As mentioned in Rule #5, by the time our son was three years-old, he was already traveling with his own wheelie bag and a backpack. Now that he had his own means of carrying his “treasures”, which helped keep him occupied during long layovers at airports, they also helped in many other ways. Kids love their toys, but they also love their snacks, so Rule #6 for traveling with kids…Snacks, snacks, and more snacks.
Now that are son was schlepping his own bags, it only made sense that we stuffed his bags with his favorite snacks. This not only eased the stress of travel (especially when we had late layovers in airports when all the stores were closed), but it also insured that our son wasn’t eating airport junk-food. During our travels we made sure that we stocked his bags with the same healthy snacks he was accustomed to eating at home. Nuts and fruit will travel. Also, my wife and I made it habit to include him in the travel planning by asking our son what snacks he plans on packing for the trip (this kind of goes back to Rule #5).
What my wife and I have learned is that kids love snacks, and they’ll pretty much go anywhere as long as theirs snacks.
