Before taking an international trip, we wanted to try to have a solid foundation for our kids to travel. To me, one of the main ways we can help kids be good travelers is to practice flexibility. Luckily, this benefits us every day of our lives, traveling or not. Of course, flexibility doesn’t guarantee smooth travel days… far from it! However, it means that you will be helping move in the direction of kids who can better adapt to what is in store on ever-changing and unpredictable travel days.
Flexibility is something I value for so many reasons. The ability to handle bumps in the road while traveling is just one small reason. There are opportunities to build flexibility every single day in the life of young kids. The importance of doing so can vary a little by child; for some kids, it’s a slow and vital process. For others, it comes pretty naturally whether we practice or not. With toddlers, this flexibility can be hard-earned, but pays off massively. One of these ways is in the length of your packing list. Flexible kids mean a shorter packing list. If your child can drink out of any kind of cup (not just that one with the blue lid and the special straw… you know the one), your packing list is now shrinking. If your toddler can drink from an adult cup or water bottle, use adult utensils (or will tolerate you using them to help them), eat the slightly different-tasting peanut butter found on the grocery shelves in a foreign country, sleep in a rental crib or pack-n-play, make do without blackout curtains… etc. etc., look how much shorter your packing list could be. Trust me, packing the essentials will be enough to more than fill that suitcase… no need to bring the [contents of the] kitchen sink. Packing light(er) is a priority for us. If we’re checking a bag, we’re aiming to have only one, if the trip length and weather allow. In our ideal set-up, we’re aiming for carry-on only.
Beyond a shorter packing list, flexibility helps travel days go more smoothly. Can your kid nap at the airport during your layover? Can your kid adapt to a new type of high chair in a new country?
For these and other reasons, flexible travelers make travel days go much more smoothly. Toddlers are not naturally prone to flexibility. And as parents, if we’re not paying attention, sometimes our most well-meaning moves lead us to promote inflexibility in our kids, moving in a counter-productive direction. Is that blue sippy cup the one where they have the fewest spills? We create these patterns for good reason: they are working. We use it every time for convenience and now it has become their favorite? Nothing wrong with preferences, but when we let those preferences take over (a good cue is when we start to see meltdowns if we do not have that blue cup), then we can end up needing to do some problem-solving. If I see a meltdown-inducing preference arise, that is a cue to me that we need to work on varying our routine in a given area. The best move, in my opinion, is to vary that routine the very next time if you can. Hard? Yes, of course. You’ve literally just learned that it’s meltdown-inducing. The simple road (in this case, a bandaid: giving the blue cup every time) is not always the best plan in the long run. You will have a decidedly harder bedtime routine on the night when you insist that their favorite pajamas really do need to be washed before they wear them again, but you’ll be glad you’re not running around Barcelona looking for a laundromat, because your toddler will gladly wear any of the 4 pairs of pajamas you packed for them on your trip.
Here are some examples for promoting the type of flexibility that can pay off in the context of travel. The list is endless, but here are some super simple and free ideas of things we sprinkle in, to get the wheels turning:
Switch up the bedtime routine on occasion. Read books in a sibling’s room, instead of the place we usually do it. Brush teeth in a different bathroom. Rotate in adult sized utensils for practice occasionally, for any kid where this would be safe. Sleep with a different sound on the sound machine. Have some flexibility in who can put the children to bed (other family members, babysitters). (In my experience, this one is hard.) Practice drinking from open cups, straws, and a variety of bottles. Food: is it mixed together or all separate on our plate? Let’s get used to both! We buy different brands and different variations of foods to try to get used to variety.
This list could go on and on. Of course, you can absolutely choose to pack it all. You can choose to work around nap times and preferences and still make the trip work. There is nothing wrong with that. But for many families, worries about these preferences and strict routines end up being the thing that holds them back from something they are otherwise really wanting to do. Building flexibility into our routine is just one way we can make this a little easier.