Toddler Talk Thursdays

This week's topic is Traveling with a Toddler.....

The first time we traveled with Davis, he was six weeks old and we flew to Arkansas to visit David's mother. He was surprisingly good the whole trip. At that point, he slept most of the flight, waking up for takeoff and landings. We had heard from other parents that the important thing to know while flying with infants is to either feed them or have them suck on a pacifier during takeoffs and landings so their ears pop or else it can be painful so we made sure to do that. The airline gave us a certificate for his first flight which was really nice.

The most exciting part of the traveling was when David went to change Davis' diaper in the tiny airplane bathroom and almost threw him away. The changing table was lined up with the trash receptacle which David didn't realize until he was changing the diaper. At that time Davis had the habit of bending and straightening his legs while you were changing him and he straightened his legs as David picked up his legs to slide the clean diaper under his bum so his body slid across the changing table and his head poked through the flap to the trash receptacle. Davis kinda freaked out of course, but later we found this highly amusing. Daddy almost threw away the baby.

Traveling with Davis is more of a challenge now of course because he doesn't like to sit still so keeping him busy is very important. The furthest we've gone lately though is car rides for a couple hours. Those are usually pretty easy, as long as I remember to bring juice or milk and snacks as well as a few books and toys.

I usually pack a coloring book and crayons, a few of his favorite story books that are small enough for him to hold himself, a couple of cars and his Thomas and Dora stuffed toys that he sleeps with during nap time.

Another thing I do is to bring a few cds of kids music that he likes and some cds that I like as well. He's not really picky about music as long as he can car dance to it and sometimes he even sings along.