People get really anxious about traveling with their young kids and I write that statement as one of those very people. We recently went to Florida with our 3.5-year-old and two lap children and I think I was very adequately prepared, surprisingly. The main advice I have is:
- Go in with extremely low expectations for how the travel days will look. Be ready to be flexible based on your children’s needs and have a good attitude (deep breathe, periodically).
- Remember that you paid for your seats just like everyone else, so don’t feel you’re an inconvenience to anyone. You deserve to enjoy yourself, too.
- Don’t be too proud for screen time and basic bribery. 😉
Let’s Talk Gear
Stroller-wise, I knew we would need a killer option because our layover was going to be 6-7 hours (!!!) on the way there. I was not willing to take our nice, heavy-duty one and wanted a foldable travel one. Criteria for me—needed a sun shade, seats that lean back for naps on the go, and needed to be a double. We went with the Uppababy G-Link V2, which I found on Marketplace for cheaper (woot woot). I loved many of this stroller’s features and it really came through for us for naps when our two oldest kids got too tired to keep moving. We used this single travel stroller for Wells years ago and still whip it out every once in a while. Here are some other great travel stroller options. You will want a gate check travel bag, too—there are none that are awesome, so don’t be too sad when yours rips.
It was going to be nearly impossible *for us* to haul three car seats around an airport along with our three children, and all our other luggage. I wanted to take our own infant car seat with us and I was not willing to check it through the whole time with the risk of it maybe not making it. Gate checking the infant seat was the right call for us (note: we have the Uppbaby Mesa seat and have the branded/insured travel bag). We chose to rent two toddler car seats from the car rental company since we were renting a minivan anyways.
There are super mixed reviews about renting car seats, I know. For us, we took back two different seats that were missing some of the straps/pieces to eventually get two that my husband could safely install and that were age/weight/height appropriate. I am not the expert on this, but @SafeInTheSeat IS. She has endless resources on this very topic on her Instagram.
I did not need to fly with a pack-n-play, but we would have likely checked it if we did. We were so lucky that my mom drove down and brought two pack-n-plays for us to use—our compact one that we have loved since Wells was born and a heavy-duty workhorse one from the ’90s.
Things That Worked For Us
I came up with a bunch of busy things you could have on hand and you can find them here, but also hit the dollar store for sure. If I were you, I would prioritize packing SO MANY snacks and loading up iPads/tablets. Those are the true keys to success.
Snack-wise, I found that a fun or new container works wonders. I grabbed a couple different ones from TJMaxx and this set from Amazon, but I have heard great things about this one. I’ve seen people use those plastic lure storage boxes/boxes you use to organize beads (like this) and craft supplies on planes, which also seems smart to me. Ideas for snacks—z bars, fruit bars, freeze dried fruit, smoothie melts, nuts that they’ll actually eat, crackers, veggie straws, hummus & veggies or pretzels, gummies, pretzel sticks, etc. If you’re buying snacks on the go, take them from their bags/boxes and put them in the container you brought.
The key is to give them a container full of enough snacks that they are busy for a while and excited about the variety. The novelty of the experience is what makes it great!
In my opinion, this is not the time to be worried about screen time—especially if you have multiples. Our kids love looking at photos and videos of themselves, so definitely keep that in mind if you’re running out of ideas or energy in the moment. We love downloading shows and movies from all the streaming services onto our iPads for them, but we really take advantage of the FREE PBS Kids apps. You can download episodes from most shows on the main app and can even download certain games from the games app for times without wifi. We use these headphones for the kids, which you may also need adaptors for depending on the generation of your tablet/phone.
We also purchased the EPIC app for the month and downloaded lots of age-appropriate books for them to flip through and have read to them. Having books on there was actually really nice when we reached our destination and could read to them throughout the week, too.
Random MVPs of the Airport
We attached a carabiner to Wells’ little toddler bag to attach he and Kit’s water bottles, which made for more room inside his backpack. It was maybe my smartest toddler travel move. Have multiple carabiners with you for all the uses!
Pacifier clips that you might already have are the GOAT on a flight and throughout the airport adventures. Consider attaching a toy to one and a paci to another for your baby / young toddler.
We kept a bungee cord with us for two reasons—to secure the travel stroller while being put in the checking bag (if need be) and to have the option to loop it through our car seat bag’s straps to attach to our little stroller when Ryan needed to be free of wearing it on his back.
Pack doggy bags, the ones sold by baby companies or just the ones for actual dog doo. It’s amazing the uses these have when you’re on the go with kids. There’s always trash to be collected from snacks, diapers to be disposed of, stained clothing to be contained, etc. Endless uses!!!
A little travel sound machine is so clutch in situations like long layovers or eventual car rides. I made sure to have our charging cord for that packed in our backpack as well, just in case. We were able to basically make little napping pods by tipping back our stroller seats and putting the sound machine in there with our kids. It was amazing.
