My wife and I recently took our 4 year old son to London. We received a lot of advice - most of it "oh, don't take a kid on a trip like that". I will say that I'm very glad that we did bring him - we had a lot of fun, and it was great to let him see something different. And it really gave us a perspective that we didn't have before on our Son. It also gave us some ideas of what we did well, and what we would do differently next time.
It was also very interesting, because this was our second trip to London in the past two years. Last time we went, we didn't take Connor - it was just the adults - so it gave us an interesting chance to contrast the two trips and really try and think about what traveling with a child means.
So thats why I'm writing this post. To let you know about our experiences traveling with our 4 year old.
The Good
These were things that we were worried about - but we really didn't need to. They worked out well, and I'd have no problem doing them again.
Flights
My wife and I were horrified that Connor would be a bear on the plane. We had a long flight - 1.5 hours from Boston to Washington DC, a long layover, and then another 6 hours overnight to London. We arrived in London the following morning at 6am.
On the way back we went through Chicago - and it was 8 hours, 3 hours, 2 hours.
Amazingly this part of the trip really wasn't a problem. We told Connor what to expect - and things went pretty much to plan. We packed a videogame for him (the Leapster) - along with a new game, and some music he liked on my iPod. We also had some snacks, and a few cars and planes for him to play with.
That kept him busy the whole flight. No problems at all. He slept on both flights, and things were good.
Getting Around
Getting from point A to point B was one of our worries. We brought a stroller just in case we needed it - or he really wouldn't walk. With a couple of exceptions getting around was ok. We actually didn't use the stroller at all - actually we accidentally left it at the hotel in London.
Connor love the Tube. So taking public transit was one of his favorite things to do. Megan and I liked it less than him. In fact there were times we wanted to try and take a taxi, but ended up on the tube because he wanted to so much.
If you've never been to London, they don't have an "ADA" act (or equilivant) for the old buildings. And everything's old. So in a lot of cases the stroller would have been a bigger pain than just walking and/or putting him on my shoulders.
Jetlag
I've done a lot of travel, so I have my own way of dealing with Jetlag. It worked just fine for Connor. When we took off we changed our clocks. The real key was to make sure that we all stayed up until real bedtime (in this case 10pm) every day - so we were tired. And we didn't nap too much on the first day. That let us adjust pretty easily.
I think Meg and I were hit harder than Connor.
The "Bad"
These are things that we did that we could have planned better - but we didn't think would be problems.
Eating
Typically our son isn't a picky eater (for a 4 year old). In the US we never really have a problem finding him food. He'll eat Mexican, Chinese, Italian, American, Japanese - pretty much anything around here. However he had never been exposed to typical British food - and getting him to try something new can sometimes be a challenge.
Well, breakfasts started the difficulty. Bacon and sausage was different - there were no pancakes or french toast or waffles, the eggs were a little runny - everything was just a little off. So he had ham and toast for breakfast.
By the end of the week he enjoyed Tea - which is what we would do for lunch. He enjoyed the pastries and scones and even the ham sandwiches.
But dinner was tough. Everything was a little different - and he wouldn't bend - he was tired and wanted something normal.
So he ended up having lots of deserts, cookies and chocolate all week - because we didn't have his typical snacks or dinner. We got through the week, but I think that was a big part of the one Ugly moment we had - the highs and lows of sugar.
The only time that dinner was what we expected was when we went to
Giraffe on the recommendation of on of the "London for Kids" books that we got. That was great. They had a kids menu, and a grown-up menu, and it was something that he was used to - I can't tell you how much it helped having a placemat and crayons for coloring at dinner. We even talked about bringing those ourself in the future.
Playtime
This wasn't really "bad", but it was something we didn't think about - but we should have. We ended up spending quite a bit of time just having "playtime".
One time it was a playground in the park, another time it was running around through the leaves in Hyde Park, and often it was playing with toys in our hotel room.
I think that one of the reasons things went so well for is is that we did spend at least a few hours a day playing and relaxing.
Museums
Museums didn't work out well. Connor was just not interested. We tried the Museum of London and the Mews at Buckingham Palace. These things are just
BORING for a 4 year old.
The Ugly
We only had one "ugly" moment. The day before we left I think we pushed Connor's patience a little too far. We took him to Harrod's (a huge department store), and tried to shop with him - for things that we wanted.
Normally we can do this in a mall, and we can keep him busy, but I think the whole week of traveling just had him a little outside his comfort zone.
So we had a complete meltdown.
Now - if this was at home we could drag him to the car, and ride home with him screaming - but we could yell or whatever - and then get home to our house - where noone was watching.
But on Vacation - we could either take public transit (seems like a bad idea with a kid throwing a fit) - or a taxi (still not great, but better) - and then get to the hotel - where the doorman and the lobby staff can hear him say "I never get to eat - I'm so hungry" (the fit was over a piece of chocolate) - making the "walk of shame" that much worse.
When we returned later - we took a new tact. Realizing that we may have been pushing his patience a little too far, we instead took him up to the toy department and one of us stayed with him while he shopped - and we took turns looking for things in the store. For the couple of things we wanted to go together for we just would all go, and then come right back to toys.
Things like shopping that normally would test his patience were just a bad idea in the normal way.
Keeping him distracted worked great, and will definitely be in our arsenal next time.
In conclusion
The trip to London was great. We really enjoyed (other than the meltdown) Connor's company. It was fun to see his perspective on things - seeing things that we already had seen with a kids perspective was really cool - and I think we had a lot of fun as a family.
There are a few things I would do differently next time - but I would definitely do it again:
- Upon arrival, I would buy a bunch of snacks to take with us during the day - healthy ones that he would like and we could stave off the sugar binges
- When shopping, I would have tried to focus more around what he wanted to do - and try the one parent shopping at a time trick - even though its not exactly what we would have wanted as adults - it would have been better than our ugly moment
- I think overall we would have tried to eat at least one more night at a restaurant with a kids menu. We only did one night, and I think having the kid-friendly atmosphere would have been great and helped made him feel more like home one more day.
Well, I think its finally over.
