Reply to Going on vacations during the toddler/baby years -- yay or nay

Forum Index » Travel Discussion

Reply to "Going on vacations during the toddler/baby years -- yay or nay"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For us, yes it was totally worth it. We got to know what kind of travelers are kids were, they learn to adapt to changes in time, schedules, foods. We had to modify what we did and where we went. It took more planning but now are kids are in college and they are very comfortable and capable travelers. They love going places and they share their memories of our trips together. So like I said for us, it was totally worth it. [/quote]

I’m sorry, but this is the kind of advice my parents give and it drives me nuts. If you were “getting to know what kind of travelers” your kids were and they remember the trips fondly, you are NOT talking about infants and toddlers. You’re talking about, at a minimum, preschoolers who are 4-5 years old. That’s not the question. When your kids are in college and you’re looking back, whether your baby was a young toddler or almost in kindergarten might seem like a rounding error, but they are vastly, vastly different when you’re in the trenches.

OP, your kids are not going to “learn to adapt” or not based on travel when they’re under 3. Don’t stress about that at this stage.

Sheesh, this is like how when I’d been home from the hospital for less than 24 hours and I was trying to soothe my crying baby to sleep, my dad said “you know, when you were a baby we read a book about letting you cry and you’d go to sleep and it worked great.” Yeah dad, not at less than a week old!!! “Oh, yeah, I guess that was later, cause you were sitting up in the crib.” Yeah, dad, you think? Oy. [/quote]

For reference we started traveling with my son when he was 6 months old - from Maryland to San Francisco. 9 months old Norway. 18 months old North Carolina beaches. A slight gap when baby 2 came along. A similar start for that one as well. Each kid is slightly different in their needs -#1 could only sleep in a crib/cot/bed, #2 was a sleep-anywhere kid. So we adjusted what we did during the day. #1 fondly remembers his trip to England when he was 4- the details he remembers are not from photos he has been shown. We as parents learned from a very early on - what each kid could handle and what type of traveler they were. Sure #1 didn't remember Norway - but it was an amazing trip for us as parents - he started to crawl, elderly family members got to hold him, he loved getting pushed around in the stroller over cobblestone streets. Was there an adjustment with the time? Yes, was it hard - no not really. We limited some of our activities and having to carry the baby stuff can be overwhelming - but it's not impossible if you want to make it happen. To me the bigger question would be why WOULDN'T you try to travel with your kids? Perhaps I summarized too much of their 20 year travel history for you, but my point was YAY travel with your kids when they are young. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics