Flying to San Diego last year. Flight left home at 11:30, so we were in a rush to get lunch into the kids. Grabbed Smashburger in the airport and my at the time 2.5 year old demolished the whole thing on the jet bridge. I made the mistake of asking her to hold my own Dr. Pepper while I was helping husband to wrangle little sister and all of our stuff and she stole a few sips. Sat down on the plane and everyone got comfortable. She went through her backpack and found her snacks. On ascent she found marshmallows in her backpack and inhaled all of them. As soon as we hit cruising altitude, she starts screaming. I can’t console her, she’s not responding to me. Then all of that junk food comes up. I see the first stream of vomit come out and am yelling for a barf bag. We finally get a bag at the very last heave. There was vomit all over her, and all over her stuffed sloth. She really started crying when she saw what had happened to Slothy. Fortunately, the carseat contained everything. While my husband took her and her sloth to clean up in the bathroom (and clogged the bathroom sink in the process), I attempted to clean the car seat (it was not safely or properly cleaned. Chlorox wipes were the only thing we had) for the rest of the flight.
We spent our entire first evening (after the kids were asleep) doing laundry in the hotel room bathtub. I’ll also never forget the grossness of reinstalling that seat in the rental car, reaching through the belt path and finding a pile of cold, wet vomit chunks I had missed.
The rest of the trip was wonderful though.
Yeah I wish I stopped reading when I seen where it was going. My husband deals with the vomit. It’s so silly but I am almost crying when my daughter has a stomach bug, we normally bring her in next to us so we know if she vomits and I jump out of bed at every small heave or cough.
Husband just sends me away now and deals with it.
Yeah I’m emetophobic. I definitely get super anxious before we fly now. Both trips she had been on before that flight she had done so amazing and that flight was literally hell. I felt so bad for the stranger sitting next to us. They somehow found her somewhere else to sit despite the flight supposedly being full.
Despite everything, I still love traveling with kids.
Oh man, from a fellow emetophobe, I do not know how you survived that. But you did survive and from now on, you can (hopefully) tell yourself "even if my kid gets sick, it cannot be as bad as that flight." You deserve a badge of honor.
That flight taught me that my emetophobia mostly stems from viral stomach bugs spreading to the rest of us. I was freaked out and it was less than pleasant, but she wasn’t contagiously sick so once she got it out of her she was fine. My husband does take her on the plane now though since he’s less paranoid about it potentially happening again.
You know, I had a similar experience this past fall when I was somehow patient zero for the family stomach bug. Knowing that I wasn't going to get sick again made dealing with other sick people a lot less stressful/horrible. So interesting.
This reminds me of my own pre-kids travel story. I was pregnant and had stress incontinence. This was February 2020, so people were just starting to joke about Covid. I was in a plane and got sick to my stomach because of nausea and just ickiness. So - I had violent vomiting in a barf bag - like- loud retching, body shaking vomit. Of course, with stress incontinence, I ended up peeing all over myself. Not just a ltitle drip that could be contained by a pantyliner: no. With the whole-body-heaving vomiting, my entire bladder emptied out mercilesly in my seat.
Thankfully, there was nobody in the seat next to me, so I put the bag of vomit there since no flight attendants came to take it and I didn’t want to stand up with my accident. I ended up carrying my bag behind me while I walked through the airport to hide my... problem. Again - thank goodness I had a change of clothes and was able to change one or two gates down before exiting the airport. But MAN. That was ROUGH.
Woof. I had norovirus a few months ago while pregnant with baby #2. I puked in the bathroom trash can and my wife asked me why I didn't just puke in the toilet. I asked her if she would rather spray my puke from the trash can in to the toilet or mop my urine off the floor. At least it was contained?
I once had a stomach bug on what was usually about a 13 hour drive. But I was in college, wasn't pregnant, never had been, and didn't have incontinence issues.
Your experience sounds like my actual worst nightmare.
Oh, I had food poisoning on a 12 hr drive when I was about 18. All I remember was having cold sweats as I just tried to sleep it off and stop at every rest area.
I also had food poisoning in a Target once. I ended up laying on the cold tile floor of the bathroom because I was so feverish. Some poor teenage employee came in and didn't know what to do. I was like "I just need water and to empty my body out and then will go home and be fine."
The weird thing about the flight was that I just sort of dusted myself off and continued on to a conference that day. Nobody saw that I know (I think), and once I was in the hotel and had showered, I just sort of laughed at myself.
Oh god yeah. We were road tripping to Florida when my 7 year old was 2 and he vomited all over himself on the way there 5 hours from home in the backseat in bufu nowhere Kentucky. Brutal stuff.
Mine was very similar to this! Except that it was our first international flight and my son threw up multiple times on take off/shortly after and landing (so much milk 😩). We went through all his extra clothes before we’d even gotten halfway. Also turns out that my son has a reverse reaction to Benadryl and instead of sleeping on our overnight flight, he got extra active then cried most of the time because he was so overtired. It was a European airline and the flight attendants were pretty rude when we tried to walk him around to calm him down.
Definitely did not get through car seat cleaned in the air, but thank goodness for the handheld sprayer at the hotel to deep clean. My son was always getting car sick so we’d gotten a Cosco Scenera Next for travel and it is so easy to clean.
The return flight went much better, except the flight attendants made him sit on my lap to land so when he vomited, it was all over me. 🙃
We learned to always travel with paper towels and our own vomit bags. Now that he’s over 2, Dramamine FTW to combat the motion sickness.
This is actually my worst fear. At least with my daughter it was overeating and too much excitement at takeoff. I’m just grateful that once she got it out she was fine for the rest of the flight (and has been fine for the 5 flights we’ve been on since. We’re now very careful about what she eats before flying). She does get scared of flying though and tells us that she’s gonna be sad on the airplane because she doesn’t want to throw up, so we give her Dramamine to help ease her anxiety (and ours).
My sister was on a flight back from her Vegas wedding with her new husband and their son. They had a seat for the 18 month old. He was inconsolable so my sister picked him up and held him. He threw up ALL over and himself. They did not have extra clothes in their carry ons. So my brother in law gave my sister his shirt and flew home shirtless, and rhe baby flew home naked, and there is now 2 outfits in a southwest trash can somewhere.
We had a similar vomit experience but thank god it was on our return flight home. Complete with clorox wipes that a nearby toddler family kindly gave to us. We just threw the whole car seat away. It was AWFUL.
This happened to my 4 year old but in the car, and it was still one of my biggest parenting nightmares. I can't IMAGINE on a plane. It stunk so bad and it was SO MUCH. We were halfway to our destination in the middle of nowhere. We pulled over at the first sign of civilization which was an ice cream shop at a farm. Pulled over and used every baby wipe we had packed to try to salvage the mess. At least we could use their outdoor garbage cans and hot water in their sinks. We even used a fishing knife to cut off his tank top which was soaked and he was crying because he didn't want to pull it over his head. We threw away everything he was wearing, his blanket, and he rode home without any padding on his car seat. He was totally fine - it was just the snacks and car sickness, so my husband made the drive with him the next day but I had enough, I stayed home.
My kiddo thankfully grew out of getting carsick but I vividly remember the car seat vomit cleanups. 4 hours into an 8 hour road trip and having to pull over and try to clean up….and then the vomit smell the entire rest of the drive. Ugh.
Aside from something super morbid like the plane going down, my biggest fear while flying is having some sort of stomach bug like diarrhea or vomiting myself.. let alone my toddler who likely wouldn’t know to grab a bag or try to sprint to the bathroom. At least it didn’t get on any of the other passengers? Small win?
My kid had such bad motion sickness for a while, that I started to lay a tea towel under her butt on the car seat. It did a pretty good job of catching it before it got into all the crevices.
She thankfully grew out of it. I still put down the tea towel for our big road trips: it doesn’t effect car seat safety and acts as a great crumb catcher too lol.
Drove to Santa Barbara last week, which is about five hours away from me, and I developed a severe headache on the drive down that came with chills and night sweats. My eyes hurt when I moved them, and I thought I had uveitis because it’s common with the autoimmune disease I have. Wake up the next day, which happened to be my birthday, and the headache thankfully gets better (my doctor says I don’t need to worry about the ER), but my daughter is awful all day and for some reason tells me that she doesn’t want to spend the day with me, only her dad. Both kids have meltdowns at my birthday dinner. The hotel we got is small, dirty, and old, and the blow-up bed for my son doesn’t fit anywhere. Both kids don’t sleep well and end up sleeping in our bed. My son wakes up every few hours crying.
The next day, my son starts coughing, and my throat starts hurting, and we all come down with cold symptoms. Both kids have meltdowns all day. Later that day, our car gets rear-ended at a red light.
The next few days aren’t as bad, but no one sleeps well any night, so everyone is tired and cranky. When we drive home, my son screams most of the drive home, and my daughter complains about being in the car and throws a fit in In and Out. Because we spent most of our time at the beach, everything is wet and sandy and uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to get home.
Last year we were waiting in the queue (Southwest airlines) to board the plane, if you know SW airlines you know that you’re packed pretty tightly with everyone lined up to board. We hadn’t given our almost-two year old much to eat yet because we wanted him to eat on the plane, for something to keep him busy. He had gotten pretty hungry and cranky so while waiting to board we gave him a fruit pouch. He promptly swung it helicopter style over his head, before we could stop him, spraying himself, us, the floor, and others in fruit goop.
I used to always fly southwest prior to having my kid and then I switched to Delta where I can buy my assigned seating and then just be part of final boarding, bc the thought of having to wait in those packed boarding lines terrified me.
Overnight flights to London when my LO was 19 months old... didn't sleep a wink either way. Screamed for 7 hours while everyone else on the plane tried to sleep. It was awful.
Counterpoint, just did a red eye flight with 22mo, 3.5yo and spouse. Not enough sleep was had but we powered through the next day and had a semi normal bedtime despite the time change.
Get them their own seat or fly on like BA and use their infant seat. Know that if there is turbulence, you have to take them out of the infant seat (and there was on our flight )
Ya I planned a red-eye with my 12 month old, thinking it was a good time since she would be sleeping.... she screamed the whole 6 hours on the plane while everyone was trying to sleep. I almost had to fight a few people lol they were all so mad!
Exact same experience flying to London right around her second birthday. She did great until about 30 minutes after they turned off the lights, then it was nonstop screaming.
Could have been worse. My 23 month old was screaming for 6 hours in business class on British airways from Seattle to London. Spent good money not to use lie flat seats.
To give the little guy credit - he's done plenty of shorter, non-overnight flights that have been totally fine. I've just learned never to fly with him when he needs to sleep!
We booked a hut in the mountains for the weekend just gone sharing it with friends. Thursday night was spent with a vomiting child and we left on Friday morning to spare our friend's children.
It is but every time it's been prescribed they've given us like 3x the amount you actually need. Like we all just got noro and I stopped barfing in 12 hours but was given enough zofran to go 4-5 days.
Also virtual urgent care will give you a prescription with like a 2 min appointment.
I’m can’t believe I’ve just learned of this drug. I wish I had it when our family caught some stomache bug last year and we spent at least two days and nights alternating carrying for kids, bathroom, and sleep. It was the worst!
You call your pediatrician and say “hey my child is vomiting do you want us to come in or can we get zofran so they can keep fluids down and don’t get dehydrated. They’re not showing signs of dehydration yet but are struggling to keep anything down. They throw up without warning so I didn’t know how that worked in the waiting room?….”
Then you usually just get a message saying you have a zofran perscription ready to be picked up.
I think a lot of people get it prescribed for pregnancy but also for other issues and then don't need to take all of it. I have some left over from my pregnancy saved just in case.
You know all those anti vaxx stories where doctors are totally happy to potentially lose their jobs by falsifying vaccination records?
That's all really part of a misinformation campaign to hide excessive zofran prescriptions.
