First trip with a child – what did we wish we had known 6 years ago?

Vacation time is a time of first travel with a child for many people. Whether it’s a weekend trip to Poland or a longer plane flight, no matter if it’s the first child or the next – always the arrival of a new person on board is an added stress. Today we have for you a handful of tips that we ourselves would have liked to have heard 6 years ago.

We have just passed six years of family travel. From the first short trips by car, to the first flight in Europe, to a month-long tour of the US with three toddlers on board. Believe us or not, but our travel and perspective has changed by some 180 degrees over these six years. The first trips were full of too many expectations. Only with the passage of more trips have we gained humility and know that traveling with a child is a different dimension of travel. It’s also true that we haven’t made any big mistakes during this time that have etched themselves in our minds. Mistakes that spoiled the entire trip and left only nightmarish memories. For this we changed our thinking and perspective, opened our heads and looked at travel from a slightly different perspective: that of a child.

Is traveling with children easy, filled to the brim with smiles and enthusiasm? Are the children always, unconditionally cooperative, and can we sit in peace and quiet with a cup of coffee or relax in a recliner? Well, no… Traveling, even with a small child, is a higher school of driving, or rather, a no-stick ride. And yet, by some miracle, we find ourselves quite well in it now…. Our travel plans burn out like this 90% of the time and what goes wrong is usually a matter of weather or factors completely beyond our control.

But beginnings are always difficult, and the most important thing is to simply take the first step and prepare well for it.

First trip with a baby – some of our tips

We have prepared for you some tips and advice that we, would like to hear from experienced, traveling families these 6 years ago. And more importantly, at the end of the article you can also listen to an interview conducted with us by Karol Okrasa on traveling with children – there you will find even more hints about what comes in handy when traveling, when to plan the first trip, where to go, etc. We strongly encourage you to do so, because a really cool conversation came out.

1. your baby will cry

We’ll start out perhaps a little not very optimistic, but that’s the truth. Your baby on a trip, or especially on an airplane, will cry. Depending on the age of the child: he may brawl, demand maximum attention, cry because teeth are coming, because colic. She will cry because something is not to her liking or goes wrong. Such is the nature of children :) Children are a bundle of emotions that they can’t quite handle. It’s not that the child is forcing or doing to spite (and certainly not the smallest ones) – they are thus striving to get what they need most at the moment.

After all, the same way a toddler cries at home, on a walk, at the playground. Take a look, and preferably even make a note of how many times a day the baby’s screaming and crying sounds when you spend the whole day together. In that case, is there any point in hoping that the crying will not occur on the plane? Especially if it’s a long trip then don’t expect the baby to sit quietly in the seat or on your lap. If every trip to the store means throwing yourself on the floor and screaming, the same will probably happen at the airport. If he takes a toy away from another child, the same situation is likely to occur on an airplane.

Your job is to ensure that you have an arsenal at your disposal to help get out of crisis situations! Both for the sake of the toddler, yours and your fellow passengers. But in truth, will those 8 hours on the plane be very different from 8 hours at home?

2. don’t throw yourself in at the deep end

If you’ve only traveled with a travel agency so far, don’t head off with backpacks to another continent for your first family trip, and still on your own. Try it slowly, steadily – first something you already know, something you are most comfortable with, and only then make changes.

The most important thing in this family travel is the readiness of both child and parent. Just because one family flew a plane with a 6-month-old toddler to Asia doesn’t mean you have to do the same. You MAY, but you absolutely do not have to. It is possible to go even to distant destinations with a tiny baby, but only if you are all ready for it and there are no medical contraindications. Yes, it is doable! :)

3. buy insurance x 2!

You are probably immediately wondering why you should buy two insurances? We recommend buying one typical travel insurance that includes accident insurance and third party liability, and another in case you can’t go after all (against cancellation costs). We’ve always known that insurance is good to have, but before that we didn’t pay as much attention to its terms. Nowadays, we read into every paragraph to be sure how to handle emergencies and what support we can count on.

In the first travel insurance mentioned above, it’s all about covering on-site medical expenses. If you were to fall ill, break a leg, or simply need the quick support of a doctor or worse, intervention in the hospital. That is, everything that can happen during the trip. In addition, it is worth remembering that it is not difficult for it to be our child who completely inadvertently harms someone (it is enough, for example, to drive a bicycle into someone or damage someone’s car in this way). You then have insurance that will cover up to a certain amount.

In the second case (cancellation insurance), it is about situations when for various reasons (especially health) you can not, for example, fly. Let’s not kid ourselves, children often get sick, and with this kind of insurance, even if one person gets sick, you can recoup the costs incurred for the trip. Important, such insurance often needs to be purchased on the same day or within the next few days after purchasing tickets/trips.

