Lake Travel With A Toddler

We have traveled with Sam since he was 4 months old. He has slept in motels, hotels, inns, family's homes, and the car and he's always done great so far. One place we hadn't been was the lake. My parent's had a boat from the time I was 10 or so until the last one sank during an ice storm a couple years ago so the lake was old hat for me. Jeff sinks like a stone in the water however so he'd never expressed a desire for a trip to any of our myriad area lakes. It didn't help the situation either that we didn't really have intimate access to accommodations anymore since the sad loss of the aforementioned boat.

 

Several weeks ago, one of our friends suggested a trip to his family lake house for the Fourth weekend. Not being one to pass up a trip away from home with no lodging cost, I jumped at the chance. Water centric travel is a whole different kind of trip with a toddler than anything we had done before and I learned a couple things.

 

1. Tire them out just a little before you get in the car for 2 hours. I try to do this with all car travel but especially something brand new! The lawn was overgrown. Perfect opportunity to walk some wiggles out before a road trip.

 

Mowing the lawn with Daddy.

 

2. Get your kiddo used to his/her life preserver BEFORE you need them to wear it. Sam had had his on briefly when we purchased it but wearing it for hours on a hot dock and a hot boat is a whole different prospect. They don't care about the safety of it, and you can exhaust yourself worrying and following them around if you take it off even for one minute. And just try to explain that it's lake law. HA! It was a bit of a struggle.

 

3. Take your toddler cot, even if you are staying in a home with available bedding. This is a good piece of advice no matter where you are staying. Sam knows our Regalo is HIS bed, and it's a sense of security and familiarity in new, overwhelming series of situations and stimuli. Read more about this indispensable travel accessory HERE.

 

4. Take LOTS of snacks. Somehow, sitting around a dock, in the hot sun, relaxing and hanging out makes a 2 year old constantly starving. Plus you need to feed the fish and geese, right? Make sure to take lots of sunscreen too, especially if there are no other littles from whom you might poach a little sun protection.

 

Geese love Cheese-Its!

 

5. Take familiar toys. Another sort of general piece of advice but in this case, in addition to his bedtime friends, I packed some of his tub toys and some of the things he likes to play with in his inflatable pool in our back yard. Water toys are important because you may discover, as I did, that your kiddo WILL NOT get in the water. If you have water guns, you can cool yourself down too since you may not get to spend any time in the water.

 

6. If your kiddo is a scheduled one, make your own schedule. We were at a friends house as I mentioned. They had all of their own plans, food, scheduling, and routine. Their youngest  is 14. They eat dinner at 7 (or later). The kiddos stay up until 10 or 11. In short, nothing worked with Sam's schedule. And no, I'm not a complete freak, only a little crazy about his schedule because I know what he's like if we deviate too much AND it's me and Jeff that have to manage the fallout. I did let him stay up to watch the fireworks Friday night and I was terrified I was ruining the whole weekend by tempting fate that way but thank God he slept until 8:30 the next morning and woke up in a fantastic mood.

 

7. Take 4 times as many "swimmer" diapers as you think you'll need. They are fantastic at not absorbing liquid from the outside but you know what? They also don't absorb any liquid from the inside. One hands soaking pee bomb of a diaper will teach you quickly to change them often if they're wearing those things.

 

8. Be careful with the special treats. Once again, good advice wherever you are, but when you're with friends whose kids are drinking soda and you think you're just giving in once, you aren't. Then it's an every meal, every snack, every time they see one of the older kids crack a bottle or can, every hour kind of monster. An example of a good special treat we tried out was a huge, lovely surprise for Sam. He's a very rolly-polly sleeper so I've never let him sleep on a grown-up bed before. He was so excited and happy for the chance!

 

My angel's first time in a big boy bed.

  

9. If you're at a friends house and your toddler wants to vacuum, let them vacuum. Or dust, or sweep, or wash dishes, or roll balls across the pool table, or pack and unpack your suitcase 10 times, whatever it takes because come on, this is your vacation too.

 

10. Relax and have fun. There are a lot of opportunities to admire the beauty all around you. This is as much advice for me as it is for anyone. Relaxing doesn't exactly come easy to me. I'm improving. Just look at that sky. How serene is that fairly still water and gorgeous rays coming out of all sides of the clouds? A view like that certainly helped!