Traveling With a Toddler Internationally/Overseas - Making Your Vacation as Stress Free as Possible

I was recently speaking to a fellow mama about her first trip overseas to Brazil with her 16 month old toddler.  She had some great tips to share!  Below is what she recommends you must-have and don't need if you're traveling with a toddler, making your trip much easier!

 

Our goal for our 10 day trip to Brazil was to survive on two roller bags, a diaper bag, and a backpack.  Granted, we were going to a tropical destination, so we didn't have many clothes to pack for ourselves, but our main goal was to not check anything in.  We were traveling on buddy passes (always flying on standby), not knowing whether we (or our bags) would make the next flight, so we opted to travel light.  This was a good experiment in figuring out what you REALLY need to pack.

 

Here's what we did pack:

1) 60 diapers for the trip - we'd heard that the diapers in Brazil were horrible, so we opted to pack half of one of the roller bags full of diapers

2) Small cooler with two bottles of milk and snack box full of crackers, pretzels, fruit bars and cheerios

3) Two jars of baby food - I wish I had brought more, but we ended up buying more at a grocery store (more on baby food under "other tips"). Thankfully, Gerber is internationally distributed.

4) About 3-4 days worth of clothes for all of us

5) Cloth sling - surprisingly, the Moby Wrap can still handle a 25 lb. toddler, and is not as bulky as a framed backpack carrier and is obviously lighter than a stroller.  WAY awesome for containing a toddler who wants to run around the airport and into other people's luggage carts.  AND, our baby is into seeing everything at our level, so this was perfect for us.

6) DVD player (thanks Melissa!) - our daughter was very entertained by watching Little Mermaid, but if your baby isn't used to watching TV, it's DEFINITELY not a good thing to turn on before going to bed.  We were hoping she would fall asleep watching TV on the plane, but it just kept her up longer.

7) 4 books, rattle, beads, and cribbage board - for some reason, our baby LOVES playing with the pegs on a cribbage board, putting them in and out of the holes.  And then mom and dad got to play on the beach and at night.

8) Blanket and pacifiers - bring ANY AND ALL comfort items with you on vacation.  Absolute must-have.  And this is the one time of the year when all rules are thrown out the window - blankie and paci while you're walking around in the restaurant?  Sure!

 

Here's what we didn't pack and what we would've NORMALLY packed, but turned out we we didn't need:

1) Car seat - as much of a safety freak I am normally, I'm so glad we didn't bring the car seat.  One more thing that we just didn't need to deal with.  Of course, I rode in the back seat holding our baby  This is a very controversial issue - my hubby was furious that we didn't bring it, but at the end of the day, we were both glad that we didn't get into any accidents and that we didn't lug around the car seat.

2) Monitor - when you're sleeping right next to the baby, having a monitor just to hear her breathe while you're sitting in the living room is so unnecessary.

3) Extra shoes, t-shirts, etc. - they're called SOUVENIRS!  We picked up some super cute sandals and tshirts that she wore while we were on the trip, and now they're her souvenirs from our vacation.  As we whittled down the diapers, we added clothes and sandals.

4) Stroller - we were up and down stairs, on uneven roads, walking through the sand - having a stroller would've been very impractical for our vacation.  Having the sling or just carrying her was the best option for us.  The stroller backpack would've been another option, but the sling was much lighter and achieved the same purpose.

Here's what we didn't bring that we SHOULD have packed:

1) Portacrib - we've always put our baby to bed in her crib without rocking her or sleeping in bed with her, so not having a separate crib for her was a total nightmare.  We tried to rock her to sleep when it was bedtime, and she just wanted to stay up because she wasn't used to getting rocked to sleep.  We tried to put her on a mattress on the floor in the corner of our room, and she just stood up and walked over to our bed asking to be picked up so we could continue playing.  Every night, she finally fell asleep from pure exhaustion, and mom and dad were completely exhausted as well.  Thankfully, we only were without a crib for 3 nights (for the rest of the vacation we stayed at a different place that had a crib), but those were the longest nights you could imagine.  Before we left, we debated buying a lightweight travel crib, but it was like $179 for just the three nights that we would need it. I would've paid double to have had a crib at that moment....

 

Other tips:

1) Buy jars of baby food when you get to your destination and tote them around wherever you go.  Even if you baby is already eating big people food, you'll never know when your baby will be hungry, and jars of baby food are better than the random meat skewer barbecued on a street corner.

2) Maybe our baby is weird, but she LOVED putting the cap on and off a water bottle - this would literally entertain her for at least 10 minutes at a time.

3) Know your baby, and know yourselves - our daughter is a schedule baby.  She needs her regularly scheduled naps, or she ends up being fussy.  BUT, we're on vacation.  As much as we sacrifice our own schedules at home for our baby's schedule, when we were on vacation, our schedule was definitely not dictated by her schedule.  I knew it would mean a lot of fussiness, but we brought her blankie, paci, toys and books wherever we went.  As mean as that sounds, your baby also has to realize (especially if this is baby #1, they haven't figured this out yet) that other people have things to do and places to go, so sometimes he/she has to learn how to deal with not being on a schedule.  My hubby felt the opposite and wanted to keep her on a schedule, so when it was possible and we had a light beach day, we did that.  I guess you have to know your baby and what his or her limits are, and you have to know yourselves - will you be bummed if your entire vacation was spent napping in your hotel room?  If you will be napping in your room a lot, make sure you opt for the ocean view suite.  :)

 

Comments

[Melissa Moog]

Thanks for your comments Beth! Glad the Mia Moda is working for you.

[Beth Sethi]

These are really great tips, which I appreciate as our first international trip with our 8 month old daughter approaches. I know the car seat thing is controversial. If you want to use one in your destination but don't want to lug it on the plane, you can rent them from rental car companies, at least the U.S. based ones (Hertz, etc) in many countries. And for cribs, many international hotels, even mom and pop places, offer cribs to borrow so long as you ask in advance. Melissa just recommended a great travel stroller that I LOVE. It's called the Mia Moda Cielo. It's a bit spendy, but I got it new on ebay for much cheaper than typical retail. I love baby carriers (Ergo, Moby, etc) but for anyone traveling somewhere that a stroller would also be useful, this is a great one. It folds up very small and even has it's own bag you can carry over your shoulder. It weighs 15 pounds but feels sturdy when you're pushing it. Thanks Melissa for the great recommendation!