Also, when traveling in EU countries, be sure to get a free EHIC card (you can get one online or at a branch of the National Health Service). This is such a card certifying your health insurance, which will greatly simplify cashless first medical care (e.g., at the doctor’s). Nevertheless, when going even to other EU countries, it is also worth remembering travel insurance.

4. don’t be afraid/shamed to take advantage of benefits for families with children

In almost every airport, but also in many other places, you will find special designated places for families with children (e.g., the queue for airport security checks, ticket counters, compartments on trains). They are made for you, so take advantage of them.

We a long time did not use, for example, faster queues (so-called priority queues), because we thought we did not need them. If the children are calm then why? Well, if only because you do not know how long this calm will last ;) It may turn out that in 10 minutes you will already be doing your best to occupy the impatient toddlers with something. All the more so because such a transition to special gates improves the movement of other passengers.

We are not writing here to make you always require such priorities. Simply when they are, it is worth taking advantage of them.

5. adapt to new travel style

No more trip will be like before :) From now on, the largest part of your luggage will be baby stuff, instead of looking for toilets you will look for changing tables, and instead of a fancy pub, a restaurant with a children’s corner ;)

Fact, it gives you opportunities to explore new places like discovering parks with playgrounds that you would never look at, but on the other hand, you may find that a museum or art gallery where you can’t touch anything is already completely out of reach for you.

We will console you that a lot depends on the child – there are children who will really find it fun in museums, but there are also those with whom you will quickly run away from them :-) Be ready for that.

6. vacations are WITH CHILDREN, not FROM CHILDREN

Are you taking the whole family on your first trip? Are you planning to have the kids splashing in the water all day while you sip drinks on the beach? None of the above. And this is for at least a couple of very important reasons:

• The children are in your care, you are legally responsible for them (if you leave with a babysitter or entertainers then carefully determine/check who is responsible for them).
• It is always necessary to keep an eye on children, especially in the water. Even if there is a lifeguard – they should not be left alone in the sea, lake or pool.
• We, in general, drink little alcohol, but if we do, we follow the rule that only one of us always drinks, so that the other keeps a sober mind and watches the children. Seriously, you never know when an accident may happen and you will have to rush to the hospital (already leaving aside the issue of transportation, if they smell alcohol from you it will not be a very nice situation).

Also, don’t count too much on your child playing on his own for a long time if he either has friends/colleagues or spends time with you on a daily basis. This is a family trip, the children eventually want to have you exclusively.

7. a plan is just a plan :)

And although with us we mostly manage to carry out this plan, it was not always so :) There were trips when the toddler had a completely different idea for them, when we forgave some place interesting to us in favor of another playground, or even did a tour of parks.

That’s why it’s a good idea to include plenty of places for children in your plans – if you’re thinking of buying a vacation with a travel agency, see if there are optional tours for children on offer, if you plan to explore on your own, always have a few alternatives in mind.

Importantly, a plan is always worth having. But don’t hold on to it tightly, because plans in life often change, especially when you have kids on board :)

8. traveling with your child will teach you a lot

Oh yeah… do you know what we learned while traveling with the kids?

• Better organization – what, where and how to pack, what to arrange when, what hotel to choose, how to get where, how to embrace three children at once…. and, above all, not leaving everything to the last minute.
• It’s easier and faster to pack – we have less time in advance, so we’re already experts at packing (so much so that we wrote a 136-page ebook about it ;-)).
• Flexibility – we are as flexible as ever when traveling: we don’t stop when we want, but when someone needs, we visit not only what we want, but what everyone is interested in, etc.
• In addition, we know how to track a lynx in the forest, we know why elephants don’t jump and why stars twinkle…. ;)

Yes, traveling with children educates and teaches :)

As you can see, when traveling with children (and especially older ones) we can really gain interesting knowledge, if only during a visit to a museum. On the one hand, we read various interesting facts to children, and on the other hand, we have more time to absorb such knowledge ourselves.

Podcast: vacation complete, or how to relax while traveling with children

And finally, the promised podcast of the Good Topic series created by Lidl. We encourage you to listen, you will find a lot of advice and tips on how to prepare for your first trips:

You can listen to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

Summary

We hope that with this post we have helped you to look at your vacation together a little differently :) We believe that with proper preparation, starting from choosing the place of departure, through packing, travel and stay on site, it is possible to really spend this time fruitfully, both for children and parents.

The entry was created in cooperation with the LIDL brand.