I have two things to add to my last post. Firstly, my husband and I are very grateful to the Grandma & Grandpa who stayed with our kids while we went to Croatia in August (and previous trips), plus the other 3 who babysit whenever they visit. Secondly, the other person who won't bail out on you when you ask for childcare? Someone who has been bailed on.
With that said...
Seeing as my husband and I met while traveling and were raised exploring different places (did I mention that my husband was born in the UK while HIS parents were traveling? Yeah, it's kind of in our blood), there was no plan to stop when out first son arrived. He visited Canada, Italy, the US and North Wales in his first year.
We've seen and heard it all. The groans from the people behind us going "why do WE have to be stuck behind the baby?" The flight attendants cooing over a tiny baby. A pilot that let all 3 kids into the cockpit this past February. Strangers offering to help. Glances and nods from other parents, creating a silent camaraderie before take-off. Glances from solo travellers just willing you to let your small child scream and ignore them so they can look at you with disdain. Yup, check, check, check, etc.
My tips for flying:
If the baby is still nursing, then nurse whenever they want. Bring a nursing pillow on the plane. It will surely take up a lot of room in hand-luggage but long-haul flights, it will be a saviour. Non-nursing baby, and you're down with pacifiers? Bring at least three.
Bagels bagels bagels. They're chewy, tasty and take a long time to eat. Cookies and fruit snacks can be eaten so quickly but a bagel takes a good 45min.
Don't be that parent who lets the kid scream while you plug in your earphones and watch a movie. That's why other passengers hate you as soon as they see you sitting down with an infant. They expect it. So prove them wrong. Try soothing, try feeding, try bouncing, try playing with them, try reading. If the seatbelt sign is off, then take the baby to the back gallery where you can pace a little bit. If it's a toddler, let him/her walk the aisle (you have to be with them!). It's not meant to be easy.
Seat back entertainment is the new saviour for pre-school/school-age kids. My middle child watched Tom & Jerry cartoons (the same 2 episodes) all the way to Dubai and back 2 years ago. It's the little things. Similarly, investing in an iPad is worth it here. My husband told me that the boys barely looked up on their flights to and from Grand Cayman in February. Go ahead and think to yourself 'in my day we didn't have iPads!' We do now, they're commonplace and they make not only the parents life easier, but their fellow-travellers life happier.
Let older kids go to the bathroom alone. This isn't Flight Plan or whatever that horrible Jodie Foster movie was. They can't go anywhere. But it will give them a sense of independence. Just make sure you turn to see when they finally get to the front of the toilet queue and then watch the clock, getting up if it's been 5 or so minutes and they still aren't out (unless they're my two boys and go in together, then they get about 7 minutes).
Pre-order a kids meal but plan for them to hate it. There are so many food options inside security these days than there's really no excuse for not grabbing a tuna sandwich or whatever the child in question likes. Don't go overboard on candy and chocolate. That will just rile them up.
With all that said, you will likely never see these people again. If you've done everything you can and your child is sensitive to air pressure changes, or they're past the state of boredom, or the seatbelt sign has been on for 2 hours and they need the bathroom but can't go and they're freaking out....you will likely never see those people again. Just repeat that over and over again (like during labour "this will end, this will end, this will end").
Tips for foreign countries:
Above all, teach your kid to say thank you in whatever the language is of the country you're in. Trust me. Please. It goes a very long way.
I've never been anywhere with children where we couldn't get diapers, formula, clothing, shoes, food, etc. I assume that anywhere you could go where that would be an issue isn't somewhere you'd take small children. Always pack for a flight as if your luggage will be delayed, or for a daytrip as if you'll get stuck in traffic/a metro has broken down/you get stuck somewhere...but from Rome to Dubai to San Francisco to Sydney you can get diapers and wipes. And bread and milk. And most other common necessities.
Foreign cities aren't any harder to navigate when you have kids next to you. Some maps are easy to understand, some not so much. Kids just make is trickier because they want to get where they're going, especially when hungry. Fortunately it just takes some patience. And adaption.
Tourist sites? Kids love them. At least mine do. My boys love telling people that they're climbed to the 2nd floor of Eiffel Tower twice. They pick up on the most interesting things too. And they view things very differently. For example, we go to Dover Castle pretty frequently since it's just down the road and the boys only really care about how it was used during WWII because that's fascinating to them. Roman lighthouse? Nah. Medieval Castle? Meh. Lookout points for WWII battle ships? Oh yeah!
I mentioned in my Ljubljana entry that I hit 5 museums in one day. That won't happen with kids. We dragged our boys and little girl (happy to be in her pram) to 4 different sites in Cartagena, Spain last summer (2012) and that was their limit. Multiple ice creams cones and tons of bottled water was purchased. Expectations should be lowered and making the kids are at least somewhat content should be a priority. There's a balance between always doing "kid's holidays" like Disney and only "adult holidays" like non-stop museums.
I feel as though I could come up with more, so I'll leave this open-ended.
I think that the most important factor here though is making sure the kids know how lucky they are if they get to travel and see new places. I don't want my kids to grow up thinking that traveling the world is the norm. They're lucky, their father and I are lucky...and we've made it a priority in our life (and household budget!). Quiz isn't the right word, but I ask them frequently about the things we've done. Example: I often ask the boys which countries we had to drive through to get to Spain (France and Andorra), and which we have to drive through in a few weeks to get to Amsterdam/The Netherlands (France and Belgium). They know we're flying to Sydney via South Korea in a few months, which lead to a pretty fascinating conversation about North Korea. The comments and questions we've gotten the boys based on where we've been and where we're going are truly amazing.
Going places, taking a few photos and buying the postcard is all a bit boring; we integrate it into our lives and I truly think the kids are better for it.
