I was talking with some co-workers and we were talking about the easiest and hardest age to travel with a young child. I was thinking it would be easier to travel with a young baby because they sleep more. I feel like it's harder to travel with a 2 year old because they are so active and harder to distract. What are your thoughts?
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We only have experience traveling up to 17 months, but our easiest big trip was when LO was 5 months (slept a lot, could wear him in a carrier and do what we wanted to do, wasn't so aware of his surroundings that he minded the travel crib, bf and no need to worry about solid food), and most difficult was the last one at 17 months (didn't sleep much on the overnight flight, scared in the travel crib and took him a while to settle at night, needed to run around periodically). It's never been too difficult though - and I'm hoping that our next trip at 20 months is good too!
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In my experience it is easiest to travel with a baby before he or she is moving (crawling or walking) and that continues until about 2. It starts to get much easier at 2.5 years old. Traveling with my 4 year old was super easy this last time.
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I had an easier time traveling by air when DD was younger (4/5/7 months vs. 14 months). By car, we've been fine at any age.
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The younger they are, the better. I'm guessing until about maybe 5 or 6 when they can entertain themselves more easily?
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We traveled (as in plane ride >5 hours) with E at 5 weeks and 11 months. I think <6 months is ideal. 11 months was okay, but he crawled all over us like human jungle gyms for 5 hours before he passed out in our arms. He is a total people watcher and he couldn't tear his eyes away from the people sitting across from us. Exhausting!!!
I think it would be waaaaay harder with a walker who didn't understand basic instructions. So...12 months to 4 years?
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I'd have to disagree. We've traveled quite a bit by airplane at the ages of 4 months, 12 months, 13 months, 14 months, 20 months, 22 months and 25 months, and my son has only gotten better / easier the older he gets. But this is just on the airplane...in the airport is a different story! Our absolute worst flights were when he was 4 months.
Traveling by car hasn't gotten easier / harder...it still sucks!
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I think the hardest for us was around 10 months; before them she slept a lot and wasn't mobile, and now at 23 months she sits still (mostly) and can be easily entertained with stuff and understands that we have to sit nicely on a plane. At 10 months it was wriggly + shorter attention span + couldn't communicate wants/needs well.
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I think it depends on the kid . . . for us, flying with a baby was easy. as she got older it got harder up to about 18 months or so. after that she started to get interested in tv (Daniel Tiger) and she can watch that on a plane and be happy, or color, or do stickers. I'm hoping it stays easy going forward, because eventually I will likely be flying alone with two!
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It depends. Not all young babies just sleep! Mine sure didn't! Plus we had to carry more back then.
I've flown 5hrs+ at 4, 6, 11/12, and 18/19 months so far. If I remember tright the easiest trips were 6 and 12 months, but that wasn't solely based on age related stuff. I also find that adjusting to the new surroundings got more difficult at the 6m trip and got easier at the 18m trip!
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We'll be flying with our baby when he's 12 months old. He's very wriggly and doesn't like to sit still, so I'm apprehensive about the flight.
Can you guys recommend some iPad apps that might keep him entertained? (we're also packing snacks, books, and toys of course, and even pulling out the big guns...juice boxes!)
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My son is only 3 so I don't consider us out of the woods, but the most difficult time with him was between the ages of 1-2.
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Traveling at 5/6m by airplane was easy peasy for us. Now at 12/13m it was still easy albeit different. LO is so curious as to what is going on around him that he was easily entertained but he kept reaching for the people in the seat next to us so it was harder to keep him on my lap.
Traveling by car was never an issue.
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Agree with you. I traveled with both Noelle and Jaren when they were only 3 months old, and it was so easy... they were content just sleeping on my chest or lap the whole time. Much more difficult traveling with toddlers. I think the hardest age is sometime from 1-2 years because they're full-fledged toddlers, but have short attention spans so it's harder to keep them entertained.
Traveled with Noelle when she was about 2.5 years old and it wasn't too bad because we just loaded the iPad with Dora and that really kept her preoccupied and kept her in her seat the whole time.
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We've flown at 3.5 months, 7 months, 14 months, 19 months and it was easiest when LO was younger. She adjusted to the new time zone with no problem and it was easier to get her to sleep on the plane the younger she was.
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1-2 is the hardest. Out of the "easy" baby stage, too young to understand what is going on and not able to fully communicate with words. By 2, DD could talk and it was really easy.
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I've only traveled once with LO...he was between 5 and 6 months old, and we only went a few hours up north to my grandparent's cottage on a lake - it was a NIGHTMARE. He absolutely refused to sleep and woke up every hour or two screaming, and often took over an hour to get back to sleep. So then he was just a constant crab from lack of sleep!
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we've only flown once last week at 15 months, but it was hard and easy at the same time. hard because she wanted to run around and she couldn't (she also got car sick) and easy because she's kinda an easy kid. but with her as a non-walker, it would have been a breeze and under 6 months, super easy as far as she is concerned. but then you have logistics of feeding them constantly too, so that was tough with road trips.
so... depends on the kid? ha.
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I would neeever travel with a young baby. My young baby did not sleep very much.
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18 comments