Traveling Light with Tykes
Executive summary: Kids are accompanied by so much gear that traveling with them feels practically like a cross-country move, even for a self-proclaimed minimalist who tried to not acquire too many things to begin with. At least much of what we do own is lightweight and portable, even for items that we solely use at home.
After six years of feeling like travel is akin to scaling mountains, I’m so happy that it appears that 2025 is the year that we are released from the confines of always remaining within a 3-hour driving radius of home. After much worrying on my part, hubby and I were able to take an adults-only trip to Madrid in May, and the sky (or rather, our kids) didn’t fall down. Now we have a trip to Legoland planned for July, and I’m toying with the idea of leaving the kids with their grandparents for a week after Xmas to take another adults-only trip (Switzerland in the winter?) I would’ve never dared to harbor such bold thoughts even six months ago, but both our kids started to get a little easier to care for ~2.5yo — I think they start understanding a lot more and becoming more independent around that age. Certainly, the amount of stuff required to travel with a small child is inversely related to their age/size, making it easier for us to pack these days. In fact, we decided on a whim to spend a night in Berkeley last week, as my husband was scheduled to give a talk on campus the next day, and my son had a long weekend between the last day of school and the start of summer camp. A year or two ago, it would’ve been a whole production to get ready to go. But now with a 6yo and a 2.5yo, throwing them and their more limited accessories into the car is so much simpler (although still a long way from my goal of traveling with one backpack apiece, which hubby and I used to do pre-kids). Besides clothes and toothbrushes, here’s what we brought for those terrible terrific tykes:
To start with the obvious, we need car seats. We have a set in the car (the Graco Extend2Fit and Chicco MyFit), but we also have travel car seats for when we fly or when we’re riding in someone else’s car — the BubbleBum booster for the 6yo and the Cosco Scenera Next for the toddler, which are light enough to be hauled through airports and simple to transfer between vehicles. (For the record, we used to have the Graco SnugRide 30 and Chicco KeyFit 30 infant car seats for the first 6-12 months of our kids’ lives. They hated riding in those infant car seats, although being rear-facing was the real culprit.)
After 6+ years, we still use our Mountain Buggy Nano stroller almost daily (I wrote a more detailed post here). It’s lightweight, fits in an overhead compartment, and doesn’t break the bank.
Diapers and wipes. That’s still our reality.
We let the kids bring a couple toys when we travel, to keep them occupied in the hotel room while we get ready, etc. My kids can be amused by balloons for hours on end, so that’s actually all we had in our arsenal for our overnight stay. Plus, they think a TV is a real novelty (since we don’t have one at home), so that’s an easy diversion.
On road trips, I like to bring booster seats for the kids to eat in, as it means we never have to wait for high chairs at restaurants, plus we can easily strap the kids in and eat in our hotel room, or anywhere! (We have the Ingenuity feeding seat and smaller Ity booster.) It’s not easy taking the kids to eat out for every meal while we’re traveling, so it’s nice to be able to bring food back to our room sometimes. To that end, I always keep extra paper towels, disposable plates and utensils, and plastic bags on hand. The kids also have bibs and sippy cups (Munchkin Miracle 360), which are obviously not strictly necessary but make our lives easier by preventing messes from occurring in the first place.
Our kids are quite picky, so it’s hard to find food they’ll like while we’re traveling. I always bring some favorite snacks and locate the nearest store to our hotel so I can grab groceries like milk and kid-approved fruits for the duration of our stay.
Throwback Thursday photo. We can turn any surface into a dining spot.
That list above is a truncated version of the one I lived by when the kids were younger. Before 1-2yo, we also needed to bring:
A pack ‘n play foldable playard (Graco). Our son slept curled up in this until he was 3.5 and we had to force him into a normal bed, but our daughter started climbing out of the crib basically the day she turned 2, so putting her in a playard while traveling didn’t seem safe anymore. Many hotels offer cribs and we’ve gone that route too, but it’s always a toss up as to what exactly they have.