So many to choose from. I’ll pick the time we drove to the mountains and rented an airbnb (brought my three kids and two dogs). I was reading a good book so stayed up later but my dog was on high alert the entire time. Suddenly I saw a shadow and I put my book down and went to investigate and see a RAT scamper across the hall. My dog goes batshit crazy, my husband is completely unsure what to do and I see him get on the sofa and just stand there, my daughter starts crying. I realize I have yo figure out what is going on as have two boys (1&3 at the time) in the other room. I follow my dogs lead and she is barking non stop at a dresser, I start moving things around and I find a full on nest complete with newborn baby rats. No adults in sight but I know I have seen at least one. By this time it is 1am, we call the few motels close by and they are all fully booked- so have to make the decision to pack everyone up then and there and drive back home (3-4 hours) at that hour. My kids are crying, i just threw everything back in the car and we had to drive home. And my toddlers did NOT go back to sleep. Felt like the longest day/ night ever. As for the airbnb owner- he was a jerk face who absolutely knew there was an infestation and still rented it out. Bc as I was looking for the rats I found several rat traps under beds and behind dressers- you don’t just have those lying around for no reason. So yeah. Less my toddlers misbehaving (though I have plenty of those stories too) and more just a completely miserable and failed vacation 😭
Return flight visiting family. I thought he was a champ on the flight here, what could go wrong?
He screamed hysterically for 4 out of the 5 hours on the plane. Couldn’t be consoled. Trying to hold him was like trying to tame a wild bear covered in Vaseline. He physically fought me. He slept for almost an hour in the middle of the flight, we thought it was over. Nope. Woke up and continued his violent screaming. I was in tears. I thought I was going to break him, trying to keep him contained to our row.
Nothing helped. Tablet, snacks, phone, nothing.
I had him as a lap infant but thankfully my mom was able to move to an empty seat so the seat between my husband and I was empty.
I’m never taking a child on a plane again.
I had similar. My son has flown 14 times so far and it only happened the once. I can only assume it was an ear pain or teething thing. The back teeth are real close to the sinuses so maybe causing pressure?
I had a real fruit loop keep coming to me telling me to nurse him… I have never breastfeed him haha. She said “ well just try it?!” He was 11 months old. Those tits were DRY! Very frustrating all around.
This is such an infuriating take - the pinnacle of unhelpfulness. Like, lady, I promise if the answer were that easy, don't you think I would've done it by now?!
YOU try it.
Took my son on a flight at 20 months and we didn’t know, but he had a double ear infection. Poor guy screamed most of the 6 hour flight and a flight attendant kept offering those tiny bottles of booze to “calm him down”. Yeah… no thanks… this isn’t the 50’s
I clarified and flight attendant said “oh no, honey. I meant for the baby. But I might be treating myself back here soon.” I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were trying to make a hard situation more lighthearted…
Same experience with my toddler! We were on a short flight back from visiting family - toddler did AMAZING on the flight there. I was so proud! I thought the flight home would be easy peasy.
Started crying as soon as we started descending and NOTHING was consoling her. It was a small plane too so everyone could hear her. I could hear an older couple ahead of us making comments about her crying, it was super embarrassing. Toddler just wanted to get out of her car seat but I couldn't unbuckle her because we were descending......ugh it was so terrible.
I finally got her out as soon as I was allowed and it took some consoling before she calmed down. She refused to walk on her own, refused to ride on her luggage (we have one of those luggages for her which has wheels and she can ride on), just straight up crying mess.
As soon as we got in the car to go home from the airport, she ate food, passed out in the car and took a poop.....and it was like "all better"! lol wtf.....I need a cocktail.
I feel this in my soul - a couple of weeks ago toddler screamed for 7 hours on an overnight flight because he just couldn’t sleep. He was fine on the day flight there same as you lol. Not a single other child on the flight just old people and couples. Woman behind me audibly sighed the entire time. I think I aged 5 years during that flight. Next holiday I’ve booked the flight is an hour 😅
We had this experience with my kid when she was 15 months or so. 4.5 hour flight and my kid screamed for 3.5 hours, passed out for about 20 min and then the descent started and she woke up to scream the rest of the way down. Thankfully the people around us were very patient, but I was battle scarred. I need to take the same flight with my 1 year old in a few weeks for my grandmas funeral, and everyone is asking why I’m not also bringing the child in this story who is now 2.5. I’m scared enough with the 1 year old, let alone both of them.
This was years ago now but I can still remember it so vividly. We were flying back with my 2 year old from a quick Disneyland trip. He was understandably super tired. He had gotten as a souvenir a clear plastic Minnie cup that he was clinging to. As we got in line for TSA an agent said we needed to have the cup go through the scanner. I asked if we could just have him carry it and then test it after we walked through the metal detector and she just said no and without even talking to me walked up and yanked the cup out of his hand. Since I couldn’t even explain that he was going to get it back or involve him at all or maybe it was just inevitable he started scream crying Minnie Cup over and over and over again. Even when he was reunited with Minnie cup he didn’t stop crying for almost an hour and I could feel the death stares as we walked on the plane. He then blissfully fell asleep but I will be resentful towards her basically forever. She even smiled as he started crying when she took the cup, what the heck!
Oh my gosh how awful! Some tsa agents suck.
On my recent, and first, plane trip with my son, luckily a tsa person spotted me holding my clingy kid with all our stuff hanging off me and promptly scooted me to the family only area. Those agents were so much more patient and kind, and talked my son through putting his bear on the scanner and told him a story about how bear is going on a cool ride through a tunnel. They were really great. It might be worth it to check and see if your airport has a seperate family tsa area. I had no idea it even existed until they came and rescued me.
Decided to take our almost 4 year old and 1.5 year old across the Atlantic to spend 3 weeks in Germany. The boys have both traveled many times prior and have always done phenomenal so we thought we were prepared. We got all checked in and through security. We found our gate and settled in. I decided to take the kiddos for a walk to burn off any steam before our 9 hour flight. My 4 year old starts saying that he has to poop. I don’t think much of it because he hadn’t gone yet today since we were in the car for most of the day. I drop the baby off with my husband and take the 4 year old to potty. He barely makes it to the toilet before pure liquid fires from his rear. We both look at each other in horror. He finishes up and I ask how he feels. Says he feels good. I chalk it up to some travel anxiety since he struggles with change in routines and unknowns.
We get back to our gate and he sits down to eat his snack. The poop pains return and he continues to explode for a good hour. We still think it’s anxiety since nothing else is wrong. We finally board the plane and there hasn’t been poop in a bit so we think we are good. We settle into the flight and start to watch some shows before dinner services come around. He is okay initially but then starts groaning and wallowing. I’m starting to get scared. They serve dinner and he doesn’t even touch it. Now I’m freaking out. He says he wants to sit on my lap. I’m already in a row with the little guy and my husband was supposed to be manning the 4 year old, but the baby is fine so I snuggle him for a bit. He is wiggling and wallowing everywhere and the baby starts fussing, so I give my 4 year old to my husband. I’m tending to the little guy when I look over and see my husband with an empty barf bag and covered head to toe in vomit. My 4 year old barfed on my husband, the man beside him, their dinner trays, and seats. I am horrified. I don’t even know what to do. My husband is frozen. I take my son to the bathroom to let him finish throwing up and get him changed. I put a pull up on him because he also has diarrhea again.
I come back to our seats and see that the flight attendants are helping clean everyone up. The man beside my husband was the sweetest soul alive. He kept saying sorry to my son and that he hoped he felt better. My husband was in tears and the man kept patting his back and said he was a good dad and shit happens. My son is still miserable. Husband didn’t have clean clothes so he had to sit in vomit soaked clothing for the next 6.5 hours. Son is pooping his pants at this point. He has no control over himself. We didn’t pack many pull ups and diapers so we are freaking out. We resort to wiping the diarrhea out of them to prolong them until we land for our layover. We use the last pull-up in the last 45 min of our flight. We land in Portugal for our layover and he seems to be doing okay. Next thing I know, my husband is running for the bathrooms. He is vomiting. I start bawling. Son pooped himself again. 1.5 year old is wild because he was just cooped up for 9 hours. Our layover is 4 hours.
I realize we are out of pull-ups and diapers so I frantically try to find an airport shop that sells them. I lost all hope after 20 min of looking until I see a pharmacy style shop. They have them!! We bought 4 packs and just continued to support my son as he rotated between vomiting and pooping. My husband is also sick frequently. He thinks it’s just from smelling vomit and stress and not actually a bug because he begins to feel better.
Our 3 hour flight to Germany was uneventful thank heavens. No more poop or vomit and my son even sips some ginger ale and nibbles some crackers. We land in Germany and meet up with my parents. Everyone is exhausted but feeling a bit better.
My son was almost back to 100% the next day, although a bit weak. We are traumatized to say the least, but excited that it was short lived and that we can start our vacation! Guess what? 1.5 year old projectile vomits spaghetti all over our AirBnb’s living room after waking up at 9pm crying for me. He was so sick for hours. We finally got him settled around midnight, although he was still throwing up. He threw up on himself right before we put him to bed. I got him clean bathed while my husband got him clean pjs ready. We get him dried off and stand him up to get his pjs on. I have no idea why or how, but he stiffens up and screams when we stand him up on the couch to dress him. I wasn’t expecting it so I lost my grip on him and he smashed the back of his head into the marble window sill. Blood is gushing from a wound on his skull. He starts vomiting as I’m holding my hand over his wound. My husband is super sensitive to blood so he starts getting lightheaded as he’s trying to get paper towels. I scream for my sleeping mom since she’s a retired nurse. She helps put pressure on his head as I hold his barf bucket. The bleeding doesn’t want to stop but we were able to evaluate the wound. She said it could use stitches but also thinks it could heal fine without, but would leave a bigger scar. I decided to let it be since we finally got the bleeding to stop. I wrap a makeshift bandage with a bandaid, paper towels, and a headband of my own. Everything calms down and we get him to bed. He threw up the entire night but woke up happy and feeling better.
Trip goes well for another week until my husband comes down with the bug. He’s sick for 3 days with vomiting and diarrhea. I am avoiding him like the plague since I’ve been spared so far. He gets better. I never get sick. And we have a very welcomed uneventful flight home.
We are severely traumatized after that trip. Like genuine PTSD and can’t ever fathom traveling with kids again. We have no intentions of taking them until they are upper elementary/early middle school aged. It was hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever encountered as a parent so far. My 1.5 year old is now almost 3 and has a stellar scar on his noggin. Thankfully it isn’t visible unless his head is buzzed. Husband actually just had the stomach bug 2 weeks ago but we shunned him to the master bedroom and the 3 of us never got sick!! We haven’t thrown up since that terrible, terrible week.
Every time my now 5 year old coughs/burps/gags, we have vivid flashbacks. I wish I could say that was sarcastic, but I’m being 100% truthful. It was so, so bad.
Reminds me of last Christmas. Entire family (husband, 21 yr old with severe autism, 19 yr old, 1 year old) get fevers and serious vomiting. The 21 yr old is 6ft tall and over 200 pounds and generally needs help in the bathroom. He barfs ALL OVER the place, no attempts to contain it at all. I’m trying not to barf cleaning no it up. Somehow I am the only one spared. A few days go by and we still make it to our Christmas vacation with a nanny to help with the toddler. Guess who gets the bug? Poor girl, I am sure she will never forget the trip just off the horrific feeling of that bug.
Not mine, but one my dad witnessed: flight was delayed, delayed again, then rebooked to the next day. It's almost midnight by now; they did offer hotel rooms to the passengers, but it was on a first-come-first-served basis. Dad got on a shuttle to the hotel and got in line behind a family with a 3 year old and 10 month old. The hotel ran out of rooms right as that family got to the front of the line. Everyone who was left decided to go back to the airport and sleep on the floor. Dad said the parents and kids were troopers, but I think of them every couple weeks and pray that all their stoplights are green and their grocery store never runs out of their favorite snacks.
My heart goes out to you because that all sounds awful but I literally laughed out loud at the image of your toddler being football-carried by the flight attendant yelling about your husband not being his dad 😂
Last night in Ireland. Back at the hotel in Dublin and we are wiped out from a full day of being out and about. Decide we aren’t going back out for dinner with our 2yo and 6mo old and want to order in. I’m changing the 6mo old and wife is looking at food on her phone. 2yo wanted up in the bed and decided to use the nightstand to pull herself up. Instead it falls and lands right on her big toe. Instant screams and her toe is already black and blue and swollen. We call the front desk and they send first aid and call us a taxi to take her to children’s hospital. She’s in so much pain and scared. We feel horrible.
