We took a big road trip this past week to visit family. Traveling with 5 young children can be quite an adventure in itself. The reactions from family and friends (who are also currently raising kids) were quite amusing. We were constantly asked if we had a DVD player in the van. We do not. I hear good things about them...and my children are certainly crazy about watching movies....but we have not made such an investment yet. Our cousins and their friends just could not understand how we traveled long distances with children, without a DVD player. They even offered to lend us theirs!
We have taken many, many trips with small children in tow. We have faced many challenges of travel, and have learned a lot along the way. Traveling to Europe with a 2-year old and a 9-month old, we learned that Europe is not very stroller friendly. That is especially true of Venice, Italy, with all those stairs over the waterways! As airport security has grown in restriction, each child is expected to walk through the metal detector on their own. We have had many strong-willed toddlers refuse to walk through! (The trick is for me to walk through first, call them and give them a chance, then reach down grab their hand and pull them through anyway!) Even going through security with an infant strapped into the Baby Bjorn carrier was challenging, because the guard asked me to "take off the baby"! (We gave that guard an adventure she was not expecting, because the infant was Jersey #2, and she set off the detector with the wires in her chest...this was our return home trip after her open-heart surgery).
This week's road trip was our best family travel yet. We have learned a lot from past experiences, so we did our best to control the situation to keep some level of stability and order. To keep costs and frequency of stops to a minimum, we packed a cooler full of water bottles and juice boxes, and a bag full of dry snacks & fruit. When we stopped at gas stations for potty breaks, we try to make a purchase to support their business, so we did that either buying gas, or buying a bag of ice for the cooler. For entertainment, each child had a backpack filled with small toys, books, pencils, & notepads. Rolling backpacks, with the handle extended fully, worked well for the younger kids because they could set the bag on the floor of the van, and reach it again via the handle to pull it up into their lap. We also packed a small pillow and plush baby blanket for each child, which encouraged napping while we drove....and provided some bedtime linens that brought an element of "home" to each new sleeping location. Kids are comforted by things that are familiar to them, and a favorite blanket is an easy comfort tool. Those same blankets work great on airplanes too.
We planned our trip to have the most travel time the very first day of travel, when our excitement would carry us further! We reduced the amount of travel time each day as the days went by and we great tired of being in the van. There was one day where we stopped at least 15 times more than planned, and allowed our son to "water the rocks" on the side of the road, because he needed to potty more often than rest stops or towns appeared! (After that, we made the rule that there would be no more Coke with lunch while we were on the road). We also planned for lunch breaks at restaurants, so we could all get out, wiggle around, look at each other while we chatted, and enjoy a meal in a new town. Those lunch breaks were a nice diversion and broke up the trip into manageable pieces.
We have taken many, many trips with small children in tow. We have faced many challenges of travel, and have learned a lot along the way. Traveling to Europe with a 2-year old and a 9-month old, we learned that Europe is not very stroller friendly. That is especially true of Venice, Italy, with all those stairs over the waterways! As airport security has grown in restriction, each child is expected to walk through the metal detector on their own. We have had many strong-willed toddlers refuse to walk through! (The trick is for me to walk through first, call them and give them a chance, then reach down grab their hand and pull them through anyway!) Even going through security with an infant strapped into the Baby Bjorn carrier was challenging, because the guard asked me to "take off the baby"! (We gave that guard an adventure she was not expecting, because the infant was Jersey #2, and she set off the detector with the wires in her chest...this was our return home trip after her open-heart surgery).
This week's road trip was our best family travel yet. We have learned a lot from past experiences, so we did our best to control the situation to keep some level of stability and order. To keep costs and frequency of stops to a minimum, we packed a cooler full of water bottles and juice boxes, and a bag full of dry snacks & fruit. When we stopped at gas stations for potty breaks, we try to make a purchase to support their business, so we did that either buying gas, or buying a bag of ice for the cooler. For entertainment, each child had a backpack filled with small toys, books, pencils, & notepads. Rolling backpacks, with the handle extended fully, worked well for the younger kids because they could set the bag on the floor of the van, and reach it again via the handle to pull it up into their lap. We also packed a small pillow and plush baby blanket for each child, which encouraged napping while we drove....and provided some bedtime linens that brought an element of "home" to each new sleeping location. Kids are comforted by things that are familiar to them, and a favorite blanket is an easy comfort tool. Those same blankets work great on airplanes too.
We planned our trip to have the most travel time the very first day of travel, when our excitement would carry us further! We reduced the amount of travel time each day as the days went by and we great tired of being in the van. There was one day where we stopped at least 15 times more than planned, and allowed our son to "water the rocks" on the side of the road, because he needed to potty more often than rest stops or towns appeared! (After that, we made the rule that there would be no more Coke with lunch while we were on the road). We also planned for lunch breaks at restaurants, so we could all get out, wiggle around, look at each other while we chatted, and enjoy a meal in a new town. Those lunch breaks were a nice diversion and broke up the trip into manageable pieces.
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