Traveling Overseas with Young Kids

We made it to Rome all in one piece & with 2 babes in tow! Seriously though, I was so nervous to take the boys to Europe for the first time & I pictured all of the things that could possibly go wrong in my head for over a month. Dramatic? Maybe! But if you’re a parent, you know that the idea of traveling with young kids can cause all sorts of stress. I’m here to tell you that we survived though & that I’m so happy we decided to take our boys along on this adventure 🙂

I know that at 17 months old, Hendrix is far too young to remember this trip BUT I do feel like this trip was a great starter trip to get him more used to traveling in the future. Kannon, on the other hand, was beyond excited for our trip to Rome & couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks leading up to our actual trip.

Now for how we survived the flight with the boys! I’m not going to lie, Kannon was a breeze. He’s almost 5 so he’s at an easier age where he can walk through the airport on his own, carry his own backpack & curl up in a ball & sleep 10 hours on the plane. We gave him a little gummy melatonin to help him sleep well & everything was as smooth as can be with him! We did buy him a toddler pillow & this amazing invention to make it easier for him to sleep on the plane though!

Hendrix on the other hand.. Well, he’s never been the greatest sleeper. We decided that because of this, we would purchase him his own seat instead of having him fly as a lap infant. He’s nearly 18 months old & after flying to New York a couple of months ago with him on our lap, we knew it would save us the headache of trying to wrestle him the whole flight. We brought along our favorite travel car seat (it’s seriously SO light & we carry it in this travel backpack with Kannon’s travel booster seat, which makes it so much easier to carry around!) & it definitely made a difference. He watched a movie (don’t judge us for letting him watch tv before 2 ;)) & fell asleep for a couple of hours in his seat. Then the person in front of him reclined their seat & his toes hit the touchscreen on the seat back & woke him up. Not the greatest luck with that because for the next 7 hours he refused to sleep & only wanted me to hold him haha. I came prepared with lots of snacks, his favorite movies on the iPad, his carrier to bounce him in the back of the plane & a couple new hot wheels cars to hold onto. I may have also brought half of a caffeine pill for myself so that I could stay awake & keep him from crying so that he didn’t disturb everyone else trying to sleep on the plane haha. Sometimes you gotta do what you’ve gotta do, right?! I’m not going to lie & say that it was a piece of cake traveling with a 17-month-old on a 12-hour flight BUT I will say that it was completely manageable & so worth the experience & memories made. If I can do it, I know you can too!

 Traveling isn’t always easy with young kids BUT in my honest opinion, it is worth the one million things you have to tote across the world & the lack of sleep because there is nothing like teaching your kids about the world & actually letting them experience those cultures on their own.

If you’ve traveled overseas with your babes, what are your tips for traveling overseas with young kids??