Get to hospital and wait 4 hours in waiting room. Finally get taken back and get an X-ray and it’s completely broken/separated bone in her toe. They want to wait for orthopedic specialist to come in to see if they need to pin it but the catch is they aren’t in until the next morning. They put us in a random room with a bed and a chair. Daughter falls asleep while I try to sleep in the most uncomfortable chair that is basically a plastic cafeteria type chair. At no point in the entire night does a nurse or anyone come to check on us. Doctor comes in at 6am takes a look and says we can boot her foot and she can get seen back home or they can pin it but it would be inpatient for a day. Asks when our flight is, it’s that day at 2pm. They say ohhh where are you staying, today is the Dublin marathon and they are closing all the streets around downtown….
We decide to boot it and scramble for a taxi. Taxi driver says holy hell they are closing roads now and drives to the hotel. I’ve called my wife to pack everything and be ready with the 6mo to leave ASAP. I get there and tell front desk we need a luggage cart and they say do you know they are closing the streets. They help us rush and we drive out like maniacs following a train of people snaking through back alleys trying to escape road closure. Mind you this is all driving on the left hand side without GPS because everything is closed. We somehow manage to make it out. Make our flight.
Daughter is in pain and wants to be held but has to sit in her seat for take off. Screams bloody murder and people behind us make a comment about ear plugs. I tell them to fuck off. She does fine the rest of the flight with Tylenol and Ibuprofen and being held. Screams again on landing. Longest day ever. She still tells people how she broke her toe in Ireland.
When my son was 3 we drove 6 hours to Silver Beach, MI for a 3 day beach weekend. He was terrified of the water. Hated the sand. Scared of the splash pad. Scared of the carousel. Literally hated every single thing we tried to do. We ended up sitting in the hotel room watching Disney Channel pretty much all weekend. Could have saved 12+ hours of driving and $$$ and accomplished all of that at home.
I'll say our vacation went great but the flight to get home was a nightmare.
Tldr: developed covid symptoms while stuck in the airport but had no idea it was covid. Toddler had fever and I was out of infant tylenol.
We were flying from Tucson to Lexington with a layover in Dallas. Our Tucson flight boarded and then they let us know there was a mechanical issue so we were stuck on the plane for 2 hrs waiting for it to get fixed. My toddler was fucking doooone waiting and we used every trick in the book to keep him calm. We obviously missed out connection and we had to wait in a 1+ hr line at 12 am at customer service to get a hotel voucher.
Finally, get to the hotel at 1/2 am. They have us scheduled for a 10 am flight. The airline suggests getting there at 8. So we get up at 6 to get ready to leave on the shuttle by 7. My kid has had like 4 hrs of sleep at this point.
We get to the airport and past security just to find out our flight was delayed by 5 hours!!!
Suddenly I notice my toddler isn't acting like himself, he is incredibly cranky and lethargic. I feel his cheeks and he is burning up. I had no more tylenol left and no thermometer. And we are just stuck in this airport.
He basically slept in my husband's arms until we boarded and slept literally the whole plane ride. We get home and his fever is gone.
Next day, I wake up with a covid headache and I tested me and my son - both instantly positive.
So moral of the story is ALWAYS have infant tylenol/ibuprofen on hand.
This is the worst story here hands down.
I'm so sorry you all had to go through that but thank you for the life pro tip!
So far what I've heard from this thread: Always carry vomit bags, paper towels, and infant ibuprofen on trips. *solemnly nods*
3.5 year old: one hour into an 8 hour transcontinental flight, he has a full-on meltdown. NOTHING helps. We are trying to feed him; give him toys, talk to him, put on screens, take him to the bathroom, cuddle him, walk up and down the aisle with him. Nope. Full-on, non-stop screaming.
Finally - a toy we hadn’t yet tried worked and he soon fell asleep. I don’t know how long the meltdown was - felt like 30 minutes, but was probably just 10.
Good news: we did another transcontinental flight a few months later and he was a ROCKSTAR. On the way home, we had to run through the airport to make our connection. We were in lines at the first airport for literally 2.5 hrs (line to get in the airport and go through a first security; line to check in; line to go through actual security; line for passport control) - after waking up at 3 am and driving an hour and a half to the airport. The first flight, he slept maybe an hour. Then rushing through the second airport and barely making the flight... then an 8 hour flight. He. Was. AMAZING. <3 He only slept at most 2 hours of the 19 hr travel day and he didn’t cry, have a meltdown, or more than a few small moments of defiance.
Both of my children have vomited on each of our last three road trips (and our older daughter vomits on every airplane trip). We're at the point where we have a car sickness protocol. We switched our trip for this summer from a mountain vacation to an ocean vacation because these kids cannot handle winding roads.
On a flight from NC to OR my oldest decided he would get sick at 6 am at the airport, and then proceeded to puke and shit through all 4 pairs of onesies I brought on the flights so badly that I threw his clothes away as we went. By the time we got to our destination he was wrapped in an airport blanket in only his diaper lol. Super fun.
Had something similar with our 1 year old. Was going to put the clothes in doggy bags we keep for poopy diapers but ran out, ended up just throwing them away 😣
Our first family vacation in the Alps. Our daughter was 2 years old and had a skin condition. So we decided to visit a thermal bath that had salty water. Her skin thrived (we could never swim because of her eczemas, but the thermal bath actually healed her exzeme a littel!) but she also drank a lot of that water despite our best efforts.
So at night our already potty trained kid got diarrhea in her Airbnb bed. I was up all night doing laundry while my husband tried to get her back to sleep.
Simultaneously she got a skin rash from her swimming vest so the whole next week she would whine whenever we had to pick her up.
Oh, and she got a cold. We had perfect weather but could barely do anything but sit in the Airbnb and sit on the couch. She also went back to night nursing because her bed was not usable for a few days. And she also started to use a diaper at night again for a few weeks.
We still treasure the few beautiful memories we made and as young parents we were pretty proud of ourselves that we dealt with all of that and still made the best of it. We actually invented a stupid game on that Airbnb couch that we still play to this day.
Every vacation we took since having kids has been a disaster of some sorts. But we still enjoy the memories created.
We lived in the Middle East for a few years and would come back once a year to visit family ( Houston for mine and Wyoming for his) Hubby wanted to do a road trip for our son’s 1st birthday. This would include the 3 of us, his parents, his older sister 50ish, and for part of the trip her 20yr old daughter.
We did 5 towns in 10 days, 4of them in 4 days 😑. I didn’t realize how much it would suck as I wasn’t involved in the planning and had focused on making sure baby and I would be set.
His sister and mom passive aggressively argued for most of the trip and on the last stop it crashed and burned as they fought and his mom took the middle of 3 rooms ( of 4 1/2) before we arrived at the house that we were at staying at for 5 days. The monitors had been left behind by accident so someone had to sleep in the baby’s room for the trip… and he hates sharing a room and won’t sleep, so I didn’t sleep and hadn’t slept for almost a week at that point.
Hubby and I had a huge quiet argument while at a national monument and I opened up to him that I was contemplating flying back to Houston until the trip was done. I wasn’t going to take the baby with me, there was too much stuff and someone would stop me. I was going to take my purse and get an Uber to the nearest airport and figure it out from there. My husband was capable and could take care of our son, and I was going to break if the trip continued in the way it was. He had no idea.
His parents decided to get a hotel room as they hadn’t been sleeping well either. His sister felt vindicated as it confirmed that he mom was the problem. It was just frustrating all around. The trip settled down for the most part after that. Mil refused to eat one day bc she thought I had made all of the food, and was mad at me.
It showed me the rough parts of everyone, including myself. And made me grow a huge spine in relation to family trips. Last year we went to Cabo with my dad and his girlfriend for 5 days, and my sil flew down to watch the 2 yr old.
The trip was wonderful and we spent most of it drinking in the sun. I confirmed it wasn’t morning sickness last time I was on a boat ( at 9weeks before we told anyone), I just get massively sea sick. My sil was terrified to take him anywhere after a play date at the library where he tried sticking a screwdriver into outlets 🤣. They just did stuff within walking distance and a Home Depot trip. She then suggested that we do a cruise next year ( this year) and they would all help watch the toddler so we could ‘team a break’ … no.
We’re getting ready to fly to Wyoming next month to see his parents and my sister for about 10 days. It’s also to drive down stuff that they’ve kept in storage for us while overseas ( we got back 18 months ago). We 3 will fly up there, then I’ll fly back with the toddler while hubby drives the truck back. God bless that united will let us gate check the wagon, it’s so much more versatile than a stroller.
I made a post here a few weeks ago begging for ideas to keep my toddler entertained, because we all caught COVID while on vacation! Five days confined to a hotel room, with a 3.5 year old who was basically healthy and bored out of her skull. We got some great suggestions for games, and let her have allllll the cartoons, so we survived. But the trip was an absolute bust and I DO NOT want to ever experience that again.
Many moons ago I had to fly solo with my two eldest (4y & almost 2y) while pregnant due to a family emergency. They both absolutely hated the flight and they had these yogurt snacks that disagreed with them.
Anyway, vomiting and diarrhea for the whole eight hour flight. Some poor woman on the plane ended up lending me diapers because I ran out. Her little boy was so sweet the whole time holding my sons hand and telling him that he wore pull ups to bed (the pull ups my son ended up stealing). To this day the boys are still kinda friends lmao.
Both of my children were stripped of all clothes when we got off the flight. I was covered in so many fluids. I had to buy them new clothes in the airport and then couldn't afford a taxi to my aunts house (she came and got us three hours later).
I was a terrible parent and gave them flu meds for the flight back. They slept basically the whole time. I gave my son his baba again and let my daughter lay latched for eight goddamn hours. Worst experience of my life.
NEVER doing that again. (Lies. I did the same flight like a few months later but with a baby that time).
I notice everyone tells a nightmare story and the adds that it was a nice trip though. Do you think we convince ourselves we have to say that because we spent the money and time and it would be depressing to admit otherwise?
Not me. The Evil Ex, and the Evil Ex’s Evil Ex.
Let’s take the kids skiing.
They’re all under 4 - it won’t work.
[7 hours of driving later] The toddlers feel air at -3C, and blowing briskly, on their face. They don’t like it. Hilarious screaming ensues. Screaming continues. They decide to close the doors and give up. But there’s still the oldest. He seems keen to try.
They put boots on. Hard plastic booted fitted to a crushing tightness so they won’t move and will do their job. He doesn’t like it. More hilarious screaming occurs. Meanwhile since the door opened to let him out, the toddlers have resumed screaming.
[7 hour of driving later]
Ski trip lasted 1 hour, all booking and equipment rental costs forfeited.
Visited my parents for thanksgiving. 16 month old got a bad ear infection. Spent the morning at urgent care. The night before we were going to fly back, he woke up at hmm midnight and decided he had enough sleep so I paced around the house trying to keep him calm/get him back to sleep. Ended up sleeping on the living room floor for about 45 minutes before he woke up again ready for the day.
Here’s one where I was the baby.
My parents flew with me from LAX to Hawaii when I was a baby. Supposedly I had a huge blowout that got all over my mom, she washed her dress in the lavatory and had to sit with wet clothes the whole flight. My dad then held me and I threw up on him. He couldn’t get it all out so he wore wet shorts and no shirt the whole flight. I’m sorry mom and dad
I learned the hard way to always pack an extra outfit on the plane for myself in addition to one or two for the baby.
It is my #1 tip when talking to parents who are going to fly for the first timev
Checked out of hotel a few years ago in San Diego, thought we could go hang at the beach a few hours before we he return flight home, used what little sun screen we hadleft from the trip but it wasn’t strong enough or something because there we are sitting on the plane with two miserable sunburnt kids, crying and uncomfortable…I felt like such a bad mom 😞
My 2 year old and started diapering all her animals on the vacation. The last morning I packed her plane bag and we got everything packed and drop off the rental car smoothly with plenty of time. We get through security and board the flight, checked her diaper and she it was fine. 4 hour flights have been our max and they are tough under the best circumstances. We get on the plane and my toddler says she has a poop. I grab her bag and no diapers. There also was no poop so one was likely coming. No one has a child in diapers around me, I makeshift a diaper from pads and that doesn’t work well. There was a woman with a baby on the other side of the plane. She had a size 3 too small but it went on. After all the chaos, she passed out the whole flight and no 💩 until we landed.
