T is for...travel

 

I’ve had a number of questions about road trips with babies under the age of 6 months that I will reflect at the end. I’ve also been a jealous observer of one friend’s month-long visit to her in-laws in Spain, where she’s been effortlessly leading a 2.5-year old around from beach to beach, all the while plying her child with fresh seafood. Then here I am traveling this summer with a 5-year old.

 All of the above got me thinking about a short entry today on travel with kids. How is travel any different now with a 5-year old compared to a baby? What travel tips would I be sharing now that I didn’t in my The Little A to Z (which was geared towards the first 18 months)? Let’s dig in below.

 

By the time your child is 5 years old they are pretty independent. And if you’ve been road tripping a lot by the time they get to the age of 5 they are pretty acclimatized to the idea of getting strapped into the car seat and sitting back for that tortuous 10-hour drive. But age-appropriate tools are always good to have in the toolbox.

 

One I’ve written consistently about is the audio book starting at age 4. While I am still a huge fan of audio books, I will admit that after 18 months of listening non-stop to the Chronicles of Narnia, my husband and I broke down in June and bought my son a Walkman and headphones (write me if you want the recommendation). It helped in the June road trip and again on this latest one in late July. Clyde’s become pretty self-directed in choosing his books at the library. We organize them along with his Walkman in a backpack which is accessible to him in the back seat. And voila! Off he goes. Bonus is that hubbie and I can carry on a conversation without Aslan roaring in the background.

 

Another really useful tool in the road trip toolbox is food. We organize fresh cut fruit, lots of nuts, muffins, Goldfish, etc. The important piece seems to be the variety.

 

For those of you struggling right now in this age bracket, I promise you it will get better! I was one of those people who believed firmly in routine and naps. I pretty much stayed close to home in order to not mess things up. This meant less freedom in doing day trips because I always wanted to get home for ‘the nap.’ I’m so excited this summer because we don’t need to worry about the constraints of nap time any longer. My folks are coming (it’s been 18 months since we saw them) and we’ve been mapping out day trips to the Farnsworth and the Portland Museum of Art. I feel like we’ve bought our freedom back. You also don’t need to worry about hotels having a play pen or crib for you for sleeping your little one.

 

This year Clyde is exercising his preferences when it comes to activities too. So far we’ve done some mini-golfing, go-karting and horse back riding. But I look forward to doing things with him in ways that I haven’t in previous years. This summer, I wrote earlier about how we set up a calendar and everyone in the family got to vote on day activities. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a whirl. You might something new about your child’s interests that you didn’t before (or it may simply reinforce the things that you did know). I’d have to say that this year has been a really fun time of travel and vacation as a result.

 

Now I will end with these tips for travel in the under 18-months age category:

 

Drawers: Now for those of you who haven't tucked into The Little A to Z and are in those early months of child-rearing, I’d like to offer you the single most important tip in my book, which happens to be something that my mother passed down to me: the drawer. We did a road trip down from Maine through Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania when Clyde was five months old, and this drawer trick worked like a charm. It also worked well when we stuck the drawer in the middle of beds in friends’ houses and in hotels, or even on floors on a trip through the Rocky Mountains when Clyde was four months old. It’s pretty simple to engineer: You need a few towels for padding the drawer. Let them hang over the edge of the sides. Wrap a bungee cord around the sides to keep the towels in place. Voila! Stick the drawer in the bathtub and place the baby in the drawer on his/her back to sleep at night. Bathrooms are great because typically they are windowless, so they’re very dark.

 

Sinks: we used these all the time to bathe our little one in. We’d put a towel in the bottom of the sink so that it isn’t slippery. Then we’d just hold our son up in the sink and bathe away!

 

Baby carriers: if you are a walker, hiker, or frequent traveler, invest in one! You won’t regret it. The heat and humidity of Washington, DC, and Virginia required us to find one that had some ventilation, and we ended up choosing the Ergobaby Adapt Cool Air Mesh. The few times I had to travel by air alone with our baby, I used the carrier to move in airports instead of lugging around a stroller. Much easier to get through the security scanners.

 

Hats and nursing covers: we always had hats and other soft lightweight covers on hand for coverage in the day given that you can’t use sunscreen until they get a bit older.

 

Stroller: I never used one when traveling via planes because I didn’t want to be that mom who looks so miserable struggling to fold it up and put it away. But with road trips we took our Bob everywhere. We did a lot of trail walking, etc, and always found it came in handy until about age 2.

 

I hope this exploration of travel has helped or inspired you to take up some new opportunities in this remaining month of summer. Always happy to received feedback: rachel@thelittleatoz.com

 

And for those who may be inclined, I finally did the unheard of and started an Instagram account. It's been a few weeks now. Trying to get the feel for it. Would love to follow each other! @rachelatoz