Pack muslin swaddles. These are my favorites. I packed three swaddles that I wound together with hair ties and shoved in the bottom of one of our backpacks. We use them to make kids cozy on the plane, to drape over the stroller to help kids sleep, as a buffer between babies and the germy plane seat, and to lay down at the airport to make a little family camp (esp during our 5-6 hours of downtime during a layover). They can be used as spit rags, too! They’re super versatile for all the ages. Pack some.
Traveling With Babies
I think traveling with babies is the easier option when compared to traveling with toddlers. When I had one child, I took both a baby carrier and a collapsible travel stroller through the airport with us and it worked super well to have the two options during our long layover. With three kids, I wore our youngest out of necessity! I used this carrier and was able to periodically put her down in the stroller and in her car seat when we had it with us between flights. Definitely take advantage of mother’s rooms while at airports, too!!
I nursed her as we took off, if I could, but made sure she had her paci if she wasn’t eating. I fed our son his bottle during takeoff when we flew with him years ago. We had no notable ear issues either time. If you can, wear something that they’ll stay busy with. I wore a jacket with a zipper and a plastic bracelet that our baby girl liked to play with. Consider only bringing toys that can be connected to luggage or clothing, just to make it harder to lose them.
I like to make sure I have extra bibs with me, a backup pair of jammies for baby, a backup shirt/layer for mom, and I keep my diapering supplies in a smaller travel bag inside my backpack. I always have this changing mat with me.
At The Gate & On The Flight
Now’s the time to talk to the gate agent. You need to ask for gate check tags anyhow, so if you have a lap child just ask if there are any open seats on the plane while you’re up there. They may be able to seat you by an empty! Never hurts to shoot your shot and score a free seat on the plane.
Get ready to do last-minute potty breaks and diaper changes, refill water bottles, make sure you get your stroller collapsed and bagged up, same with any car seats (if you’re not installing them in a plane seat), then be ready to board. Some families like to send one parent ahead to sanitize and get set up in the plane, I say just do what you need to do and get the kids set up in their seats as best you can.
Have pacifiers for babies and suckers for toddlers ready to roll if need be to relieve ear pressure. My kids lose their minds for suckers, so I kept them hidden until go-time.
When You Get There
Every parent knows that sleep is the #1 priority for young kids if the parents hope to enjoy themselves at all (haha). We are known to get to our family lake house and immediately set up bedrooms and the same goes for us when we arrive at a vacation rental. Assess your room or house situation—checking out closets and bathrooms, too. When Wells was a baby we had him sleep in the primary closet in our Airbnb bedroom and it worked beautifully. It was so dark in there (like his room at home) and with his sound machine and monitor all set up, it was a perfect sleep scenario for him.
Now that we have multiple kids, I try to think of our sleep setup in zones if we’re sharing a room. This summer I slept in a room with all three of our kids and it went super well with this strategy. In that setup, Wells had a twin bed on one side of the room/king bed which I considered zone 1. He had his own sound machine near the head of his bed. Zone 2 was at the foot of the bed where our middle child slept in a pack-n-play with a Slumberpod over the top of it. This basically creates her own room, especially if a sound machine is tucked inside. Zone 3 was next to my side of the bed where our baby slept in her smaller pack-n-play with her own sound machine. Having multiple sound machines/zones has worked really well for us when we all sleep in close quarters. Hot Tip: throw a cheap nightlight or two (we love these) in your suitcase, just in case.
We have always traveled with our regular baby monitors from home. I’m a big believer in baby monitors that are not wifi-connected and super basic overall, so this has always worked well for us. Motorola is always changing their models, but this one is similar to ours. We also often travel with at least one of our Hatch sound machines, but I would recommend just using your travel ones with the charging cords to save space and/or a regular (cheaper) sound machine.
Lastly, A Story To Empower You
On our way home from FL we left our Airbnb by 9 a.m., knowing we’d have 2-3 hours to kill around town before needing to head to the airport. We went out for breakfast, headed to a park, and then saw that our flight was delayed. Eventually it was so delayed that there was almost no chance we would make our second flight to get home. There was nothing they could do. We killed so much time around town in our little rental minivan—at one point sitting in a parking lot on the curb eating takeout while all three kids napped in their car seats beside us.
We got in to our layover city around 10 p.m. with three exhausted babies and were eventually put up in a somewhat sketchy hotel for the night by the airline. We had to take an airport shuttle as we had no car seats for two of our kids (now you know) and it was a brutal wait for that sucker to show up. We had none of our checked luggage with us, only what I’d thought to throw in our backpacks “just in case” before our first flight (I remembered all our toothbrushes 💁🏻♀️).
Despite having almost none of the gear the kids are used to, all 5 of us actually slept in that hotel room that I’m grateful we never saw in daylight. I had the baby in one full bed and Ryan had the toddlers with him in the other. We woke up when it was still very dark out to shuttle back over to the airport for TWO more flights to get home the next day. It was a bear, but everyone did so well and we felt we’d leveled up so much as parents just surviving those travel days.
Basically, no matter what happens, you are entirely equipped to handle traveling with your babies, toddlers, and bigger kids. You’re their parent and you’ll know what to do with whatever tools you have. You can do this! 💪🏻 Safe travels to you and your babies, friends!!! Can’t wait to hear how it goes.