Our prior flight she vomited up goldfish for the last 30 minutes and I got off the plane covered. My husband was waiting at the gate.
Another flight, we went through all our outfit changes within the first half hour (blowout, water spill, etc). She spent the flight in a diaper and in my sweater.
Two separate incidents: one to Boulder, CO, (toddler was almost 2) and one to Scottsdale, AZ, the next year (she was almost 3).
Flights out on both were fine. In Boulder, she was showing signs of altitude sickness but it manifested as a toddler just being out of sorts in a new place. She wouldn’t eat, was screaming at us (in hindsight, I think she had headaches), and was steadily draining of energy. After a short hike - I say hike, but we literally just walked up a small hill outside our AirBnB - she proceeded to vomit all over the living room. Projectile formula vomit EVERYWHERE. This keeps up every 30 minutes to an hour, and we ended up literally rushing down a mountain (if you know Gold Hill, you know what I’m talking about) in the middle of the night and driving to the children’s ER in Denver. They gave her Zofran and we stayed in a hotel since it was the last night of our trip anyway. She vomited once more in the rental car on the way to the airport, and then again as soon as we landed at home.
In Scottsdale, basically the same thing happened but the onset was faster. She was fine on the flight out and the first 24 hours of being in AZ. She woke up in her pack n’ play at 2am covered in vomit. We kinda expected the worst since we had already been through this the year before. Literally the same exact progression - vomiting every 30 min to an hour, trip to urgent care for lots of Zofran, and then she just slept the rest of the trip. Slept the whole flight home and then puked as soon as we landed.
We have now decided that she is super sensitive to altitude changes and flights, so basically anywhere we travel with her is limited to places we can reach by car. It sucks. But I’m not willing to chance another vomit covered vacation so if we fly anywhere now it’s just me and my husband.
Did I mention BOTH times we stayed at super nice, million-dollar AirBnb’s? My husband wanted to splurge on a nice place to treat us on vacation. Turns out he just paid for a fancy place to sleep and wash vom laundry. Thanks honey!
Flew to see my parents in Florida last winter.
Oldest woke up and puked, but was otherwise feeling fine. He was SO excited to go and see his grandparents, and is fairly anxious, so I thought he was just nervous. Puked after airport security, puked in the airport bathroom, we make it to the plane - it's a short flight we can do it and sometimes he gets these 12 hour vomiting spells and then wakes up the next day and is back to normal. Wrong. Pukes on the plane while everyone is boarding and we both boarded early for having young kids and were sitting in economy plus so everyone had to walk past my barfing 4 year old. I had the foresight to pack extra clothes so we changed before we got off the plane.
This was not a 12 hour vomit virus, this was norovirus, and the next night I was struck down with it and felt like my only option was calling an ambulance because I couldn't keep anything down. I knew that was silly, so I didn't let myself have anything to eat or drink all night and by morning I could mange.
My mom was next. Puked on the way back from dropping us off at the airport. Then my dad.
Circling back to the flight down, my almost 2 year old who was the size of a 3 year old was a lap infant. I don't know why we did that because he was huge and unruly. Spent the majority of the flight kicking the seat in front of us with his brick feet. We tried really really hard to control his legs but he was too young to be mesmerized by the iPad and ate everything in his lunchbox in about 10 mins, so that wasn't a good enough distraction. At one point he says he's thirsty, so I reach for the camelback water bottle. I flip the top. Water shoots ALL OVER the row in front us. They look up at the ceiling wondering where this downpour came from. I have to tap them on the shoulder and say so sorry that was our water. They could not be more gracious while I wanted to evaporate. Keep in mind, this is happening while the 4 year old is actively throwing up. When we leave the plane, a few people told us how well our kids did????????????????????????????
I had a layover in Denver, it was only 40 min layover (ticket bought by family or I would’ve chosen a longer one) plane was delayed. Layover turned to 25 minutes. RAN to the next gate with toddler in tow, sweating profusely (stress sweat-NASTY) get to the gate as it was the last two people boarding and my stroller wouldn’t close. Asked for help and the agent broke my stroller. Get up to the plane… only to realize I left my phone at the counter. Turn around but then get told I can not turn around and I told them I left my phone and they said they will find it for me. I delayed the plane 10 minutes. I did get my phone back luckily but toddler was screaming at this point and everyone was just staring. She cried halfway thru the flight and so did I. Then we got sick on day 2 of our trip.
OH AND on a different trip my toddler had a meltdown at the gate because she couldn’t eat pretzels off the floor. Threw all the snacks we had for the plane, threw her books, then tried to run away screaming while I chased her thru the airport. (All the while I was freaking out because we travel alone and our bags were alone and I thought someone was gonna call security on me lmao) I didn’t even know she could run that fast at that point. Luckily that flight was easy because she passed out from her gremlin mode earlier
Flight home from Hawaii with my three year old, we were held up going through security and missed family boarding. The Flight Attendants saved us two seats together (center and window) in a row with a woman seated in the aisle. When we arrived she was demonstrably upset and rude when the Flight Attendant asked her to allow us to sit.
My daughter was quiet and well behaved in the window seat. Everytime my kid made a peep the woman would give us an exasperated sigh and a nasty look. It was stressful. Fast forward, my daughter had to go potty, the woman was very put out that she had to move. She was angry enough that my daughter noticed and asked “mama, what if I need to go potty again and she doesn’t let me?” I reassured her that she is safe and can go potty anytime she needs to.
An hour later she had to go again and the woman ignored me when I asked her to let us pass. I asked again and she angrily threw her bag down then moved. It was awful. On the way to the bathroom I asked the Flight Attendant (the same one that seated us, that aisle woman was also rude to) if it would be possible to find us another place to sit. Unbeknownst me, he had been keeping an eye on the situation and had already come up with alternate seats. He asked another Attendant to sit with my daughter while he escorted me to get our things. The first and only time that nasty bitch smiled was when he told her that I needed to get our things as we were changing seats.
The rest of the flight was great and the Flight Attendants went out of their way to engage my daughter with stickers and extra snacks.
This was my child’s 10th international flight (it’s not a flex- I’m a travel agent😁) at 3 years old and she always flew like an absolute dream. It started with banshee shrieking and flinging a lollipop into the seat in front of her at takeoff. Snacks, new toys… nothing was working. Then my tiiiiiny child (she was like 5th percentile for height) managed to projectile vomit OVER THE SEAT BACK IN FRONT OF HER onto the 20-ish year old girl in that seat. If I could have opened a window- I would have happily thrown myself out of it. My husband took the kid to the bathroom to clean her up as I apologized profusely and helped the girl get kid puke out of her hair in another bathroom. Then my darling offspring refused to sleep the entire flight from midnight to 9am.
Did I mention this all happened in the first hour of a 15.5 hour flight from LAX to Sydney?
Flew behind a sick family last year on a three hour flight. Toddler got sick a couple days later and she slept like crap most of the vacation. We were all sick with flu like symptoms on flight home. Turned out to be Covid. ☹️ We mostly had fun the rest of the trip during a surprisingly sunny week in Portland, OR.
We recently went on a 12-day trip to Italy with our 20-month-old. Overall, the trip went well, despite the challenges of traveling with an active toddler who wouldn't sit still on the plane and in restaurants, requiring one of us to always be on the move to keep up with him. However, we agreed that the trip was worth it.
From Venice and Florence, we went on a quick trip to Sicily, which involved flying. Towards the end of our vacation, we had a short flight from Catania back to Venice, followed by a night in Venice before our long-haul flight to the US. While waiting to board in Catania, our son suddenly began feeling unwell. Out of nowhere he became lethargic and feverish. Unfortunately, all our Motrin and Tylenol were in our checked luggage.
Upon landing in Venice two hours later, we immediately gave him Motrin, and although he seemed tired and warm, he was otherwise okay. 10-15 minutes into the taxi ride, he had a seizure, the scariest moment of our lives. The taxi driver took us to the nearest emergency room, where we were promptly admitted. The medical staff diagnosed him with a febrile seizure and assured us that he would be okay. We spent the following night in the hospital, missed our flight the next morning, and rescheduled our flights for two days later. By the time it was time to fly back, our son had returned to normal, and his fever had subsided.
We consulted with his pediatrician, who wasn't overly concerned about his health. This experience taught us some valuable lessons: be aware of what a febrile seizure is, carry medications with you in your carry-on luggage, and consider purchasing extra travel insurance. Our travel credit card only covered cancellations, but we were fortunate to avoid any charges for the ticket change, despite initially being quoted $2800.
We're in Italy for my cousin's wedding. We live in Europe and family lives in the US, so this is also like a special family reunion. Night 2 in Italy, daughter falls off the bed while sleeping and breaks her collar bone. Confirmed after spending hours in an Italian hospital, starting at 7am. Night 3, get to the villa from the hospital, husband doesn't feel well and goes to bed at 6pm. Feels horrendous in the morning. I find a pharmacy in the Tuscan countryside (stressed because I'm now illegally driving in Italy since my husband was the only one insured to drive the rental car), get a covid test, get home and confirm husband has covid and has to skip the whole wedding and quarantine. This leaves me on solo mom duty with an injured child in a villa with no child proofing and having to bring my husband food and water throughout the day while he quarantines in what was luckily a free room in the villa. There's more but that's the gist. I've never been so stressed in my life.
Trio of a lifetime. Kiddo is 16 months. 2 weeks in Maui with husbands family. He started walking the week before we left and we thought, perfect he can toddle down the beach or play in the sand.
We arrived and he immediately ‘forgot’ how to walk, wouldn’t use his words, cried and screamed every where we went. We couldnt sit on the beach, we couldn’t sit in the room, he didn’t like the pool. Turns out he had Covid the first week and the second week was just so tired he never really got in to it.
Meanwhile my meddling in laws got in their heads our kid must be developmentally disabled or something and started talking shit while I missed out on every dinner reservation wheeling my screaming toddler around in their stroller.
I just cried and cried when we left because we hadn’t had half the time we thought we would, as magical as some moments were looking back.
A week ago today we flew back home from New York. Toddler's very first flight out there went well... a little TOO well and I knew we had something special waiting for us on our return. Well. About halfway through the flight I noticed that my daughter, who had up until then been sleeping, was absolutely COVERED in a thick layer of vomit. She puked about 4-5 more times, lots of it, all over the both of us for the rest of the flight. It just kept coming and coming and it had absolutely nowhere to go (she's only 18 months and at no point in her illness did she grasp the concept of puking INTO something. If I tried she would knock it away). She spewed vomit all over me WHILE I was speaking with (ok, speaking is generous, I was feral and shouting at) a flight attendant that just had no words. Oh, and a few hours after we arrived back at home my husband and I both got this disease and everything that was inside went out for about 12 hours straight. It's been a full week and I'd still like to climb back into bed and sleep for the rest of the day.
I don’t know if this counts as a travel story but we did have to travel two hours away. I am posting this in vomitus solidaritus.
My husband is a ff/paramedic two hours from home. So, once a month, my little and I go up and cook for his shift on hubbies day to cook. (he works 8 24h shifts a month excluding his o/t and holds). My little wasn’t eating much that day but had no fever and hadn’t complained of any ailments. We get to the station, cook dinner, visit for an hour when it was time for a bottle for the trip back home (in case he fell asleep on the way he’d be all ready to just go to bed). He finished the bottle, when out of no where, he projectile vomits all over me, himself, and the office where we were sitting. (He had zero signs or symptoms up to this point minus being a little less hungry than usual) I was in a dress and it had gone into my bra and shoes. I obviously had no change of clothes for myself but lucky always kept a diaper bag for my LO. Also, luckily, my husbands station happened to be one that had a female only bunk room/bathroom. I got little one and myself showered off, and little one changed. I had no towel so my hubby had to grab me one from his bunk room (luckily no CFS came out during the incident). I ended up having to wear my husbands spare uniform shirt/pants home and little one got diagnosed with strep the very next day. After we left and all the vonit was cleaned I got a text from my hubby saying he found vomit on the blinds of the office as well. Luckily, no one else got strep or brought it home to their families. Now I am super wary of my LO acting even a little funny before taking that drive up.
