This is our first family holiday as a four person family. We are flying north, then driving around for a few days. When you have children that need to be held you can't take too much luggage (and with a pram as well it can all get a bit bulky rather quickly). We are taking one large suitcase and a stroller (as we have a behemouth pram). I'm using packing cells for the first time (look on the Kathmandu website), a tip I picked up from Lovely Wee Days. I used to think this kind of thing was just a wee bit over the top - but having children I see their benefit - one cell each for the children, one for nappies and their paraphenalia. Smaller ones for medications, hairbrushes and hair ties and bibs. Everything stays neatly together. We always take a waterproof dirty clothes bag as well.
With children making sure their basic needs are met makes the holiday a lot more fun. This means a lot of snacks - children don't go long without food. We look forward to stopping for meals along the way, but will need to fuel up. I saw these 'butterfly snacks' on another site about a month ago - but then my husband emptied our internet cache and I couldn't get back to it; unfortunatly I cannot credit them for this. These are tiny snaplock bags with rubber bands around them - If I felt like it I'm sure I could decorate them further. I think coloured popcorn (or popcorn with a tiny bit of food-grade glitter) would look really cool. The best thing is that the bags are reusable so it is a pretty easy trick to re-do a few times.
Two days of bibs - eight! The Poppet is still not a very tidy eater. She is very determined to feed herself at the moment, and it can result in full clothing changes a couple of times a day!
No more hotel rooms for us anymore - it is motels and serviced apartments all the way. Serviced apartments have the bonus of laundry facilities - essential with children. I save all the samples of detergent that I come across for travel. These are great and look a lot less suspicious than travelling with a container of powder! Another trick that I have used with wool wash (don't seem to get samples of this) is to impregnate a muslin with wool wash and place in a snaplock bag - can't spill.
Gone fishin'
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Hi Make Do Mum,
ReplyDeleteI love the snack butterflies, very cool! I don't have children yet but am looking forward to it so always enjoy your ideas and stories about them. I hope you have a fantastic holiday.
Take care, Penny
Emma, Sweets feeding herself is why we have pretty much only used sleeved bibs since she was 6 months old. Also, use an old towel wrapped over her legs. Plus side, less outfit changes (still other laundry obviously).
ReplyDelete@giffy - I only have three of those sleeved bibs so might invest in a couple more. I have used your polar fleece floor covering advice to - the Poppet is a thrower. She throws her food off when she is done. On our trip we forgot our little travel chair thing so we just spoon fed her in the stroller or while holding her. It was a lot tidier than letting her do it. We did get very close to running out - we paid $6 to do a load of washing in Rotorua at our motel (Poppet vomit). So glad I took the wool wash.
ReplyDelete@Penny - thanks!! The butterfly snacks were amazingly well received. In fact, we have come back home with a rock butterfly - a butterfly snack bag filled with rocks. The Sweetheart is a bit of a collector, so at least the latest collection is well contained!
ReplyDelete