Planning family vacations can be difficult enough, but when you’re planning family vacations with toddlers, who need routine and familiarity, finding hotel rooms with amenities you need and knowing what to pack (and what not to pack) can be big challenges. These tips for planning family vacations with toddlers should help you choose hotel rooms where you will feel as at-home as possible and pack the equipment your toddler needs for a family vacation that’s fun, not frustrating.
Choose Family-Friendly Hotel Rooms
Chill with a refrigerator. While you certainly can survive without them, a refrigerator, microwave and extra sink in your hotel room can make family vacations with toddlers easier. Refrigerators keep milk (or juice or string cheese) chilled. Microwaves warm up toddler veggies or leftover slices of the pizza you ate in your room the night before because your toddler’s bedtime precluded dinner in a restaurant. And an extra sink outside the bathroom gives you a place without a toilet view to wash sippy cups. (Tip: Pack a travel-sized bottle of dishwashing detergent.)
Book a suite. When planning family vacations with toddlers, look for hotels with “Suites” in the name. While an actual suite with doors that separate two or more rooms is ideal, “mini-suites,” which is what I call hotel rooms that offer a little more space than standard rooms as well as some kind of divider, work too. The idea is to have a space where your toddler can sleep undisturbed so the whole family doesn’t have to make 8 p.m. their bedtime. When planning family vacations with toddlers in tow, you can often find mini-suites at rates not much higher than what you’d pay for regular rooms. (Tip: Pack a few electrical outlet covers and a cabinet lock or two for use in your room.)
What to Leave at Home
Save your back; reserve a crib. A big headache for parents planning family vacations with toddlers is figuring out what to take. Don’t tote your heavy playpen across the country to use as a portable toddler bed. Rather, when making your reservations, ask if your hotel will loan you a portable crib or playpen. At Holiday Inn Express, you’ll get a small metal crib on wheels with fresh linens and a complimentary bib. At several non-chain hotels, the portable cribs I reserved turned out to be playpens, but they work just as well. (Tip: Bring a crib sheet from home.)
Consider renting a car seat. Whether or not to take car safety seats is a big decision when planning family vacations that involve traveling by airplane or rental car. If you want your toddler strapped in a car seat during your flight, you’ll have to bring your own car seat and, most likely, you’ll need to purchase your child her own seat. When planning family vacations with toddlers, it’s good to know that many airlines don’t charge fares for kids under age 2 who ride on their parents’ laps. If your toddler flies free, your car seat probably will have to go in the cargo hold. However, there is always a chance your flight won’t be full, and the flight staff might allow you to bring the car seat onboard and secure your toddler in it in an extra seat.
Many family vacations with toddlers include travel in rental cars, in which parents must secure tots in car seats. (Tip: Visit www.inventiveparent.com/state-laws.htm for links to the car seat laws in all 50 states. You must abide by the law in the state in which you are traveling.) You can always bring your own car seat, even if you don’t use it on the airplane. But you also have the option of renting one for $5 or $6 per day if your car rental company provides this service. Specify the kind of car seat you need (infant, toddler or booster) when making your reservations. Take heed, though: I rented a car seat from the Dollar Rent A Car at Chicago’s Midway Airport and was frustrated that I had to install the unfamiliar seat myself without an instruction manual. (None was provided or available.) When planning family vacations in the future, I might try Hertz, which has trained installers at many of its locations who install rented car seats for customers.
Rent toys and other equipment. When planning family vacations with toddlers to popular destinations, you can literally leave all the equipment at home. Companies such as Baby’s Away , which has 60 locations across the United States, rent buckets of toys, playpens, high chairs, strollers, safety equipment, videos and more to vacationing families. They’ll even deliver to your hotel. For a state-by-state list of such companies, visit Babies Travel Lite.
Plan to buy some items on arrival. There’s no reason to stuff a week’s worth of Huggies in your suitcase when planning family vacations with toddlers. Take enough to get you settled into your hotel, and then find a grocery or discount store and stock up for the rest of the vacation. (Tip: Use the Yahoo! Maps beta version to generate a list of stores near your hotel.) For family vacations with toddlers in which you’ll travel to more than one city by car, consider buying a disposable ice chest and some food. Milk, cheese, yogurt and other toddler favorites keep just fine in a $2 Styrofoam ice chest with free ice from the hotel ice machine. You’ll save money on meals, and your toddler will always have a snack handy. Preparation that prevents tantrums is planning family vacations for toddlers at its best.
What to Take
Pack a portable high chair. If you don’t rent one at your destination, and you plan to eat meals in your hotel room or at the home of family or friends who don’t have a high chair, pack a portable one. These are sometimes called booster seats, but they have trays; another kind hooks onto the edge of a table. I have the Safety First Fold N Go model, which sells for $20. It folds up compactly and has a carrying handle. Search for “booster seats” on babiesrus.com when planning family vacations with toddlers.
Invest in a placemat. Restaurant tables never seem to be clean enough, and most restaurant high chairs don’t have trays, so your little ones must eat off the table. There are disposable placemats on the market that attempt to give tots a sanitary eating surface, but they are made of flimsy plastic or paper that kids can easily pull off the table, throwing bits of fruit cocktail everywhere. Kiddopotamus makes a reusable placement called the Tiny Diner Portable Placemat that solves these problems. Made of a flexible rubbery material, it rolls up to the size of a paper-towel-roll core, and it has suction cups on the bottom that stick to the table. Another cool feature is a reservoir that hangs off the edge of the table that catches dropped food. I purchased mine for $10.95 from One Step Ahead, but you can also find them at Babies “R” Us. (Tip: One disposable that works well on family vacations with toddlers is disposable bibs such as Pampers Bibsters.)
Pack an inflatable tub or non-slip mat. Just as restaurant tables aren’t always spotless, neither are hotel bathtubs. They can be slippery, too. For more peace of mind during family vacations with toddlers, invest in an inflatable bathtub or a non-slip mat. We had fun with the Munchkin Duck Bathtub ($10 at Target), which is shaped like a duck and quacks when you press its bill. A simple non-skid tub mat with suction cups on the bottom will work for family vacations with toddlers as well.
Bring an umbrella stroller. When planning family vacations with toddlers, take your cheapest stroller. A friend of mine with two kids gave me that advice, and she was right. Not only are umbrella strollers more compact and much lighter than regular ones, they are also much cheaper to replace if they get broken when thrown into airplane cargo holds.
Pack plenty of wet wipes. For family vacations with toddlers, wet wipes, and plenty of them, are a must. Whether you bring them from home or buy them when you get there, you’ll be glad you did. (Tip: Moms, a large purse is essential for family vacations with toddlers. You’ll need the extra room to carry wet wipes, a diaper or two and your camera.)
I hope the preceding trips for planning family vacations with toddlers were helpful to you. Have a great family vacation!