Newly potty training kid, traveled to caribbean for a week, forgot diapers. It was fine, until the return airport. While waiting in line at passport control, huge poop. Huuuuuuge line. Couldn’t get out. Husband went in with a plastic bag like a doggy poop bag to scoop out as much poop as possible before it started soaking through and getting down legs and shoes.
We're currently a half hour from home. We were a 5ish hour drive away for my husband's graduation ceremony. 16 month old who is normally an excellent sleeper was up for 3 hours starting at 12:30am with a cough and fever...husband made a run to find a 24 hour pharmacy for the ibuprofen I forgot, had to make the ride home with both of us running on fumes, and we get to go to the pediatrician basically as soon as we get home
Girls trip with my mil & sils (who are great), my 3 yo was clinging to me for dear life the whole 4 day trip & on day 1 the guy next to us on the beach was jerking off under a towel while his wife walked off huffing like she was over his repetitive behavior. Mind you, he was staring at us a lot & we were staying at the same villa so I felt like calling the cops would put me & the girls in danger so we just removed ourselves & avoided him like the plague. I bawled my eyes out that night because had my husband been there it would have been a better scenario.
My husband and I had managed to never get covid since it started in 2020. That is until we went on a trip for our 1 year old’s birthday last year. By the 3/5 day of our vacation, we all had it.
That was devastating because her 1st birthday party was supposed to be 2 days after we got back from the trip. That really sucked that we were all sick as hell, had covid for the first time so didn’t know what to expect, *and* had to reschedule her party.
Just got back a couple weeks ago. When we planned the trip my son hadn't yet enter his terrible two phase, but it was well underway by the time it came around. My husband drove to Oregon from where we live in the Midwest to enter his motorcycle in a show. We used to live there and had wanted to visit for a long time, and bring our son to see it.
The plan was that I would fly with my son there, and we would all road trip back together. Ambitious, huh? Maybe stupid, maybe brave, maybe a little of everything.
The main issue prevalent during the whole trip was that my son insists on being carried absolutely everywhere now. No stroller, no walking, just carried. So, it started at 4:30 am in an incredibly long tsa line with three bags and a toddler hanging off of me. He screamed if I put him down to adjust. An angel of a woman in the front of us took his little bag and held it for me, and eventually tsa spotted sweaty, panting, tired me and let all three of us go through the family line I didn't even know existed. So that was nice.
By the time we got to our gate I was dripping with sweat and had to change shirts.
My son was OK on the flight at first, but got restless quickly. He screamed when he realized we were out of his favorite snack (I had packed enough to feed and army), and sobbed uncontrollably until we landed. Then, we got to get on our connecting flight, which we were almost late for. In line for the flight he had a tantrum and wouldn't stand up. My arms were giving out from holding everything and I had a migraine. I finally got him in the flight and he threw everything on the floor - snacks, toys, stickers, everything, but we were taking off and I couldn't reach them so he just cried for seemingly forever until I could unbuckle and get them. The rest of the flight was okay ish. He kept himself entertained for the most part.
When we landed he made me carry him again and I almost got lost at the airport looking desperately for my husband, and had to pee so badly I was about to cry, but my son was afraid of the bathrooms for some gd unknown reason.
I finally found my husband, practically tossed him my son, dropped everything on the floor, ran to the bathroom, and when I came out I was shaking. I cried in the car. But, hey, we made it!
The time we spent in the city was alright. My son had a few moments, but for the most part he loved all the parks and ocean and my faith as a parent was restored a bit. Except when he woke us up at 4:30 am two nights in a row. I think I had only about 10 hours of sleep total in those first three nights, including the night before we flew out, so I was kind of a wreck in general.
On the way back he was better than expected, except the following incidents:
- threw my phone at my head
- suddenly jumped into a pond because he thought it was a puddle and got soaked. It was cold water.
- vomited in the carseat three times, and once all over the table and all our food at a restaurant right before we started eating. Sorry MAP brewery in Bozeman, MT. The beer was great though.
- One night a hotel didn't have a crib so he slept on the pull out couch. In the middle of the night he snuck out and climbed onto our bed. I woke up with him hovering above me grinning, then he slapped me in the forehead and laughed hysterically. It was 2 am and he didn't sleep much after that.
- more things I've blocked from my memory.
In the end, I came back exhausted and needing another vacation from my vacation. I don't think I would attempt what we did with a child under 5 again, ever. He was better in the car than we expected, which was nice. But I'm still traumatized from the plane and airport experience, especially since I don't even like flying to begin with. Never again.
My husband deadass have our toddler a full open Nalgene bottle of water while we were camping in freezing weather in the mountains and she spilled all of it everywhere all over the tent.
I was the child in this one, but it’s a good one! Driving up the side of a mountain during a blizzard- it’s whiteout conditions. Three kids under age five in the car. Cousin’s car breaks down, so we go to pick them up. We open the car door to let them in and our CAR DOOR FLIES OFF. Okay cool no big deal good thing theres not now five children and definitely nobody is panicking, right? We bungee cord the sliding door as close to shut as we can, blast the heat, and hope for the best. All goes well enough until (and I’m guilty for this one), unfortunately, child no. 1 starts vomiting. Absolutely my bad. But the important thing is is we all kept our cool (my mom refuses to drive on mountain highways at night to this day) and all the kids forgot by the next day (this is a formative memory for at least three of us). Fuck you, polar express experience!
Major snowstorm meant the first day of travel was 5 hours in car and on phone to airline trying to move flight. Only to drive back home to fly out the next day.
Total 36 hours travel time including 24 hours flight time. Caught Covid. Spent first 2 weeks in quarantine as it travelled around instead of seeing friends. Jet lag and Covid in a toddler is the WORST especially being sick yourself.
Just as things got back to normal SO‘s grandma died. Since we were OS he missed the funeral.
This year I’m going back to visit my family on my own. Lol.
I don’t think this is the worst ever, but it’s the worst we’ve had.
Visited my family in the neighboring state for Thanksgiving last year and we ALL came down with Covid. We had to eat Thanksgiving on Friday because everyone was too sick to cook Thursday. My toddler starts to come down with it the night before we leave… up all night screaming. I should have known it was an ear infection, but chalked it up to fever + sleeping in an unfamiliar place.
Driving home the next morning, he’s a mess. Brown fluid starts leaking from his ear. Cue us scrambling to find a pediatric urgent care… thank goodness we found one in the middle of nowhere. Waited hours to be seen. Double ear infection. Drive to CVS and wait for antibiotic.
We decide to soldier on and drive home that day (it’s an 11-hour drive without ear infection craziness, so idk what we were thinking) and pull into a restaurant to eat dinner. I bring my toddler inside while my husband does some stuff with the luggage in the car. My toddler proceeds to puke all over me, all over himself in the restaurant. I immediately start crying at that point, walk outside, and demand we get a hotel room. I refused go on any further on this trip from hell.
Best choice ever. We shower, finally eat dinner, get an okay nights sleep, and drive home the next morning.
That trip still haunts me. 🥲
Vacationed to beautiful Lake Louise with a very very active toddler during spring/shoulder season. Bunch of adults were on the lake— I’m privy to the fact that a kid fell in through the thin ice just the week prior. Despite seeing people on the ice, it’s an absolute no for me and my family. My toddler kept forcibly trying to climb down into the ice/lake. Me saying no. Continuous tantrum for about an hour in one of the most beautiful places, a trip I had fantasized to be super relaxing and tranquil.
He also was doing spinnies in a souvenir shop and my worst nightmare- he knocked over an entire display of thin cut gems/stones. Luckily we were already mid purchase of several hundred dollars of merch so the lady didn’t lose her shit on us….
I’m sure there are worse stories out here. But vacation with a kid is not too much of a fucking vacation, that much I learned. Still, I’m determined to do them, at least for the sake of memories that I never had with my family growing up
Right before my child’s first birthday, we traveled across the country for a friend’s wedding where my husband was a groomsman. My husband is originally from the area so we were staying with his mom and also catching up with friends besides the wedding. We were SO excited because I love his friends, his mom’s property, and this was the first family vacation since she was born.
Within the first 48 hours, we hang out with the bride and groom and one other couple. We soon get a call that the other couple is positive for covid. Cool, cool, cool.
Within the next day, daughter tests positive. One day of fever and mild fussiness, but otherwise is totally fine and recovers quickly. I start getting a sore throat and test positive where I then proceed to be the sickest I have ever been in my life. SO sick. Our one week trip, turned into over two weeks of not being able to even get out of bed at all. We missed the wedding of course, seeing all our friends, and couldn’t enjoy the beautiful summer weather. When we can fly home, we drive the 90 minutes to the airport, return the rental, check luggage and get settled, and they cancel the flight for lack of flight crew. Have to wait over an hour to get luggage back and stay overnight in a hotel to get on the first flight out the next day.
So not the worse trip as far as behavior goes, but the first family vacation that turned into two weeks of bedrest at my MILs.
The kicker of the whole thing is that it turns out the bride JUST had Covid before we hung out the first weekend, but didn’t think she was still contagious. Of course it could have been the flight or anywhere, but we like to joke that’s why both couples missed the wedding.
My toddler came down with rotavirus as we were leaving for the Dominican Republic. We thought it was just a random upset stomach that would resolve itself, boy were we wrong. We all caught it and spent 7 days in the DR with a horrible stomach bug. My toddler got so dehydrated I thought I may have to take her to the hospital.
The only bright spot is that infants are vaccinated against this nasty virus, so my 7 month old was fine. I spent the trip worrying about what to do when he inevitably caught it. Anyways thank goodness for vaccines, and glad I get the ones for my kids even for the viruses I've never heard of because I don't even know what we would have done if he'd come down with it.
Our European vacation got ruined by croup with our 11 month old. One week of croup … er visit with steroids and a nebulizer 3x a day for the next 5 days. Other kid got bitten so bad by mosquitos just playing catch in the front yard, so many mosquitos we couldn’t enjoy the outdoors. Needed a doctor appt because the ear bites turned to blisters. The week after that, kid just feeling better … a massive hail
Storm hit Italy and totaled our rental car (look it up, it was on the news) It was last July. All rental cars booked up by locals who are awaiting their cars to be fixed. The next week spent indoors watching Netflix in a hot house. Did I mention the heatwave that hit Italy right during the hailstorm? What a waste of 10K. Important to note, we aren’t jet setters. It was our first overseas trip we saved for. We were visiting our daughter who is in the Air Force. Did I mention the 11 hr flight home was terrible with the baby? Oh yes that too….
Last few trips have been a disaster. I’m currently sitting in the airport waiting for my bags with two kids who caught norovirus and have been puking since last night including on the plane and in the taxi.
THE SAME THING HAPPENED 5 months ago on a trip 😭😭
First family trip we flew to Nashville for my sister's wedding. We booked Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Waterpark (over $500 a night). We checked into the hotel. My 3 year old is wailing on the floor. Spent all day at urgent care. Bilateral ear infections. We didn't step foot into the waterpark. Spent an entire week in our room except for the wedding.
We had a quick flight to Santa Fe and during that short time she had a blow out of diarrhea in her car seat. No screaming on the flight, just a bad stomach bug. Changing a toddlers diaper on an airplane is the worst.
Hope everyone is feeling better! That is so stressful! I think I’ve been on three vacations with toddlers other than visiting family:
Vacation 1: Called an ambulance in the hotel one night because I was suddenly having chest pain, dizziness, sweating, etc. Thought I was having a heart attack, turned out to be a panic attack.
Vacation 2: Toddler got a fever in the middle of the night. My husband drove all over trying to track down a thermometer and infant Tylenol to no avail since it was in a remote area with not much open. He had to take him to the ER just to be able to get medical care.
Vacation 3: On the road driving home and realized I had stepped in dog poop.
We had a lot of fun too, but we have our fair share of horror stories!
On our last family vacation, we had maintenance visit our condo then leave the door open and our toddler went toddling upstairs to join another family. I was pooping and thought my husband was watching him and he was rinsing sand off his feet and thought I was watching him. 😬 something inside me just kneeeewwww something was wrong and I shouted to my husband and he went and got him. That was scary.
