To say these past few years have been eventful, would be an understatement! For the entire world, yes; but also for our family. We bought a new-to-us 90+ year old house (more on that journey, here- https://instagram.com/farmhouse_to_dreamhouse?utm_medium=copy_link) that had to be completely redone while still carrying on our normal life of working 40+ hours a week, raising a 2 year old boy, and growing another little boy who would be born a few short months after we moved into the newly renovated home, just in time for the COVID lockdown.  So basically, we’ve not had or taken the time for a family vacation- EVER! So when COVID numbers started going down, one of the first things I did was to search Expedia for the perfect vacation. Well maybe “perfect” didn’t happen, but I found a condo at the beach and away we went! We had an absolute blast and I learned A LOT, so I wanted to shared my top 10 tips for traveling with littles!

First, it starts in the prep work (I mean, doesn’t everything?!). I had to be honest with myself about what we really needed and expected for our stay. Keeping in mind our kids are little (4YO & 2YO) so we were maybe a little more needy than other families, but we needed space! I knew we needed a kitchen or at least a small kitchenette area, a washer/ dryer, and individual bedroom spaces. It worked out perfectly having a space to prepare & serve breakfast each morning. We are on vacation after all so I didn’t want to spend every second arguing with the kids about putting their shoes on and trying to beat the meal time rush at restaurants. We would “sleep in” until about 7am when the kids would enthusiastically wake us up. We would drink coffee while the kids snacked on muffins and fruit in front of the tv blasting cartoons (vacation for us included relaxed screen time limits & fun treats like eating in front of the tv). The washer/ dryer was more of a safety net incase anyone had an accident, but really came in handy on the final night of our trip- more on this in a minute. The individual bedrooms, for us, were nonnegotiable! The kids normally go to bed at 7pm, during vacation that got relaxed to more like 8/9pm, but regardless without a separate room I’m not sure how that would’ve worked at all! We were able to put the kids to bed, then still hang out on the balcony enjoying the sound of the waves. 

Once reservations are made, and the day comes for your actual trip- I highly recommend having lots of tricks up your sleeve to keep the kids entertained in the car. I borrowed these ideas from my more-experienced-mom-friends, but isn’t that what we should all be doing- doing life together by learning from and encouraging each other. I found these perfect little lap trays that fit over the car seats and had handy little compartments for snacks, crafts, and books.

Next I packed these little snack boxes and refillable water bottles to curb car munchies and hopefully prevent a few stops along the way.   I recommend packing your kids’ favorites; for us that meant inside each snack box each kid had baggies of mini muffins, fruit snacks, veggies straws, and squeezy apple sauce. My goal was to not include choke hazards (cherry tomatoes, grapes, etc) or anything too crumbly or sticky!

For those times the snacks weren’t keeping the kids occupied, I also had pre-packed goodie bags and DVDs. I found everything I needed at the Dollar Tree and the boys thought they were “living large” getting these little treat bags anytime they got antsy.

Our trip was about 5 hours long, so I packed 4 bags for each kid and handed them out approximately every hour of the trip. I used green bags for the trip down and yellow bags for the trip home; I’m a big fan of using color coded methods to simplify things! So in total we had 16 bags, which meant 16 small toys from the Dollar Tree; alternatively you could order a set of prize bucket items like what I’ve linked above. I specifically looked for toys that weren’t throat sized, weren’t messy (like paint or markers), and only had 1 piece (not legos). While I was prepping and packing the goodie bags, I went ahead and unwrapped all the toys so we didn’t have a bunch of extra garbage in the car and since I know my kids are too little to be able to unwrap or cut tags off of toys by themselves- I think this definitely made things easier as we were going down the road.

Finally, pack the car strategically. It took some doing, but I actually convinced my husband to let me pack the car. We have drastically different packing methods. He prefers to pack like he’s playing a game of Tetris. It’s all about what fits where and how many pieces of luggage can fit neatly together. Conversely I pack based on function. I packed the luggage pieces that I knew we wouldn’t need on the road first, so that they were on the bottom. Then worked my way backward- leaving things like the tiny travel toilet for the last so they were easily accessible. I always keep my go-to car bag up-front and easily within reach, even when we’re not on vacation. In this bag I have first aid supplies, trash bags, paper towels, diapers, wipes, and a change of clothes- just in case we have any accidents on the road.

