Hot answers tagged travel
13
Yes, it's uncomfortable.
No, it's not a concern.
My personal experience (having traveled many thousands of km/miles in the summertime as a child) is that high temperatures while driving is not a serious concern. When you don't have A/C, then your best defense against heat is to be smart:
Passengers will be thirsty.
Bring lots of drinking water, but avoid ...
12
Based on my own recent experiences with international flights with a toddler:
Duration:
A 2-hour flight is rarely a problem; even in the worst scenario it's not long enough for you to lose your mind :-) I have no experience with longer flights with infants but I think 4 hours are still within reason, while 10 hours (transatlantic) could be a bigger ...
12
No, there is no way to safely do what you describe. Please keep your children in their seatbelts and child seats at all times. I understand what you're trying to achieve, but even if you find a working solution, the risks are immense.
Sitting upright with a relaxed head in a collision is safe. So to speak, if the head has already fallen forward before you ...
10
We just (yesterday!) came back from a 10 hour drive from Ontario, canada to MA, USA. It was myself, my husband, and our 1 year old.
To go to Boston, we took everyone's suggestions and drove through the night. It may work for others, but it did NOT work for us. It was awful. We started at about 8 PM, and she fell asleep around 9 PM. All fine and dandy. ...
9
Here are the best things you can do from my experience:
1) Do whatever you can to get bulk-head seats. These are the seats in the front of a compartment that have a bunch of extra space. This is great for when your child is awake and wants to walk around for a few minutes. It also allows you to stretch, stand with your child, and change diapers much easier ...
9
Buy a bunch of cheaps toy that the child has never played with.
Bring something like a travel etch-a-sketch or some craft things that can be played repeatedly
Ensure he has his midday nap, this usually knocks 2 - 3 hours off.
Try and find other young children on the plane that they can talk to. This works like a miracle.
Portable DVD player if there is no ...
8
Unless you're flight crew, frequent flyer or there's a solar storm, radiation is not a significant problem. The radiation comes from space in general and not significantly from the sun, so a night flight has pretty much the same radiation level.
Physicians can assure pregnant women who are concerned about radiation risks during flight that, for casual ...
8
We recently took my 9-month-old niece to Europe. The flights were 6 hours for one leg and 2 hours for the other leg. We did not buy a seat for her - saving that expense was, after all, kind of the point of taking her to see the relatives now rather than later.
As it was a full flight, they did not allow us to bring the umbrella stroller on board. This ...
8
The earliest plane trip I took with my first child was when he was about 2 months old. It lasted 4 hours and I did it solo (no co-parent)! Then when he was 9 months old, we did a trans-Atlantic crossing with my husband. My second son was 9 months old when we took them both on a trans-Pacific flight. That was long. :) They had a special bassinet with straps ...
8
Try making it an exciting part of the vacation. "When we're visiting Fun Destination, we get to sleep in a hotel!" Don't focus exclusively on it, of course (who takes vacations just for the mattresses?), but get him used to the idea that it's part of the whole fun vacation experience. I don't know how typical my kids are in this respect, but they find all ...
7
Personally, we always state up-front that we are bringing an infant even if the hotel doesn't explicitly offer any baby services and does not charge extra. I'd rather be open about it than having to justify "baby smuggling" later on.
Of course we sometimes learn during booking that the rate increase is ridiculous, and then we simply don't complete the ...
7
I just found a funny one :) i am 15 myself, so i know this one will be good :)
WHO'S NEXT DOOR?
If you are in a traffic queue making up stories about the people in the car nearby can be funny for a short while ie what their names are, what they do for a job, what their hobbies are, what pets they have, what their house is like etc etc. This tends to only ...
7
When I was pregnant, I talked with my pediatrician about traveling with my baby as early as 8 weeks. Here are some of his concerns (and some of my own) for traveling with a newborn:
Airline Regulations: Some airlines require a doctor's note for a very young baby to fly. (For American Airlines, this age limit is 7 days or younger.)
Airplane Germs: ...
7
When navigating subways and escalators with a toddler or older infant with good head, neck, and back control, you want a lightweight, compact umbrella stroller that you can quickly and easily fold closed and open, and a hinge, hook, or clasp that you can engage to keep it shut when carrying it closed. You can even carry your child and the folded up stroller ...
6
In addition to @Squidly's answer, we found that it helped to let our son do what he wanted (within reason) and let him climb up the chair and crawl around. People generally didn't seem to mind and he was happy. Had we tried to "make him behave" (by which I mean, keep him in his chair) the flight would have been much, much worse.
