Our family loves to spend time together traveling. From a day trip, to a weekend getaway, or flying across the continent to have a vacation with our ever-missed bunch of relatives and big family circle, we put our perspectives to enjoy and have fun in our journeys.
Our three and a half year-old son - Benjamin has grown up and as we walk our ways in the road of parenting, we have picked up so many treasures of life lessons even just in traveling alone; as we continue our trip of wonderful and beautiful life... here are some thoughts I can share when bringing your toddler boy for a travel.
- Give him a mindset. A day or the night before the day out, for a longer travel, a few days or a week before the trip, talk about the place to go, what to see, whom to meet, and activities or things to do. If we are going to have a picnic and swimming tomorrow, telling him that he's going to meet his friends there to play gives him a sense of excitement and something to look forward to.
- Allow or promote enough rest and sleep. He will need that energy for the trip.
- Prepare and bring enough snacks/drinks, extra clothes, essential toiletries, don't forget the wet wipes, it will come handy; basic first aid items even just few pieces of band aid.
- Drinking a lot of fluids is important too to prevent dehydration so the next thought would be: "Where is the restroom?" If he's still wearing diapers you can change anytime; if he's potty trained first thing to know is the restroom, if you're in the mall, restaurants, parks, airplane it is good to know where to go when nature calls. If we are having a long drive by car, we have at least some bottled water not only for our hydration but the empty bottle will be the sweetest thing when my toddler boy asks for a pee while you're on the road. You can pull over safely and let him pee in the bottle. My son would tell me: "Mom, don't drink this one, okay?" We also have his small potty chair along with us in case he needs to do "number 2" while we are in the middle of nowhere.
- Pick up a few pieces of his favorite toys to tag along. At this stage, he is into power rangers and monster trucks so I make sure I have grabbed 1 or 2 of them so they are available in time of need.
- Portable entertainment is a must these days. You can have your tablet or smart phones or for Benjamin's case, his DVD player along with his favorite DVD tapes can make him occupied and entertained. There are times when he loves watching cars and big trucks along the road/freeways and counting how many BMW's he saw or "MAC" - the big truck from the movie "CARS". He also enjoys the games on IPod so we make sure; these gadgets are charged or bring the car charger if applicable to have an easy ride.
- Lightweight books are essential too. He loves looking at his books and making up stories from the picture that's in it. He keeps us entertained too!
- When traveling by plane, we have to bring his seal plush toy and his favorite fleece blanket for comfort during nap time.
- Allowing him to explore and have fun and setting appropriate limitations for safety keep our travel more enjoyable. Giving him a chance to take care of his own stuff like keeping an eye for his backpack helps promote his sense of responsibility.
- Bring the camera, we don't want to miss capturing the moments as they grow so fast and time just flies!
- Mom and Dad should get enough rest as well to have the power when traveling with our cheeky little monkey.
I'm sure these are just few of the many things we have to consider when traveling with a toddler boy but I hope we have got the same goals to make our holidays memorable every time & in every place we go. Have a great summer holidays!
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