Yes, You Too Can Travel Succesfully With a Toddler!

I'm back from my two week stint in California where my husband, 22 month old son, and I made the rounds visiting family and friends from the Bay Area all the way down to Los Angeles.

When we were first making plans for this trip, I swear that half of my hair went gray and I quite literally aged 50 years from the anxiety of it all. My son is 100% boy and loves to explore, run, jump, climb, and basically do anything and everything besides sit still. And despite his being an angel of a sleeper at home, he will not sleep in his car seat. Ever.

I was terrified of the thought of his screaming and whining incessantly during the entire trip down, throwing tantrums from being overtired, not sleeping well in his pack & play and unfamiliar surroundings, and not wanting to eat. I was literally suffering from mini panic attacks for weeks prior to our departure. but then again, I am notorious for always expecting the worst.

Well, let me tell you......I could have saved myself a lot of grief....things actually ended up going very well! My son did not sleep in his car seat. Not even for a 5 minute cat nap. Our first day we drove for 10.5 hours with stops at rest areas so that we could all stretch our legs, but he didn't cry, scream or whine once. He snacked and watched the 10 inch portable DVD player that we bought the day before the trip.

My friend had let me borrow her DVD player and I tried it out a few times before we left just to make sure my son would like it, but the screen was smaller and wasn't keeping his attention. So, my husband, who I know was itching to buy one anyways, bought the 10 inch that came with a strap-on device for the back of the headrest and our son was instantly mesmerized by it. Portalbe DVD players are a gift from God for all of us parents with toddlers who travel!

I made sure to pack his Elmo's World, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Wiggles DVD's, as well as some classical and children's folk song CD's. I went to the dollar store and bought a bunch of little toys for him to play with on the way and loaded up with healthy snacks and juices. The car trip was effortless and pleasant (besides the fact that we had to pay insane amounts of money for gas...$3.23 a gallon for regular in some places).

Once we go to the Bay Area, our first stop, we unpacked the pack &play and used the cushy mattress that my friend also let me borrow (I didn't know this before she let us use it, but you can buy softer, thicker mattresses for pack & plays so your little one doesn't have to sleep on cardboard basically) and placed all of my son's loveys all around it, lay him down and he didnt make a peep for 12 hours straight.

Every two nights we stayed at different places, and my son had no issues sleeping in any of them, even though he technically has outgrown his pack & play since the top of his head touches one end and his feet touch the other....but he seemed to love it, and thank God, since all bets were off for his catching any zzz's in his carseat. He even took his daily nap right on schedule in the playpen. He only missed a nap on the 10 hour legs of our road trip.

As for eating, he snacked like a king in the car but was too busy exploring new environments to want to sit and have a real meal, so I opted for giving him his juices, water and milk, and then letting him run around with a bowl of dry cereal, Z-Bars (Clif bars for kids), fruit leather or banana chips. I also ended up breaking down on my "no junk food" rule and let him eat more french fries than a child his age should ever even know exists. But he's been a super foods baby from day one, so my husband was able to convince me that I wasn't being a bad mother for letting our son eat french fried potaters.....oh, and quesadillas from the drive-thru.

Now we're back home, my son instantly fell back into his routine, I'm still tired from all the driving, dehydrated from all the coffee my hubby and I drank, and ready for a vacation from the vacation......this time just me, a spa, a margarita, a margarita, and a margarita. Because a vacation isn't really a vacation when you have to come home with 6 loads of laundry to do....yes, toddlers amass an incredible amount of dirty clothes, and you don't really realize the enormity of this until you are on the road.

All in all, my son is quite the traveler.....I wonder where he gets that from?! I'm just glad to live in an age where you can buy a portable DVD player, educational videos, easy to prepare snacks, and comfortable portable cribs......what did people do before all that? Probably stay home....at least that is what I would have done! There is no way in hell that I would have been caught on a wagon train.

So yes, you too can travel with your toddler and not age drastically in the process. After having this trip go so well, I am starting to think that a trip abroad may not be such a crazy idea. Out of budget definitely, but not crazy.