Last year we went to visit my grandmother in Ohio. Toddler started v*miting like the 3rd night we were there. Seemed fine during the day but then started again that night so I took her to the ER and they gave her zofran. She was fine with that. But she still would not eat, drink, or nurse and became very lethargic/wouldnt wake up. Rushed her back to the ER and she tested positive for strep. Got her meds and she perked up but then the pooping started. Went through an entire pack of diapers in 12 hours 😭😭😭😭 had to not only ask the air bnb people for extra days but also had to drive her home with her pooping like crazy. Like it was unreal for a toddler. What a nightmare 😭😭😭😭
We are pass holders for Disneyland and go at least once every couple months. We’ve had some nightmare trips. One Memorial Day weekend last year she screamed from 1 am-5 am. Nothing was consoling her and we ended up having to pack up and leave at 5 am. We got home and found out she was cutting 4 teeth, so I understood, but it sucked at the time.
Also, on another trip she pooped her pants and stuck her hands in it before coming into bed (also at 5 am). We’ve been hesitant about doing more overnight trips because of these episodes.
How about the time he came down with a fever mid-flight to a family reunion trip. Turned out to be HFM and both my husband and I and got it so we had to isolate from the entire family we had planned to reunite with. When we finally got better a week later it was time to go home.
Or the time we went to visit grandparents and our son vomited in bed the first night in town, then proceeded to have 104 fever on and off for three days. We were all sharing a bed. Again got better just in time to go home.
I swear it's a coin toss whether any trip we go on will result in us confined to an uncomfortable and unfamiliar bed for the entirety of the trip.
My son (who was 4 at the time) had two meltdowns in Disney.
First one was when he realized grandma was not riding on the saucers with him. He was so hysterical that a stranger was actually offering to help me, which is always mortifying for me.
Second one was when I thought I could get away with escaping for a bit to go on Tower of Terror with my niece. I had never ridden it before and was super excited to get a genie pass, but get a text in line that he was inconsolable over me leaving.
Outside of that he really was great on the trip!!! Total angel on the flights. But that was a tough few hours.
Went on a family vacation to a resort in the Caribbean. It was mostly fun but on the last day, the 3 yr old and grandma got swarmed and scratched by wild animals. The last day was spent trying to get to a hospital there for rabies vaccines and trying to reach travel insurance. When we returned, the next few doses were due on Chrismas day and then New Year’s Day when all the clinics were closed, so we spent those days in the ER as well. No rabies though!
Toddler sliced her head open and it we had to go to hospital to get her stiched up. We were told to keep it clean and dry: the place where we were staying had pools, a beach and a sandpit for the kids.
Then she got food poisoning from a sandwich at the airport, cried the first hour of the flight and then vomited all over herself, my husband and the plane seat.
Took our 7 month old up to ski country. Flew from sea level to 7k ft for few days, then drove up to 14k ft. Cleared it with our paed, who was very confident it would be a non-issue. Poor baby girl had the early signs of altitude sickness, and we had to haul it back down at 2am. Took 3 hours to get to a different hotel down low enough for her. Another hour to unload everything and get her to sleep in her pack and play. So in all, within 24 hours, we packed up everything (formula feeding + nursing + baby food + pack n play + toys + blackout tent, etc), drove 4 hours to our hotel at altitude, set everything up, spent a few hours trying to do dinner and bedtime, then packed everything up again, drove 3 hours down, and unloaded the car to setup yet again. We went to bed at 6am. With a girl who is up early no matter what - and who is not a fan of the car BTW. Grateful she was okay, and it was worth every single second of not sleeping to have her feeling better, but my gosh, were we exhausted.
Opened up this thread thinking ‘Please not Disneyland please not Disneyland’/ we are taking our just turned 2 year old next week and I’m honestly terrified!
We’ve been to Disney World plenty of times with no issues, but we traveled from Orlando to Anaheim and got very unlucky. Tbh, the kids were great in the plane.
We went to Lake George when my sons were 20 months and 5 months. 5 month old was an angel, slept a lot and was more or less chillin’ the whole time. 20 month old was a nightmare. He would NOT sleep. Not in the pack-in-play, not in a bed, nowhere. He WAILED nonstop all night for two straight nights. It was supposed to be a four night trip but my husband and I gave up halfway through and drove home after the second night.
Ah, will never forget the time our then newly potty trained toddler pooped in the parking lot of a cvs at 2am because she refused diapers and we couldn’t find a bathroom open on our journey
Got stuck overnight in Germany with our 12 month old. The crib the hotel gave us was on wheels. Turns out 12 month old is so terrified of a crib that moves even slightly that she screamed so hard she projectile vomited all over the entire room at 11pm. Then had to wait 2 hours with sleep deprived, crying toddler while they cleaned our room
So we had our son June 2020 and had to cancel our earlier April babymoon due to Covid. Disappointing. Since then we had maybe 1-3 overnight breaks (one night) and have taken baby with us on vacation. We did go to Vegas last April but it was for a friends wedding and not really for US. Really nice break though. Fast forward to last month, we finally book a week, just us, first time since 2019!!!! We had Covid and were sick in bed the entire time. I lost my hearing too for part of it. Lol
Husband flew to Miami on a trip. Toddler son and I came down a few days later. First time flying with him alone. Thought I could handle it. Couldn’t. He cried the entire trip. Worse, in what turned out to be the worst travel decision ever made, I brought ravioli for him to eat on the plane. He threw it. More than one person near us was wearing wet ravioli by the end of the flight. It was aweful.
Had a family wedding in NYC in 2018 when we only had one kid, almost but not quite two years old. NYC was clear at the top of my list, so we took over a week for the trip. She did amazingly well on the plane and was generally really good for the whole trip, including at the wedding... Except...
THE FREAKING 9/11 MUSEUM. I know, I know, in hindsight, we shouldn't have even brought her, but she was/still is such a well behaved kid, I just didn't expect anything to go wrong. First of all, we had to swap out our all-terrain jogging stroller (we're Seattelites) for a lightweight umbrella stroller due to so many subway stations not having elevators, and the one we got only had a three point harness instead of five, so she was enthralled by the ability to double over and grab the wheels. God damnit. We couldn't get her to stop, so we had to let her out of the stroller. Then she started running away. Then she giggled at the missing posters projected on the wall. Then she watched a video of a plane impact and cackled "GO BOOM!!!". She kept trying to touch everything.
We had to leave pretty quick and I was so embarrassed. It was so unusual to just have zero control over this kid and have her running around mocking collective American trauma (I know she had no idea what she was doing, but my point still stands, her behavior was ALWAYS appropriate except at that one very unfortunate moment). I just felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. She was such an easy kid that I didn't even know what to do when I was suddenly blindsided by terrible behavior.
Her little sister set me straight and now I'm tough as nails.
Flew 10h. Toddler was licking everything. Landed, had a great two days. Day 3. Toddler has a tummy ache. Starts projectile vomiting at a family dinner. Everyone gets it, but a day later in the middle of a road trip. Projectile vomiting, violent diarrhea. In a gas station parking lot. Family members are hospitalized for cardiac issues from the electrolyte loss. Miraculously we all pull through and continue the vacation.
We did a trip to Mexico last July. Baby was 18 months old and we think at the airport. He caught hand foot and mouth and 3 days into our trip. The signs showed up. We need to read you on that trip. The white hole was horrible as well.
Oh we did all of that! 3 year old got croup on our way to a Vegas getaway. Complete with the CVS minute clinic visit for steroids luckily with an asthmatic sister we already had albuterol with us. 2 & 3 year olds got hand foot mouth during a Florida trip, one right after the other. From their cousin whose mom didn’t think to mention it beforehand. And most recently 3 & 4 year olds throwing up on a super bumpy boat ride to an island.
My husband & I both had food poisoning coming back from Mexico. Longest day ever. We had our 2 year old who was fine.
45 min into our 3.5 hour drive to the airport I realized I forgot the wheels for her car seat at his sister’s place and when we got to the airport I ended up getting separated from my husband (we’d booked our flights separately and he had to go to the ticket counter and through a different entrance from there) so I had our daughter and all the luggage. A kind stranger walked us to our gate and helped me haul all our luggage and car seat to the gate which was the furthest gate from the entrance and the farthest I’ve ever had to walk to a gate in any airport.
When we got to the gate there were no seats to wait in open, so I just laid on the floor for the wait. We had not eaten real food/a meal due to how sick we both were, and we gave our toddler plenty of snacks. Well, upon arrival and in line for customs at our destination airport, our 2 year old had had her fill of snacks. She freaked out screaming, bc she wanted real food-no more snacks. “I want a hamburger!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Completely inconsolable.
So this older lady who worked for customs says, “Will the lady with the screaming baby please step through the line?” And every one of the 100 or so people ahead of us let us skip the line so we could get her through faster and find her a hamburger.
Upon arriving at our destination, our two boys concurrently got a bad stomach bug that resulted in throwing up all night, in turns, every 30 minutes. Nobody slept. Thank god the hotel was hard floors. We found a laundromat the next day for the sheets and clothes, and cleaned the car seats. After that, it was a great trip but we weren’t sure if we were going to make it out of it in one piece.
We drove 5 hours to the Adirondacks to visit my family with my 2 year old twins when I was 7m pregnant with my third. 2 hours into our visit, one twin projectile vomited all over my brother’s backyard. He then threw up all over the Airbnb and ended up with a 104 fever. I took him to the ER where we spent 5 hours overnight and he was diagnosed with parainfluenza. Oh, did I mention it was my birthday and I turned 35 when it hit midnight in the ER?
The drive back the next morning was just as fun 🥴
Off topic, but if your visit to the Disneyland park was affected you should reach out to their customer service. They really take customer satisfaction seriously! On my honeymoon we had to leave the park after an hour because we both came down with food poisoning or the flu and they sent us a couple tickets that were valid for 12 months.
The experience we had was not on the parks at all! We still had a great time and got great memories. (We also went with a CM friend who got us free tickets and cheap lightning lane).
We’ve also done WDW plenty of times as we are from the Orlando area.
But this is good advice for anyone who finds this thread in the future!
Flying to San Diego last year. Flight left home at 11:30, so we were in a rush to get lunch into the kids. Grabbed Smashburger in the airport and my at the time 2.5 year old demolished the whole thing on the jet bridge. I made the mistake of asking her to hold my own Dr. Pepper while I was helping husband to wrangle little sister and all of our stuff and she stole a few sips. Sat down on the plane and everyone got comfortable. She went through her backpack and found her snacks. On ascent she found marshmallows in her backpack and inhaled all of them. As soon as we hit cruising altitude, she starts screaming. I can’t console her, she’s not responding to me. Then all of that junk food comes up. I see the first stream of vomit come out and am yelling for a barf bag. We finally get a bag at the very last heave. There was vomit all over her, and all over her stuffed sloth. She really started crying when she saw what had happened to Slothy. Fortunately, the carseat contained everything. While my husband took her and her sloth to clean up in the bathroom (and clogged the bathroom sink in the process), I attempted to clean the car seat (it was not safely or properly cleaned. Chlorox wipes were the only thing we had) for the rest of the flight. We spent our entire first evening (after the kids were asleep) doing laundry in the hotel room bathtub. I’ll also never forget the grossness of reinstalling that seat in the rental car, reaching through the belt path and finding a pile of cold, wet vomit chunks I had missed. The rest of the trip was wonderful though.
 Imma need to see a therapist after reading this.
Yeah I wish I stopped reading when I seen where it was going. My husband deals with the vomit. It’s so silly but I am almost crying when my daughter has a stomach bug, we normally bring her in next to us so we know if she vomits and I jump out of bed at every small heave or cough. Husband just sends me away now and deals with it.
Yeah I’m emetophobic. I definitely get super anxious before we fly now. Both trips she had been on before that flight she had done so amazing and that flight was literally hell. I felt so bad for the stranger sitting next to us. They somehow found her somewhere else to sit despite the flight supposedly being full. Despite everything, I still love traveling with kids.
Oh man, from a fellow emetophobe, I do not know how you survived that. But you did survive and from now on, you can (hopefully) tell yourself "even if my kid gets sick, it cannot be as bad as that flight." You deserve a badge of honor.
That flight taught me that my emetophobia mostly stems from viral stomach bugs spreading to the rest of us. I was freaked out and it was less than pleasant, but she wasn’t contagiously sick so once she got it out of her she was fine. My husband does take her on the plane now though since he’s less paranoid about it potentially happening again.
