If the thought of traveling with young toddlers, especially between the ages of 2 and 4, is daunting, you have come to the right place. But what if I told you your toddlers’ tantrums and struggles don’t have to dictate your travel plans and family trips? Heather offers tips and mindset shifts to help you build your toddlers’ social skills and resilience so they can navigate trips happily and even be able to handle unexpected changes.

In this post, you will find:

• Tips for booking a trip, especially when it comes to sleeping arrangements  
• What to think ahead for and bring
• Ideal times of day to plan travel
• Tips for preparing toddlers for new experiences
• Tips for eating out at restaurants
• Tips for preventing tantrums before they happen
• Strategies to help you handle tantrums when they do pop up

**Listen to the full podcast episode here or read on for the tips!

Sleeping Arrangements when Booking a Trip

Sleeping arrangements for toddlers are not always as straight forward as they may have been when they were infants. Some toddlers will be outgrowing pack-n-plays, transitioning out of a crib, and learning how to sleep in a toddler bed. Whether you are planning to stay at a hotel, an Airbnb, or a friend or family member’s house, be sure to plan ahead to make sleep as safe and familiar as possible.

If Your Toddler Is In a Crib

• You can bring your own travel crib.
• If you do not have space to pack a portable crib, make sure the place you want to stay has some available before you book it. Not all places provide them.
• Remember that travel cribs and hotel cribs are smaller than full sized ones. Some toddlers might be fine with the smaller size, but others who move a lot or spread out might not be comfortable. This in between stage can be tricky to navigate, but prioritize safety and make the arrangement as as familiar as you can for your toddler.

If Your Toddler Is In a Toddler Bed

• Find a blow up travel toddler bed with high sides to help your toddler still feel cozy and not roll out.
• Put a twin mattress or blow up bed on the floor.
• Push a twin bed up against a wall.

Pro Tip: Bring something familiar from home for sleep, either your toddler’s blanket, pillow, favorite stuffed animal, or nightlight. If you are sharing the same room, or multiple children are in the same room, using a sound machine can help drown out extra noise so everyone gets a better night’s sleep.

What Time of Day to Plan Travel

Whether you are planning to fly or drive, you want to carefully plan out the time you will leave and what will work best for your family.

• Nap time: Some families find that driving or flying around their toddler’s typical nap time helps because they tend to be lulled to sleep more easily by the motion and white noise of travel. Even if your toddler has dropped their usual nap, you might be surprised that they actually take one while on the go.
• Working around naps: Other families find it works best to leave first thing in the morning or after their toddlers typical nap time. Make sure to factor in how long your travel day will be and what would work best for your family.
• Plan out your stops, meals, and snacks: I have found that having plenty of easy, fun snacks helps keep my toddlers content on long road trips where they might not eat much of the meals we get on the go. It is also good to stop for a stretch break every two hours or so. If you can find a stop or restaurant with a play area or park, that is even better.

What to Bring

If you are planning a hotel stay, its a good idea to bring an easy, simple toy or activity to help keep your toddler entertained while in the room. Heather found that bringing a few toy cars for her boys provided some good play and easy clean up for the short periods of time they were in the hotel room. A few magnetic building blocks or tiles, some favorite picture books, or mess free drawing supplies can be great to have around as well, for both the hotel and the car ride.

Making Trips More Manageable and Decreasing Tantrums

There are many ways that we can simplify big trips for our toddlers. By preparing them for changes ahead of time, we build their experience muscles which helps to reduce tantrums on the go.

Tip #1: Simplify Complex Situations

If your trip has a lot of moving parts, try to break it down for your toddler as much as possible. When we can make the unfamiliar more familiar, we make the trip less mysterious and scary for our toddler and more peaceful for everyone.

• Explain your trip in simple terms your toddler will understand.
• Use library books: If you are going to the beach, lake, or a grandparents house, you might be able to find a library book about that experience to read with your toddler, helping them know what to expect.
• Create a social story using Canva: If you want to be more specific and show your toddler what you’re going to do on your trip, you can go to canva.com and create your own design.
  • EXAMPLE: When Heather took her toddlers on a trip where they were going to see family members they didn’t know very well, she created a social story that she could read and show her toddlers with the plan for the trip and pictures of the people they would see. She read it to them before the trip, and because it was online and she could access it on her phone, she also pulled it up whenever she wanted to remind her toddlers of what was happening next.

Tip #2: Draw From Past Experiences

Another way to do build your toddler’s experience muscles is to draw from past experiences to help them prepare for new ones.

EXAMPLES

• Heather’s toddlers were going to be eating inside at a restaurant for the first time. They had eaten at many outdoor restaurants before, just not inside. So Heather helped them remember their past restaurant experiences and think about what it would be like to be inside instead.
• Heather’s toddlers were going to be swimming at an indoor hotel pool. They had been to pools before, but not ones inside, so she prepped them for the extra smells and sounds they might hear at an indoor one by drawing from what they remembered from their previous pool trips.
• If you have a toddler who is going to the beach for the first time and is unfamiliar with waves, you can draw on their other experience with water and explain the differences. You could tell them how the ocean has waves and is not still like the bathtub, that the water splashes around a lot and there is also sand, like in a sandbox.

