The word vacation conjures images of waves gently lapping at the shore, majestic mountaintops and three-course meals. But if you bring your child along, your days away may be filled with diaper changes, sticky hands and nap time showdowns. It’s true that some of these moments may also be memorable, humorous and even fun, but when you travel with kids, you bring the work of parenting along with you.
Vacation, some parents say, isn’t really the right word for it. It’s just parenting in a different place. We wondered: How long do parents have to wait until a family vacation starts to feel like a vacation? At what point do kids start to safely entertain themselves enough that a parent can lie on a chaise lounge poolside long enough to get through more than a few paragraphs in a novel? We asked members of our HuffPost Parents Facebook community to share their experiences.
Here’s what they had to say. “When my son was almost 2 years old, we took a trip to Florida from Philadelphia. First, he refused to sit in the car seat we carried on, so as the plane was taxiing to takeoff, we are putting that away.
Then in the air, he was playing on top of the seats, crawling under the seats, farting so we thought he had pooped, but he did not. There were family dinners he refused to eat, so I had to walk around with him to entertain him. He hated the beach.
Last year, at 8 years old, we took him to Portugal. While I would not say it was relaxing or a ‘vacation,’ it was certainly a.