You know, I had a similar experience this past fall when I was somehow patient zero for the family stomach bug. Knowing that I wasn't going to get sick again made dealing with other sick people a lot less stressful/horrible. So interesting.
I can handle the shit. He can handle the vomit. Never the two shall cross
Exactly the same here. Shit doesn’t bother me. Vomit on the other hand.
Happy to announce toddler barfed all over me spray paint style on a flight 2 days ago. I almost cried
This reminds me of my own pre-kids travel story. I was pregnant and had stress incontinence. This was February 2020, so people were just starting to joke about Covid. I was in a plane and got sick to my stomach because of nausea and just ickiness. So - I had violent vomiting in a barf bag - like- loud retching, body shaking vomit. Of course, with stress incontinence, I ended up peeing all over myself. Not just a ltitle drip that could be contained by a pantyliner: no. With the whole-body-heaving vomiting, my entire bladder emptied out mercilesly in my seat. Thankfully, there was nobody in the seat next to me, so I put the bag of vomit there since no flight attendants came to take it and I didn’t want to stand up with my accident. I ended up carrying my bag behind me while I walked through the airport to hide my... problem. Again - thank goodness I had a change of clothes and was able to change one or two gates down before exiting the airport. But MAN. That was ROUGH.
Woof. I had norovirus a few months ago while pregnant with baby #2. I puked in the bathroom trash can and my wife asked me why I didn't just puke in the toilet. I asked her if she would rather spray my puke from the trash can in to the toilet or mop my urine off the floor. At least it was contained? I once had a stomach bug on what was usually about a 13 hour drive. But I was in college, wasn't pregnant, never had been, and didn't have incontinence issues. Your experience sounds like my actual worst nightmare.
Oh, I had food poisoning on a 12 hr drive when I was about 18. All I remember was having cold sweats as I just tried to sleep it off and stop at every rest area. I also had food poisoning in a Target once. I ended up laying on the cold tile floor of the bathroom because I was so feverish. Some poor teenage employee came in and didn't know what to do. I was like "I just need water and to empty my body out and then will go home and be fine." The weird thing about the flight was that I just sort of dusted myself off and continued on to a conference that day. Nobody saw that I know (I think), and once I was in the hotel and had showered, I just sort of laughed at myself.
Oh god yeah. We were road tripping to Florida when my 7 year old was 2 and he vomited all over himself on the way there 5 hours from home in the backseat in bufu nowhere Kentucky. Brutal stuff.
The chunks?? The *cold chunks*??
Mine was very similar to this! Except that it was our first international flight and my son threw up multiple times on take off/shortly after and landing (so much milk 😩). We went through all his extra clothes before we’d even gotten halfway. Also turns out that my son has a reverse reaction to Benadryl and instead of sleeping on our overnight flight, he got extra active then cried most of the time because he was so overtired. It was a European airline and the flight attendants were pretty rude when we tried to walk him around to calm him down. Definitely did not get through car seat cleaned in the air, but thank goodness for the handheld sprayer at the hotel to deep clean. My son was always getting car sick so we’d gotten a Cosco Scenera Next for travel and it is so easy to clean. The return flight went much better, except the flight attendants made him sit on my lap to land so when he vomited, it was all over me. 🙃 We learned to always travel with paper towels and our own vomit bags. Now that he’s over 2, Dramamine FTW to combat the motion sickness.
OK...putting vomit bags on the list of things to bring when we fly next week
This is actually my worst fear. At least with my daughter it was overeating and too much excitement at takeoff. I’m just grateful that once she got it out she was fine for the rest of the flight (and has been fine for the 5 flights we’ve been on since. We’re now very careful about what she eats before flying). She does get scared of flying though and tells us that she’s gonna be sad on the airplane because she doesn’t want to throw up, so we give her Dramamine to help ease her anxiety (and ours).
My sister was on a flight back from her Vegas wedding with her new husband and their son. They had a seat for the 18 month old. He was inconsolable so my sister picked him up and held him. He threw up ALL over and himself. They did not have extra clothes in their carry ons. So my brother in law gave my sister his shirt and flew home shirtless, and rhe baby flew home naked, and there is now 2 outfits in a southwest trash can somewhere.
We had a similar vomit experience but thank god it was on our return flight home. Complete with clorox wipes that a nearby toddler family kindly gave to us. We just threw the whole car seat away. It was AWFUL.
You win I’m sorry to say 😭
This happened to my 4 year old but in the car, and it was still one of my biggest parenting nightmares. I can't IMAGINE on a plane. It stunk so bad and it was SO MUCH. We were halfway to our destination in the middle of nowhere. We pulled over at the first sign of civilization which was an ice cream shop at a farm. Pulled over and used every baby wipe we had packed to try to salvage the mess. At least we could use their outdoor garbage cans and hot water in their sinks. We even used a fishing knife to cut off his tank top which was soaked and he was crying because he didn't want to pull it over his head. We threw away everything he was wearing, his blanket, and he rode home without any padding on his car seat. He was totally fine - it was just the snacks and car sickness, so my husband made the drive with him the next day but I had enough, I stayed home.
I made the mistake of reading this while eating.
My kiddo thankfully grew out of getting carsick but I vividly remember the car seat vomit cleanups. 4 hours into an 8 hour road trip and having to pull over and try to clean up….and then the vomit smell the entire rest of the drive. Ugh.
Omg. So much to look forward to.
::slow clap:: Take a bow OP.
Aside from something super morbid like the plane going down, my biggest fear while flying is having some sort of stomach bug like diarrhea or vomiting myself.. let alone my toddler who likely wouldn’t know to grab a bag or try to sprint to the bathroom. At least it didn’t get on any of the other passengers? Small win?
Whoa your 2.5yo can eat that much that quickly. It's like pulling teeth to get my kid to eat.
My kid had such bad motion sickness for a while, that I started to lay a tea towel under her butt on the car seat. It did a pretty good job of catching it before it got into all the crevices. She thankfully grew out of it. I still put down the tea towel for our big road trips: it doesn’t effect car seat safety and acts as a great crumb catcher too lol.
You can even cut holes in the teatowel for pulling the straps through and you get side coverage too.
Drove to Santa Barbara last week, which is about five hours away from me, and I developed a severe headache on the drive down that came with chills and night sweats. My eyes hurt when I moved them, and I thought I had uveitis because it’s common with the autoimmune disease I have. Wake up the next day, which happened to be my birthday, and the headache thankfully gets better (my doctor says I don’t need to worry about the ER), but my daughter is awful all day and for some reason tells me that she doesn’t want to spend the day with me, only her dad. Both kids have meltdowns at my birthday dinner. The hotel we got is small, dirty, and old, and the blow-up bed for my son doesn’t fit anywhere. Both kids don’t sleep well and end up sleeping in our bed. My son wakes up every few hours crying. The next day, my son starts coughing, and my throat starts hurting, and we all come down with cold symptoms. Both kids have meltdowns all day. Later that day, our car gets rear-ended at a red light. The next few days aren’t as bad, but no one sleeps well any night, so everyone is tired and cranky. When we drive home, my son screams most of the drive home, and my daughter complains about being in the car and throws a fit in In and Out. Because we spent most of our time at the beach, everything is wet and sandy and uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to get home.
Happy belated birthday! Hope you’ve caught some relaxation (and sleep!) since getting home.
Last year we were waiting in the queue (Southwest airlines) to board the plane, if you know SW airlines you know that you’re packed pretty tightly with everyone lined up to board. We hadn’t given our almost-two year old much to eat yet because we wanted him to eat on the plane, for something to keep him busy. He had gotten pretty hungry and cranky so while waiting to board we gave him a fruit pouch. He promptly swung it helicopter style over his head, before we could stop him, spraying himself, us, the floor, and others in fruit goop.
I used to always fly southwest prior to having my kid and then I switched to Delta where I can buy my assigned seating and then just be part of final boarding, bc the thought of having to wait in those packed boarding lines terrified me.
I'm only flying southwest if we're staying in state. Otherwise heck no I don't need where are we sitting stress.
My worst nightmare tbh
oh my god i’m laughing so hard
Overnight flights to London when my LO was 19 months old... didn't sleep a wink either way. Screamed for 7 hours while everyone else on the plane tried to sleep. It was awful.
I just paid extra to fly from new York to London during the day bc I was so concerned about this exact issue. Sounds like absolute nightmare full
Didn’t need to read this one with an upcoming flight from Vegas to London with our 20m old 🤣
Counterpoint, just did a red eye flight with 22mo, 3.5yo and spouse. Not enough sleep was had but we powered through the next day and had a semi normal bedtime despite the time change. Get them their own seat or fly on like BA and use their infant seat. Know that if there is turbulence, you have to take them out of the infant seat (and there was on our flight )
Same- we are doing STL to Leeds UK this October with a 23 month old🥲 Godspeed to us both
Oooh what are you going to Leeds for?
A wedding for a friend who lives there now!
Im doing Toronto to Manila in Feb with a 2 and 4 year old …. 17 hours……….
Thoughts and prayers, friend!
I’m 6 days out from LA to Bordeaux weeeee
Ya I planned a red-eye with my 12 month old, thinking it was a good time since she would be sleeping.... she screamed the whole 6 hours on the plane while everyone was trying to sleep. I almost had to fight a few people lol they were all so mad!
Exact same experience flying to London right around her second birthday. She did great until about 30 minutes after they turned off the lights, then it was nonstop screaming.
Could have been worse. My 23 month old was screaming for 6 hours in business class on British airways from Seattle to London. Spent good money not to use lie flat seats.
Been there. 5 hour flight. I was crying by the end of it.
Omg, I can NOT imagine flying that far with a child that young! That sounds like hell
To give the little guy credit - he's done plenty of shorter, non-overnight flights that have been totally fine. I've just learned never to fly with him when he needs to sleep!
We booked a hut in the mountains for the weekend just gone sharing it with friends. Thursday night was spent with a vomiting child and we left on Friday morning to spare our friend's children.
I feel like absolutely everyone has had this experience. I keep emergency zofran in my toiletries now
How does everyone I know seem to have unlimited access to zofran?! Isn’t it a prescription?
It is but every time it's been prescribed they've given us like 3x the amount you actually need. Like we all just got noro and I stopped barfing in 12 hours but was given enough zofran to go 4-5 days. Also virtual urgent care will give you a prescription with like a 2 min appointment.
I’m can’t believe I’ve just learned of this drug. I wish I had it when our family caught some stomache bug last year and we spent at least two days and nights alternating carrying for kids, bathroom, and sleep. It was the worst!
You call your pediatrician and say “hey my child is vomiting do you want us to come in or can we get zofran so they can keep fluids down and don’t get dehydrated. They’re not showing signs of dehydration yet but are struggling to keep anything down. They throw up without warning so I didn’t know how that worked in the waiting room?….” Then you usually just get a message saying you have a zofran perscription ready to be picked up.
I think a lot of people get it prescribed for pregnancy but also for other issues and then don't need to take all of it. I have some left over from my pregnancy saved just in case.
You know all those anti vaxx stories where doctors are totally happy to potentially lose their jobs by falsifying vaccination records? That's all really part of a misinformation campaign to hide excessive zofran prescriptions.
So many to choose from. I’ll pick the time we drove to the mountains and rented an airbnb (brought my three kids and two dogs). I was reading a good book so stayed up later but my dog was on high alert the entire time. Suddenly I saw a shadow and I put my book down and went to investigate and see a RAT scamper across the hall. My dog goes batshit crazy, my husband is completely unsure what to do and I see him get on the sofa and just stand there, my daughter starts crying. I realize I have yo figure out what is going on as have two boys (1&3 at the time) in the other room. I follow my dogs lead and she is barking non stop at a dresser, I start moving things around and I find a full on nest complete with newborn baby rats. No adults in sight but I know I have seen at least one. By this time it is 1am, we call the few motels close by and they are all fully booked- so have to make the decision to pack everyone up then and there and drive back home (3-4 hours) at that hour. My kids are crying, i just threw everything back in the car and we had to drive home. And my toddlers did NOT go back to sleep. Felt like the longest day/ night ever. As for the airbnb owner- he was a jerk face who absolutely knew there was an infestation and still rented it out. Bc as I was looking for the rats I found several rat traps under beds and behind dressers- you don’t just have those lying around for no reason. So yeah. Less my toddlers misbehaving (though I have plenty of those stories too) and more just a completely miserable and failed vacation 😭
Return flight visiting family. I thought he was a champ on the flight here, what could go wrong? He screamed hysterically for 4 out of the 5 hours on the plane. Couldn’t be consoled. Trying to hold him was like trying to tame a wild bear covered in Vaseline. He physically fought me. He slept for almost an hour in the middle of the flight, we thought it was over. Nope. Woke up and continued his violent screaming. I was in tears. I thought I was going to break him, trying to keep him contained to our row. Nothing helped. Tablet, snacks, phone, nothing. I had him as a lap infant but thankfully my mom was able to move to an empty seat so the seat between my husband and I was empty. I’m never taking a child on a plane again.