Anything to add? Tips? Disagree with buying bagels for your baby? Let me know!
With that said...
Seeing as my husband and I met while traveling and were raised exploring different places (did I mention that my husband was born in the UK while HIS parents were traveling? Yeah, it's kind of in our blood), there was no plan to stop when out first son arrived. He visited Canada, Italy, the US and North Wales in his first year.
We've seen and heard it all. The groans from the people behind us going "why do WE have to be stuck behind the baby?" The flight attendants cooing over a tiny baby. A pilot that let all 3 kids into the cockpit this past February. Strangers offering to help. Glances and nods from other parents, creating a silent camaraderie before take-off. Glances from solo travellers just willing you to let your small child scream and ignore them so they can look at you with disdain. Yup, check, check, check, etc.
My tips for flying:
If the baby is still nursing, then nurse whenever they want. Bring a nursing pillow on the plane. It will surely take up a lot of room in hand-luggage but long-haul flights, it will be a saviour. Non-nursing baby, and you're down with pacifiers? Bring at least three.
Bagels bagels bagels. They're chewy, tasty and take a long time to eat. Cookies and fruit snacks can be eaten so quickly but a bagel takes a good 45min.
Don't be that parent who lets the kid scream while you plug in your earphones and watch a movie. That's why other passengers hate you as soon as they see you sitting down with an infant. They expect it. So prove them wrong. Try soothing, try feeding, try bouncing, try playing with them, try reading. If the seatbelt sign is off, then take the baby to the back gallery where you can pace a little bit. If it's a toddler, let him/her walk the aisle (you have to be with them!). It's not meant to be easy.
 |
| 3 year old William on the way to Dubai! |
Seat back entertainment is the new saviour for pre-school/school-age kids. My middle child watched Tom & Jerry cartoons (the same 2 episodes) all the way to Dubai and back 2 years ago. It's the little things. Similarly, investing in an iPad is worth it here. My husband told me that the boys barely looked up on their flights to and from Grand Cayman in February. Go ahead and think to yourself 'in my day we didn't have iPads!' We do now, they're commonplace and they make not only the parents life easier, but their fellow-travellers life happier.
Let older kids go to the bathroom alone. This isn't Flight Plan or whatever that horrible Jodie Foster movie was. They can't go anywhere. But it will give them a sense of independence. Just make sure you turn to see when they finally get to the front of the toilet queue and then watch the clock, getting up if it's been 5 or so minutes and they still aren't out (unless they're my two boys and go in together, then they get about 7 minutes).
Pre-order a kids meal but plan for them to hate it. There are so many food options inside security these days than there's really no excuse for not grabbing a tuna sandwich or whatever the child in question likes. Don't go overboard on candy and chocolate. That will just rile them up.
With all that said, you will likely never see these people again. If you've done everything you can and your child is sensitive to air pressure changes, or they're past the state of boredom, or the seatbelt sign has been on for 2 hours and they need the bathroom but can't go and they're freaking out....you will likely never see those people again. Just repeat that over and over again (like during labour "this will end, this will end, this will end").
Tips for foreign countries:
Above all, teach your kid to say thank you in whatever the language is of the country you're in. Trust me. Please. It goes a very long way.
I've never been anywhere with children where we couldn't get diapers, formula, clothing, shoes, food, etc. I assume that anywhere you could go where that would be an issue isn't somewhere you'd take small children. Always pack for a flight as if your luggage will be delayed, or for a daytrip as if you'll get stuck in traffic/a metro has broken down/you get stuck somewhere...but from Rome to Dubai to San Francisco to Sydney you can get diapers and wipes. And bread and milk. And most other common necessities.
Foreign cities aren't any harder to navigate when you have kids next to you. Some maps are easy to understand, some not so much. Kids just make is trickier because they want to get where they're going, especially when hungry. Fortunately it just takes some patience. And adaption.
Tourist sites? Kids love them. At least mine do. My boys love telling people that they're climbed to the 2nd floor of Eiffel Tower twice. They pick up on the most interesting things too. And they view things very differently. For example, we go to Dover Castle pretty frequently since it's just down the road and the boys only really care about how it was used during WWII because that's fascinating to them. Roman lighthouse? Nah. Medieval Castle? Meh. Lookout points for WWII battle ships? Oh yeah!
I mentioned in my Ljubljana entry that I hit 5 museums in one day. That won't happen with kids. We dragged our boys and little girl (happy to be in her pram) to 4 different sites in Cartagena, Spain last summer (2012) and that was their limit. Multiple ice creams cones and tons of bottled water was purchased. Expectations should be lowered and making the kids are at least somewhat content should be a priority. There's a balance between always doing "kid's holidays" like Disney and only "adult holidays" like non-stop museums.
I feel as though I could come up with more, so I'll leave this open-ended.
I think that the most important factor here though is making sure the kids know how lucky they are if they get to travel and see new places. I don't want my kids to grow up thinking that traveling the world is the norm. They're lucky, their father and I are lucky...and we've made it a priority in our life (and household budget!). Quiz isn't the right word, but I ask them frequently about the things we've done. Example: I often ask the boys which countries we had to drive through to get to Spain (France and Andorra), and which we have to drive through in a few weeks to get to Amsterdam/The Netherlands (France and Belgium). They know we're flying to Sydney via South Korea in a few months, which lead to a pretty fascinating conversation about North Korea. The comments and questions we've gotten the boys based on where we've been and where we're going are truly amazing.
Going places, taking a few photos and buying the postcard is all a bit boring; we integrate it into our lives and I truly think the kids are better for it.
Anything to add? Tips? Disagree with buying bagels for your baby? Let me know!