Also, book an overnight ...
6
We have taken several road trips that each were in the range of 700 to 1500 kilometers (per direction). Things that were helpful to us include:
Have enough baby necessities on board. Think of diapers, wipes, baby food, and so on. Whatever is age-appropriate, just make absolutely sure you don't run out.
Have a high-quality car-seat for the baby. This is the ...
6
We haven't been to a Disney park, but we have experienced the Moomin World (in Finland) with our girls first time when they were 5.5 and 4, and it worked out perfectly. We could see they had a magical experience. I would say that children below 3-4 usually get tired too quickly to get much out of such a day trip, and sometime around 7 the magical era is ...
6
I don't know how into books your oldest one is, but it might be time to start a new book or book series ;-) if he/she is into that sort of thing.
Also...if your kids are at all prone to motion sickness, make sure you take some dramamine or something to help with that. As an added benefit, dramamine makes most people drowsy. I'm not advocating drugging ...
6
The card:
I would make a few business-card-sized cards. Put one in a jacket pocket, one in a pants pocket, and one in his backpack. Hide one in his shoe if you're really worried.
For more visibility, you could also give your son a lanyard with an ID card pocket and stick a card in that.
I would laminate the cards to make them durable against water and ...
6
What my husband and I have discovered recently is that your requirements can change significantly between child 1 and child 2. When we bought my car (6 years ago), it was a significant step up in size from my 4-door sedan to a full-size 2-row SUV. My son was born a year later. My daughter was born in July 2010 and my car, which obviously hasn't changed in ...
6
As DA01 mentions in his comments, autism is a gigantic spectrum. Strategies for how to deal with it vary widely - the person who could best answer this question would likely be the child's mother. It may be an uncomfortable question, but it's likely one that the child's mother is familiar with answering by now.
If you're worried about coming across as ...
5
I DO NOT recommend night driving--especially if your drive is in excess of ten hours. There are several reasons for this:
If your initial drive-time is 10 hours, you should probably add another 2-4 hours of drive time with kids. So now your drive is between 12 and 14 hours. Even if you drive overnight, you are going to have to stop for fueling, food, ...
5
Maximize baby's sleeping time during the drive. Drive through the night if possible arriving in the morning.
Keep him entertained, bring new toys.
Have one adult seat in the back with the child.
Stop in the parks or playgrounds, not rest areas, where he can run and spend some energy. GPS usually is
good with helping you find these places on the way. In ...
5
Bring lots of toys for your child to play with, books, activities. If you can food.
Basically just keep your child busy and entertained the entire flight. Also with that long of a flight you will have to be prepared to find a way for him to nap, if you can get a darker area of the plane that would be good for that. Also movies on a laptop tends to help as ...
5
We have taken our child under 4 years three times to China and it all went quite smoothly.
Entertainment:
In Australia we have shops called $2 shops which sells lots of cheap things. I just bought a few different cheap toys from there and brought them in a bag. This included some craft type things like coloured pipe cleaners. It's an 11 hour trip from ...
5
In most cities you can easily drive a stroller onboard local trains and metros, and you are typically allowed to do so. If the stations has elevators or escalators varies wildly from city to city.
Buses and trams are different, and there you'll typically find that if the buses/trams are modern strollers work well, and there are often an area for strollers ...
5
When booking online, I indicate that I'll be bringing a child in the comments field. Those will generally be ignored until I'm at the hotel and then they can't tell me I didn't warn them.
If you're booking by phone, ask for the rate first, make your reservation and when done, inform them that you'll have a small child but don't require extra equipment. If ...
5
Your examples sound like games for younger children. At age 15+18, I'd try to challenge them on a higher intellectual level, but in a fun way.
Do you know the game 20 questions for the professor? It's a guessing game where one thinks of a person/thing/idea and the others must ask yes/no questions to zero in on the solution, and they must do it in no more ...
5
I would say that snacks are a must. I would also definitely recommend gum (for the older one) and a sippy cup for the younger ones to help their ears adjust during takeoff and landing.
If they have any favorite animals or blankets, those might be obvious choices.
I would also let them help with the packing. Give them a small bag (or whatever amount of ...
5
Though I always start with non-electronic activities, I make sure to keep a few tucked into my bag as a backup. There is nothing more miserable than realizing they've run through everything you packed them, and that there are three hours left in this stupid flight. Also, don't forget, you could have your flight delayed, and that one hour space before the ...
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