better believe both come with us when we travel. / 8 Individual Weekender Bags: each boy got their own bag and loved having something all their own for travel. They tried to carry them too for about 5 seconds. / 9 Clorox Wipes: do I really need to explain this one?