Tip #3: Practice Transferable Skills

Our toddlers learn many skills at home which they can draw upon in other circumstances. We can make these connections for our toddlers when they are in new environments to help them navigate different situations more easily.

EXAMPLE

• If you have practiced saying “excuse me” at home with siblings to help reduce pushing and shoving, you can explain that your toddler can say “excuse me” at the park with strangers as well instead of pushing and shoving.

Tips for Eating Out

Restaurant Tip #1: Get energy out before sitting down

Toddlers tend to struggle at restaurants because they have a hard time sitting still for long periods of time, especially when waiting for something like food to be served. One way to help them not have as many wiggles at meal time is to plan activities that get their energy out before they need to sit.

EXAMPLE

• When it came time for Heather’s toddlers to sit at a restaurant, they had already been running around and playing at playgrounds all afternoon, so they were tired out and ready to sit and rest. Because of this, they were able to sit for a lot longer.

Restaurant Tip #2: Bring quiet activities

Some restaurants provide things like coloring pages, but others might not, so its always good to be prepared with something you know your toddlers can enjoy while they wait. In addition to coloring, you could bring stickers, fidget toys, and favorite books.

Restaurant Tip #3: Re-frame eating as time for connection

Sometimes we can want our mealtimes to be downtime for us, where we can just sit back and enjoy a meal with others. When out to eat with toddlers, however, this is just not reality because our toddlers need our support in these unfamiliar situations.

If we can instead lean into this restaurant experience as a time of connection instead of a break from them, we will be able to meet them where they are with more calm and acceptance instead of frustration. Getting a break is still important, so instead ask your partner or a family member for help watch the toddlers at a different time so you can still take a moment to yourself.

To turn mealtime in connection time:

• Talk about the day. Ask them what their favorite part was.
• Talk about the food and the experience.
• Play eye spy.

Tips for Transition Tantrums

Transitioning from one thing to the next can be hard for toddlers, especially if they are having to leave an activity or place they love. With a little bit of thinking ahead, some of these tantrums can be preventable, while others will still pop up out of nowhere.

EXAMPLE – Leaving the Pool Tantrum

• The Situation: One day, after dinner, Heather took her twins to the pool where they swam and played, having the time of their lives. But when she let them know that it was almost time to head back to the hotel room to get ready for bed, one of her toddlers did not want to leave and started melting down.
• What Could Have Helped: Getting out of the pool was a boundary Heather had to hold, but looking back she realized she could have given more advanced notice and focused more on what they were going to do right after instead. She had planned a fun bath activity with new rubber ducks. When they got back to the room and she reminded them of this plan, her twins were instantly happy again.

Using First/Then: Sometimes something as simple as focusing on what comes next like saying, “First we’ll say goodbye to the pool, then we get to take a bath with your new rubber ducks!” can help prevent a transition tantrum.

What to Do When Tantrums Pop Up

We are not always able to prepare ahead of time for certain tantrums. When this happens, we can still use simple, go-to strategies to stay calm and help our toddlers through them.

EXAMPLE – The Hungry Tantrum

• The Situation: While on their trip, Heather and her twins went to an event where food was provided. Unfortunately, when they were there Heather realized the food was not toddler friendly. Her twins didn’t eat much the whole time and Heather had not brought any extra snacks, so her toddlers got very hungry towards the end of the event.
• What Helped: One of her toddlers started to tantrum, but Heather was able to help him by using her first/then strategy. She explained that first they needed to get to the car, then they would be at their grandparents’ house and could have a snack. Explaining the plan in this way helped Heather’s toddler understand and calm down.

With all these tips in your tool box, I hope you feel more able to navigate travel with toddlers. While it won’t always be easy, it is possible to have less tantrums and enjoy special family moments together!

And if you are struggling with toddler tantrums and behaviors like hitting and not listening and you need some solutions, I have a free guide for you! It’s called the Tantrum and Behavior Guide: 7 Toddler Struggles and How to Solve Them Fast. Sign up for it here!

Hi! I’m Dabney, mom to three boys in three years! I found Heather through her podcast while searching for tools to help my own toddler’s aggressive outbursts and button pushing behaviors. Few voices in the parenting world address how to manage the intensity of these toddler behaviors when you have not just one but two or more children with you.

Enter Heather, an educator for ten years turned twin mom of two boys with stories and strategies that highlighted how to manage these hard moments while also being outnumbered. I participated in her Happy Toddler, Confident Parent Cohort and found her strategies simple and effective. Not only is my parenting better for it, but I am growing in my confidence along this journey collecting tools along the way.