One of the hardest things about traveling with kids is lugging all the gear! I've spend many hours of my life the past few years trying to find innovative and efficient products that make traveling with little ones easier. Here's a roundup of a few of my favorite products for toddler travel.
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1) Shrunks Toddler Air Mattress:
The perfect solution for toddlers too big for a Pack N Play but perhaps not ready for a big bed without bedrails while traveling. Our daughter used it for a week in Hawaii with no problems. She loved her big girl bed! This air mattress is really lightweight and you can easily bring it as a carryon in the travel bag provided. Another thought: tuck it in the bag you use to check your child's carseat (we buckled ours into the carseat straps to keep it stable, but we separately hand-carried the small air pump that comes along with it so it wouldn't get broken in the checked luggage process).
Much cleaner than rest stops across America! This is a must-have product for road trips where bathroom availability and cleanliness is questionable. Even thought my daughter has been potty trained for almost a full year now and doesn't really have bathroom emergencies very much, we still throw it in the back of our Subaru Outback when we are on the go. We used it last weekend when we were at a public park where the restrooms were really far away.
3) BubbleBum Blow Up Booster Seat:
As our daughter nears the 4 year /40 pound mark, we've been eyeing booster seats as a solution to carseat travel nightmares. In fact, I will admit that we used a booster for a very short ride last week from SNA airport to Disneyland... it wasn't worth the trouble of a huge carseat for such a short trip. Although we currently have a hard booster, we are eyeing this product (which gets great reviews) for even more efficient travel.
Lucy says
I'm glad I'm not the only one who travels with a potty in the car. George almost always uses his when we make our trips to Lynchburg. In less than 2 minutes, we're on the road again : )