Both kids liked having a small bathtub, although my daughter (similar to above) gave up on it at an earlier age than her big brother. We used the SkipHop Moby whale tub for both kids, but then decided they would just have to learn to shower when staying in a hotel so we could stop carting it around.
A foldable changing mat (SkipHop) that we used daily at home and on the go. I liked how the portable mat took up basically zero space but let us do diaper changes anywhere, in the house or out. These days, we just plop our toddler straight on the bed and trust that she knows better than to have an accident in the 10 seconds it takes to get a new diaper on.
Until the kids were almost 2yo, we went for walks daily with the baby carrier (we had the Ergobaby Omni 360). They had much more patience in the carrier than in a stroller, so it was the best way to go anywhere on foot.
There are just so many other little things that infants and young toddlers need, like swaddling blankets, sleep sacks, bottles, pacifiers, etc. etc. etc. I’m so glad we’re past that stage for both kids now, as it does cut down on the packing list significantly.
An even older Throwback Thursday photo. We logged so. many. hours in that carrier.
Perhaps it’s a bit of a misnomer to call this post “traveling light,” but in my defense, you can see that we are fans of portable baby gear, which tend to be smaller and lighter by design. So maybe what I mean is “traveling with lightweight baby gear,” but let’s not belabor the point. I’m going to also take a moment now to mention the other kid items we have at home (many of which are travel-sized), as I’ve found out over the years what’s been essential vs. superfluous. There are so many things marketed to parents but I, to no one’s surprise, would forgo most of them. Here’s what we do/did have:
A crib, plus mattress (we like Milliard), mattress protector, and sheet (we keep a spare in case of a middle-of-the-night accident). My daughter has a $$$ convertible crib that I’m hoping she’ll stay in till she’s 5, but my son went straight from a normal crib to a twin bed.
I’ve never reached a definitive conclusion on whether the portable sound machine (Marpac Hushh) helped the kids to sleep. I couldn’t detect a difference in their sleeping patterns with it on vs. off, but I will say that my husband and I have co-opted it for ourselves now. The upstairs neighbors in our new condo sound like they slam their heels into the ground when they walk, and they are up overnight and early in the morning. The sound machine helps mask the thud-thud-thud noises, and it’s so small (~3” diameter) that we can easily hide it out of sight in our bedroom.
Until it fizzled out, we had a portable “egg light” (VAVA) that we used multiple times a night for those dreaded overnight wakings and feedings. No one wants to turn on the bright overhead lights at 1am … 3am … 5am … this gave off a low warm glow that was just enough to stumble around the kitchen by (and could be brightened at a touch).
A comfy glider with cushioned arm rests was crucial for around-the-clock feedings and rocking. No need to shell out big bucks — we loved our DaVinci swivel glider for $300!!
We have a booster cushion for the 6yo to reach the table (I can’t find a phone book these days for him to sit on), plus the Stokke Trip Trapp highchair for the 2.5yo, complete with tray.
Once the kids outgrew their overnight feedings, we used the egg light as a nightlight in their room.
We also did try a few items that I would not bother with again (not that we’ll ever have another chance to — hubby and I have agreed from practically the first days of our relationship that we are either “one and done” or “two and through,” never to be “three and free”). These include a Boppy breastfeeding pillow (it just slid away from me. Normal pillows work better for propping babies up); SkipHop foam play mat (we replaced it with a regular rug to soften the hardwood floor when my son started to peel the pieces apart for recreation); baby activity chair (borrowed from a friend, was good for keeping baby busy for 10 minutes while we did dishes, but a big space hog); baby bouncer (son hated it); Halo bassinet (all that’s needed to reach baby in the middle of the night is pushing a crib up next to the bed, nothing fancy required). I tried to keep our baby purchases to a minimum before our son came around six years ago, but that list could’ve been whittled down even further in hindsight. I’m so glad that the kids are reaching the age where we can part with more and more of their specialty gear, although it’ll probably be five more years until we can move them fully onto “big people” things. For now, I’m just glad we can be the tiniest bit spontaneous and not exhausted by the planning and packing every time we spend a night away from home. Next up: Legoland!