On my search for useful information, I have come across some really great moms who can offer a lot of fantastic advice. Here is our first installment of guest bloggers, featuring my sister, Stephanie Kreger. She is the mom of 2 of the cutest girls alive (I may be biased) and is expecting her 3 child (a boy!) in late November. She and her husband currently live in Findlay, Ohio, and she has some great advice on not only traveling with children, but how to make living far away from your family more doable. Here are some of her tips!
Stephanie:
Having lived across the country from family for the last 5
years, we have picked up a few “tricks of the trade” when it comes to traveling
with children. Whether by airplane or car, there are some definite helpful
hints we have learned, some the hard way, that make the experience
significantly easier and more enjoyable for everyone.
Our top 5 tips for traveling with children:
#1- Thankfully, our kids sleep wonderfully in the car.
Because of this, we try to plan much of the road trip to take place while they
sleep. We drive during naptime, and my
night-owl husband drives late into the night to make for a much less “eventful”
trip. The opposite has proved to be true
for airplane travel, however. With the
excitement of being in an airplane, they rarely fall asleep and then we are
left with cranky children in a confined, shared space. In that case, I think it’s safe to say that
the other passengers prefer our children to be well rested.
#2- A few days before our trip, we like to take the kids to
our local Dollar Store and give them each $5 to pick out activities for the
trip. Dollar stores are great places for
books, puzzles, glow sticks, and coloring books. They know that as soon as we
leave the store, they won’t see them again until we are buckled in and on the
road and that gives them something to look forward to. While they may have these things sitting
around at home, the novelty of something new and different keeps their
attention for much longer and at Dollar Store prices, it’s completely worth it.
#3- For potty trained kids, when we stop to get gas, there
is no option but to go potty. For obvious reasons, if they don’t, it makes for
a very long trip full of stop after stop. As my ever so eloquent husband says, “Pee when
you can, not when you have to!”
#4- This seems so obvious, but never underestimate the value
of a good quality portable DVD player! This has saved us so many times. In
addition, an external battery is worth every penny and will give you hours more
video time. We usually let each kid pick out a few movies and depending on the
movies chosen, headphones. That is, unless you enjoy Disney Princess Sing
Alongs!
#5- After getting really tired of digging for dropped
crayons, I bought a small suctioning basket, like the one found here:
We put them on the windows next to their seats and it almost
completely eliminated the missing crayon searches! The first time we tried this, however, was
during a 17 hour road trip in August. I
didn’t think to take the crayons out of the car when we arrived and were left
with a colorfully waxy mess! If you are like me and marathon sprint out of the
car as soon as it is parked, colored pencils might be a better route.
When we combine all of these ideas, the trip always goes so
much more smoothly and 9 times out of 10 we are all still speaking when it’s
over :)
Good luck and safe travels!