After I got everything in the car, I made sure to leave some space for the groceries we would be picking up along the way. Highly recommend thinking through your meals and plans for the week, then placing an online order with your favorite grocery store, to be picked up at a location near your vacation rental. For me, that’s Food Lion. I love Food Lion! They have a great Shop & Earn rewards program plus curbside pick up that allows for substitutions if an item is out of stock.  

Now for the hard part- PACKING! There’s a fine line between overpacking and not having ALL the things littles need for a week. Thankfully we were driving so we didn’t have to worry about airline baggage and weight limits! For us- we needed some comforts from home. I think it made traveling a little easier, being in a strange place but with our normal stuff (toilet training stool, sippy cups, etc). We had one piece of luggage with stuffies, toys, blankets, and books. I let each kid pick 2 things to take but whatever they picked had to be a single item that didn’t have extra pieces- so a single dump truck toy was fine but not something like a puzzle or legos. Knowing that each kid had 2 items made packing up easier too because it gave me a safety net of knowing how many items I was looking for and wasn’t worried about an extra toy being left under the sofa at the vacation rental. One trial and error thing I did wrong was packing the kids clothes in this organizer.

I loved having the clothes sorted by outfits in the organizer once we got there but it definitely took up extra space in the luggage so I would recommend packing the clothes like normal and just taking the empty organizer. Once you get to your destination, hang the organizer up and sort the clothes by outfit then- this helped a lot so my older son could dress himself and my husband knew what to dress the younger one in if I was busy doing other stuff and couldn’t help. I also, kind-of accidentally, found it super helpful to pack our pool/ beach stuff in a plastic clothes hamper- that gave me an easy catchall to throw in the extra stuff that I had forgotten to pack and found during my final walk through. It also provided me an actual hamper for doing laundry while we were down there- more on this later.

I also packed 2 sets of these awesome bed bumpers. Our oldest uses these bed bumpers every night at home but our youngest is normally in a crib. I was worried about him actually sleeping in a pack-and-play for a week so even though we had the hotel put a pack-and-play in our room I was really hoping he would just sleep in the bed. I used the bed bumpers to make his “big boy bed” feel more like a crib and he slept all night, every night with no problems! Even better, these bumpers are in a washable cover so before they went back on the kids’ beds at home, I threw the covers in the wash so everything was nice and clean!

For convenience, I packed a kitchen essentials bag with hand soap, tissues, paper towels, etc but my favorite thing from this trip was the reusable grocery bags! It was so nice to have extra bags while we were down there- to help load/ unload the car and organize stuff when it’s time to load up and check out! 

Highly, highly recommend finding a hotel/ condo/ vacation rental with a washer/ dryer!! By the final night of our trip, we were all tired and ready to be back home. We had already planned for this to be a stay-in-night, and that worked out perfectly! The kids watched a movie and I did the laundry, all from the comfort of our vacation rental. It was so nice to be able to pack up clean clothes and not worry about traveling with wet swim suits! Plus when we got home, I didn’t have to worry about doing lots of laundry; I was able to just unpack and seamlessly slide right back into our normal non-vacation routine.

My final tip- RELAX and be lenient!! It’s vacation, so our normal routine and rules went out the window (to an extent)- normal bedtime, screen time limits, sugary treats. This is a time for fun and making memories- a little extra sugar for a few days won’t be the end of the world. If you’re like me and struggle with letting go, now may be a good time to try a supplement to help bring you back into equilibrium! I’m not a doctor or health expert, but personally I love this one-

The first couple times I took it, my stomach wasn’t super happy but after a day or so, my stomach got used to it and it really does make a noticeable difference in all the extra “noise” in my brain so I can more clearly focus and relax! 

I would love to hear from you- what are your favorite travel tips & tricks?! 

Quick Recap-

My TOP 10 TIPS FOR TRAVELING WITH LITTLES: 

1. Be selective when making reservations. For us, that meant a space with a washer/ dryer, kitchen, individual bathrooms

Prep the Car

2. Use lap trays

3. Refillable water bottles & snack boxes

4. Pack goodie bags & DVDs

5. Pack car by function, i.e. tiny toilet at back, leave space for groceries, etc

6. Rough outline of basic meal plan- which days will you eat out, which lunches/ dinners will you eat in the room, place an online grocery order accordingly

During the Trip

7. Travel with a clothes hamper

8. Pack normal comforts. For us, that meant toilet stool, sippy cups, special stuffies, bed bumpers

9. Lots of extra bags

10. RELAX and be lenient!!