Currently on vacation with our almost 3 years old daughter in Costa Rica. I feel like I haven’t really gotten to explore this country as I usually like to on my own terms. The activities that we do find for her, often are a failure resulting in a melt down and she just wants to go back to the hotel. She doesn’t even want to play on the beach or at the pool. This trip in Costa Rica she’s been a complete home body, trips outside have been a melt down. So this leads me to the main question.
Does it get easier as they get older? Please tell me it gets easier…
We’ve done a fair bit of traveling with her already. Cabo when she was 10 months old, visiting family members in NY, MA and SC multiple times per year. She’s a great flyer, so no worries there. But when we’re at the destination, everything is very much centered and catered to her. I get it, she’s a toddler.
Photography is a hobby of mine, but it’s impossible to do any sort of composition with a camera while a wiggling child is hanging off my shoulder. We have grandparents traveling with us this trip, and they’ve sometimes been helpful for an hour or two but…man kids are a lot of work. I may need to work with my partner on building in a solo vacation for myself occasionally because traveling to new places with a kid kind of sucks.
Rant over.
I took two international trips with my now 3yo, one to Thailand and one to Bali, when she was one 1/4 and one 3/4. She was pretty happy both trips except some of the longer flights. I decided not to do longer flights while she is toddler age, so we have only done domestic trips this past year, and fortunately she has been pretty good, but I do centre everything around her, and I’m a single parent. I’m waiting till she is probably or 5 for anything longer now, and can recommend the book Hunt Gather Parent for general parenting advice, though the style is a bit annoying I think a lot of tut advice is sound.