Our top travel mistakes ( with small kids )

In both fields : traveling and parenting, giving or receiving advice is not that easy. Very often I came across a good tip, which in theory made sense to me, but I ended up not applying it.

Mostly because I was just not that kind of a person, to do things that particular way.

People are all different from each other, active, calm, adventurous, reserved, optimistic...and it all projects on the way they travel the world and how they raise their kids.

So I came up with this new idea, of listing for you our TOP TRAVEL MISTAKES.

Now all you have to do, is just not repeat what we did, and you gonna have better holidays guaranteed!

1. Too lazy to pitch the mosquito net

Ok, so we knew we should watch out for mosquitoes...especially in tropics.

We even took our own mosquito net. But, first few nights in Tonga were nice and breezy, so we sort of assumed, there is no point to use mosquito net as wind was chasing the mozzies away. The thing was, after we moved from first guest house to another, we did not worry about this issue anymore, yet we should, since the fallowing morning Yana woke up with approximately 20 bites on her face!

2. Constipation

We went to Tonga with 7 month old Yana, who back then was able to eat mostly

purees. Since we were not taking with us a food processor, we knew we will be able at least to mash with fork : bananas, potatoes and taros. We took along also some baby meal jars,( the equivalent of 3 portions of meat per week) and some baby rice and baby cereal. The baby rice and cereals were....bad idea! They gave Yana a really bad constipation. Now we know, it's much better to feed your child just more fruits and veggies. And if you feel like feeding rice- just mash it with fork.

3. Bad baby carrier

We took to Vanuatu : 19 month old Yana, very average baby carrier and an umbrella pram.

Taking an average pram was not as bad, as taking a not so good baby carrier. The umbrella pram was more for air port, and for babcia, if she wanted to take Yana for a walk around the Capital City - Port Villa. Once we went exploring the country, we left the pram behind and took only the baby carrier. At this stage Yana was barely able to fit in it, but we had to make her sit there few times, as were going on bigger walks, and she couldn't keep up. Unnecessary uncomfortable for both , parents and child. For Bruno we bought a much better carrier, which could fit bigger kids, I was using it even lately in Europe, and it was whole different experience.

4. All in one day ( air port, ferry, biking )

By the time Bruno was born we already tested and we knew that a small child can:

- sleep at the air port,

- take a ferry

- go with us for a bike ride

But the first 24 hours of us traveling to Samoa, we fitted all of these attractions together, and by the end of that day Bruno was really exhausted. We actually had to spend first day after arrival just on resting in some village, to make sure he was ok.

To be fair, things could have gone much more smooth, if :

- Yana wouldn't have a spontaneous reaction to the airplane, which she manifested by

multiple vomits all over herself and her family members ( yep, Bruno's first nap went

out of the window )

- unboxing bikes at the airport wasn't so exciting, and the whole event kept Bruno again awake

- There wouldn't be a very noisy construction site, in that port, right next to the waiting room where we were waiting for ferry ( yep, the 3rd nap was way too short )

5. Lost dummy

We took two pacifiers for Bruno, on our trip to Samoa. Which was not enough,

but we forgot to buy spare ones before departure, and anyway, we were using

the dummy leash, so we shouldn't lose it, right? Well, we lost first pacifier very early, like day 4? No idea where it went. And the second one around day 15, but we still had 15 more days to go. We stopped using that dummy leash for bike rides, because always dummy was falling in the same spot - between Bruno's belly and Vathsan's back. Well, almost always, I guess...? Anyway, buying a new dummy in Samoa was hard, as everybody were telling us, the only shop which has it was in the village where we started our trip. We were exactly half way through the Island and going back or forward - on bikes, would still take us the same amount of time. So after few days of big drama, we finally got lucky as a person who was running the place where we were staying was about to get some supplies delivered from that Salelologa village. We kindly asked her, if she could add a dummy to the whole delivery : ) She did, it was not exactly in the right, Bruno's favorite shape, but did the trick.

6. Lost shoes

Our kids are kiwis, and like majority of New Zealanders, they believe that if you wear shoes,

you are overdressed. So they take them off a lot. Once Yana took them off, and few hours

later they were gone. Buying new ones, was not that easy, we found some cheap too big sandals, which were not the best fit - even better excuse not to wear them : )

7. Not enough diapers/ baby wipes

I truly believe and say it to everyone - relax, when you travel with baby don't freak out, kids are everywhere and the basics are really easy to buy.

Ok, so, once, I must say, it was not that easy. I usually try to plan and take with me like 30 good diapers. I keep them for special occasions such as night sleepy and flight. But in Samoa since we had to bike with our whole luggage, I probably took fewer nappies. Around week 3 we had to relay only on what was there in local shops, and guess what? They had this crazy system of selling diapers not in a package but per piece, and it was expensive and really leaky. Once again, we ended up hunting for people who were going to some further markets, and asking them to bring us some normal packages of nappies. Yep, till than, we had quite few wet nights, and...well lots of naked bum time.

8. We booked a flight a bit randomly

I heard some people saying that is actually good to book a night time flight.

A proper example of me hearing a practical tip but not implementing it : )

Our first big flight from OZ to Singapore started around midday , and let me tell you, that was a very hard to forget 8 hours of Bruno being super active and not sleeping at all. To compare with, next step we flew from Singapore to Helsinki, departure at 11 pm, both kids slept 9 hours out of 12.

9. We thought we can fit 4 of us, to a 2 people tent, and sleep on top of 2 single mats.

First thing we did , me and Vathsan as a couple, we bought a great, two people lightweight tent. We absolutely loved it. As our family grew we had to move on to a bigger tent, but we stayed a bit nostalgic about the old one. When Lila invited us for a one night, short weekend camping, we thought: we slept so many times 4 of us on a double bed, we can actually try to fit in, for this one night to that small tent. Ehhh, probably we could, but like good old days, we also took two single mats and they were moving back and forth under our wiggly kids. Children slept mostly in the hole between these mats, on the hard, cold ground. Around midnight they woke up simply upset and we ended up moving to some nearby cabin. Some nice people told us nobody was sleeping there that night and we could use it.

#tips