Author Topic: once you have kids you won't be able to travel anymore  (Read 22321 times)

Sugaree

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Re: once you have kids you won't be able to travel anymore
« Reply #100 on: May 16, 2019, 06:35:12 AM »
Sure, you can travel all you want with kids. The ages 5 to 11 are awesome since they're still open to anything - teenage cynicism hasn't set in -- and they're long past the diaper/stroller stage. After that, it becomes tougher both with their attitudes AND their activities. If they're involved in any sort of year-round competitive sport, you have few windows to travel significantly.

What about travel without kids? Unless you have willing and able grandparents -- and we don't -- you will never go anywhere alone. Our kids are 15 and 12 and wife and I haven't gotten away for more than two nights in nine years.

I agree.  My son took his first plane ride a few days before his 5th birthday and did awesome.  We actually ended up splitting that trip up into two shorter flights on two separate days for each leg (this was our choice outbound and the airline's choice inbound) and he did awesome both times.  We're doing the overnihgt train thing this xmas, so we'll see how that goes.

ericrugiero

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Re: once you have kids you won't be able to travel anymore
« Reply #101 on: May 16, 2019, 07:55:42 AM »
We haven't tried to travel by plane with our kids because it's more economical to drive. (2 parents and 3 kids)

I would have been concerned about flying with a very young child (less than 5 or so) but that wouldn't have stopped me from taking them.  At this point, the only thing keeping us from flying is just the cost.  We haven't prioritized that so far but we are talking about doing something soon.

ericrugiero

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Re: once you have kids you won't be able to travel anymore
« Reply #102 on: May 16, 2019, 08:07:13 AM »
@Roadrunner53 Absolutely; we make sure we have snacks, entertainment, etc. The first time we traveled with our kids on a long flight we were a party of 6 and paid a ton extra to pick our own seats so we had 3 in front of 3. That way if there were seats being kicked we could configure it that we were in those seats with the kids behind. Fortunately, they do very well and we found it's not a problem. But, we waited until they were 4 and 6 to even put them on a plane the first time.

I know things happen; sometimes a really little one has terrible trouble with their ears and screams. We were on one flight with a family whose two small children (2 and 4 maybe?) were severely motion sick and threw up the whole time. I will say, as a fellow passenger, when the parents are struggling but trying and nice and apologetic I am much more compassionate! We do our best to mitigate against whatever we can, and be attentive to our childrens' needs throughout the trip so that they don't impact others as much as possible.

Sometimes with the grocery store, though, there's not a lot of other options if your kid loses it and you need to buy some essentials. I will be honest, I try very hard not to visibly react when my kids have a public meltdown (thankfully, it isn't often these days!) because sometimes they're after any reaction even if it's negative. That doesn't mean I'm not immensely bothered by it! Unfortunately not everyone has the luxury of a spouse, babysitter, or grandparent if they need to run out to the grocery store. We are very lucky that we live very close to work, so almost all of our shopping is done at lunch time without kids. We grocery shop without kids whenever possible; it's generally quicker and cheaper that way.

We had a few issues when our kids were younger in grocery stores with meltdowns and temper tantrums.  Our response was certainly not to reward that behavior with candy or other treats to get them to calm down immediately.  We generally tried to get them to stop by talking to them and if that didn't work we then "dealt with it" in private.  Giving in and letting them have a treat will help short term but it will train them to repeat the behavior in the future.  There are lots of opinions on this and no one option will work with every kid.  This worked pretty well for us because although all our kids tried the temper tantrum thing a couple times they stopped pretty quickly when it didn't work. 

Note that I do think preemptively keeping them happy with snacks, toys, games, etc is a great idea and can help considerably.  We just didn't use those as a reward for bad behavior.  They got those things preemptively or after they calmed down. 

StarBright

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Re: once you have kids you won't be able to travel anymore
« Reply #103 on: May 16, 2019, 09:01:54 AM »
We haven't tried to travel by plane with our kids because it's more economical to drive. (2 parents and 3 kids)

I would have been concerned about flying with a very young child (less than 5 or so) but that wouldn't have stopped me from taking them.  At this point, the only thing keeping us from flying is just the cost.  We haven't prioritized that so far but we are talking about doing something soon.

We actually flew a lot more when our kids were younger. We had two under two at one point so were flying four people around but had kids on laps - it was a pretty good deal. Also - long drives with a baby in the car suck!

Now that the kids are older we fly less but they are more capable of making longer trips in the car.  Works pretty well. We still fly cross country a couple of times a year to visit family and the cost makes me cry every time we have to purchase 4 tickets!

Chris Pascale

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Re: once you have kids you won't be able to travel anymore
« Reply #104 on: July 31, 2019, 12:46:40 PM »
Then how are people complaining about kids on planes?

I've taken them by plane, train and car. Planning a road trip with multiple stops at multiple houses next month.