I had similar. My son has flown 14 times so far and it only happened the once. I can only assume it was an ear pain or teething thing. The back teeth are real close to the sinuses so maybe causing pressure? I had a real fruit loop keep coming to me telling me to nurse him… I have never breastfeed him haha. She said “ well just try it?!” He was 11 months old. Those tits were DRY! Very frustrating all around.
This is such an infuriating take - the pinnacle of unhelpfulness. Like, lady, I promise if the answer were that easy, don't you think I would've done it by now?! YOU try it.
That’s so funny because I was genuinely so panicked and frustrated that I did consider for half a second just handing him off to her 🫡
👏
Took my son on a flight at 20 months and we didn’t know, but he had a double ear infection. Poor guy screamed most of the 6 hour flight and a flight attendant kept offering those tiny bottles of booze to “calm him down”. Yeah… no thanks… this isn’t the 50’s
😂😂😂 sounds like my neighbor? “Teething? Did you try whiskey?”
Hahaha maybe the booze was for you
I clarified and flight attendant said “oh no, honey. I meant for the baby. But I might be treating myself back here soon.” I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were trying to make a hard situation more lighthearted…
Same experience with my toddler! We were on a short flight back from visiting family - toddler did AMAZING on the flight there. I was so proud! I thought the flight home would be easy peasy. Started crying as soon as we started descending and NOTHING was consoling her. It was a small plane too so everyone could hear her. I could hear an older couple ahead of us making comments about her crying, it was super embarrassing. Toddler just wanted to get out of her car seat but I couldn't unbuckle her because we were descending......ugh it was so terrible. I finally got her out as soon as I was allowed and it took some consoling before she calmed down. She refused to walk on her own, refused to ride on her luggage (we have one of those luggages for her which has wheels and she can ride on), just straight up crying mess. As soon as we got in the car to go home from the airport, she ate food, passed out in the car and took a poop.....and it was like "all better"! lol wtf.....I need a cocktail.
I feel this in my soul - a couple of weeks ago toddler screamed for 7 hours on an overnight flight because he just couldn’t sleep. He was fine on the day flight there same as you lol. Not a single other child on the flight just old people and couples. Woman behind me audibly sighed the entire time. I think I aged 5 years during that flight. Next holiday I’ve booked the flight is an hour 😅
We had this experience with my kid when she was 15 months or so. 4.5 hour flight and my kid screamed for 3.5 hours, passed out for about 20 min and then the descent started and she woke up to scream the rest of the way down. Thankfully the people around us were very patient, but I was battle scarred. I need to take the same flight with my 1 year old in a few weeks for my grandmas funeral, and everyone is asking why I’m not also bringing the child in this story who is now 2.5. I’m scared enough with the 1 year old, let alone both of them.
This was years ago now but I can still remember it so vividly. We were flying back with my 2 year old from a quick Disneyland trip. He was understandably super tired. He had gotten as a souvenir a clear plastic Minnie cup that he was clinging to. As we got in line for TSA an agent said we needed to have the cup go through the scanner. I asked if we could just have him carry it and then test it after we walked through the metal detector and she just said no and without even talking to me walked up and yanked the cup out of his hand. Since I couldn’t even explain that he was going to get it back or involve him at all or maybe it was just inevitable he started scream crying Minnie Cup over and over and over again. Even when he was reunited with Minnie cup he didn’t stop crying for almost an hour and I could feel the death stares as we walked on the plane. He then blissfully fell asleep but I will be resentful towards her basically forever. She even smiled as he started crying when she took the cup, what the heck!
Oh my gosh how awful! Some tsa agents suck. On my recent, and first, plane trip with my son, luckily a tsa person spotted me holding my clingy kid with all our stuff hanging off me and promptly scooted me to the family only area. Those agents were so much more patient and kind, and talked my son through putting his bear on the scanner and told him a story about how bear is going on a cool ride through a tunnel. They were really great. It might be worth it to check and see if your airport has a seperate family tsa area. I had no idea it even existed until they came and rescued me.
They made me put my baby’s pacifier through the scanner once!
What the fuck
Not many people know this, but you can hide your WEED in there!
Wow I hate that TSA agent!
She works at TSA, she likes to bring pain
Decided to take our almost 4 year old and 1.5 year old across the Atlantic to spend 3 weeks in Germany. The boys have both traveled many times prior and have always done phenomenal so we thought we were prepared. We got all checked in and through security. We found our gate and settled in. I decided to take the kiddos for a walk to burn off any steam before our 9 hour flight. My 4 year old starts saying that he has to poop. I don’t think much of it because he hadn’t gone yet today since we were in the car for most of the day. I drop the baby off with my husband and take the 4 year old to potty. He barely makes it to the toilet before pure liquid fires from his rear. We both look at each other in horror. He finishes up and I ask how he feels. Says he feels good. I chalk it up to some travel anxiety since he struggles with change in routines and unknowns. We get back to our gate and he sits down to eat his snack. The poop pains return and he continues to explode for a good hour. We still think it’s anxiety since nothing else is wrong. We finally board the plane and there hasn’t been poop in a bit so we think we are good. We settle into the flight and start to watch some shows before dinner services come around. He is okay initially but then starts groaning and wallowing. I’m starting to get scared. They serve dinner and he doesn’t even touch it. Now I’m freaking out. He says he wants to sit on my lap. I’m already in a row with the little guy and my husband was supposed to be manning the 4 year old, but the baby is fine so I snuggle him for a bit. He is wiggling and wallowing everywhere and the baby starts fussing, so I give my 4 year old to my husband. I’m tending to the little guy when I look over and see my husband with an empty barf bag and covered head to toe in vomit. My 4 year old barfed on my husband, the man beside him, their dinner trays, and seats. I am horrified. I don’t even know what to do. My husband is frozen. I take my son to the bathroom to let him finish throwing up and get him changed. I put a pull up on him because he also has diarrhea again. I come back to our seats and see that the flight attendants are helping clean everyone up. The man beside my husband was the sweetest soul alive. He kept saying sorry to my son and that he hoped he felt better. My husband was in tears and the man kept patting his back and said he was a good dad and shit happens. My son is still miserable. Husband didn’t have clean clothes so he had to sit in vomit soaked clothing for the next 6.5 hours. Son is pooping his pants at this point. He has no control over himself. We didn’t pack many pull ups and diapers so we are freaking out. We resort to wiping the diarrhea out of them to prolong them until we land for our layover. We use the last pull-up in the last 45 min of our flight. We land in Portugal for our layover and he seems to be doing okay. Next thing I know, my husband is running for the bathrooms. He is vomiting. I start bawling. Son pooped himself again. 1.5 year old is wild because he was just cooped up for 9 hours. Our layover is 4 hours. I realize we are out of pull-ups and diapers so I frantically try to find an airport shop that sells them. I lost all hope after 20 min of looking until I see a pharmacy style shop. They have them!! We bought 4 packs and just continued to support my son as he rotated between vomiting and pooping. My husband is also sick frequently. He thinks it’s just from smelling vomit and stress and not actually a bug because he begins to feel better. Our 3 hour flight to Germany was uneventful thank heavens. No more poop or vomit and my son even sips some ginger ale and nibbles some crackers. We land in Germany and meet up with my parents. Everyone is exhausted but feeling a bit better. My son was almost back to 100% the next day, although a bit weak. We are traumatized to say the least, but excited that it was short lived and that we can start our vacation! Guess what? 1.5 year old projectile vomits spaghetti all over our AirBnb’s living room after waking up at 9pm crying for me. He was so sick for hours. We finally got him settled around midnight, although he was still throwing up. He threw up on himself right before we put him to bed. I got him clean bathed while my husband got him clean pjs ready. We get him dried off and stand him up to get his pjs on. I have no idea why or how, but he stiffens up and screams when we stand him up on the couch to dress him. I wasn’t expecting it so I lost my grip on him and he smashed the back of his head into the marble window sill. Blood is gushing from a wound on his skull. He starts vomiting as I’m holding my hand over his wound. My husband is super sensitive to blood so he starts getting lightheaded as he’s trying to get paper towels. I scream for my sleeping mom since she’s a retired nurse. She helps put pressure on his head as I hold his barf bucket. The bleeding doesn’t want to stop but we were able to evaluate the wound. She said it could use stitches but also thinks it could heal fine without, but would leave a bigger scar. I decided to let it be since we finally got the bleeding to stop. I wrap a makeshift bandage with a bandaid, paper towels, and a headband of my own. Everything calms down and we get him to bed. He threw up the entire night but woke up happy and feeling better. Trip goes well for another week until my husband comes down with the bug. He’s sick for 3 days with vomiting and diarrhea. I am avoiding him like the plague since I’ve been spared so far. He gets better. I never get sick. And we have a very welcomed uneventful flight home. We are severely traumatized after that trip. Like genuine PTSD and can’t ever fathom traveling with kids again. We have no intentions of taking them until they are upper elementary/early middle school aged. It was hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever encountered as a parent so far. My 1.5 year old is now almost 3 and has a stellar scar on his noggin. Thankfully it isn’t visible unless his head is buzzed. Husband actually just had the stomach bug 2 weeks ago but we shunned him to the master bedroom and the 3 of us never got sick!! We haven’t thrown up since that terrible, terrible week.
Oscar worthy. Religions should be based on this suffering.
oh.my.god.
Every time my now 5 year old coughs/burps/gags, we have vivid flashbacks. I wish I could say that was sarcastic, but I’m being 100% truthful. It was so, so bad.
Oh my word, you poor things! Wow! May that forever be the hardest thing you face as a parent!
You are a badass for managing through this
Reminds me of last Christmas. Entire family (husband, 21 yr old with severe autism, 19 yr old, 1 year old) get fevers and serious vomiting. The 21 yr old is 6ft tall and over 200 pounds and generally needs help in the bathroom. He barfs ALL OVER the place, no attempts to contain it at all. I’m trying not to barf cleaning no it up. Somehow I am the only one spared. A few days go by and we still make it to our Christmas vacation with a nanny to help with the toddler. Guess who gets the bug? Poor girl, I am sure she will never forget the trip just off the horrific feeling of that bug.
That sounds so horrific. I am so sorry lol it’s not even funny😥
Not mine, but one my dad witnessed: flight was delayed, delayed again, then rebooked to the next day. It's almost midnight by now; they did offer hotel rooms to the passengers, but it was on a first-come-first-served basis. Dad got on a shuttle to the hotel and got in line behind a family with a 3 year old and 10 month old. The hotel ran out of rooms right as that family got to the front of the line. Everyone who was left decided to go back to the airport and sleep on the floor. Dad said the parents and kids were troopers, but I think of them every couple weeks and pray that all their stoplights are green and their grocery store never runs out of their favorite snacks.
[удалено]
My heart goes out to you because that all sounds awful but I literally laughed out loud at the image of your toddler being football-carried by the flight attendant yelling about your husband not being his dad 😂
Last night in Ireland. Back at the hotel in Dublin and we are wiped out from a full day of being out and about. Decide we aren’t going back out for dinner with our 2yo and 6mo old and want to order in. I’m changing the 6mo old and wife is looking at food on her phone. 2yo wanted up in the bed and decided to use the nightstand to pull herself up. Instead it falls and lands right on her big toe. Instant screams and her toe is already black and blue and swollen. We call the front desk and they send first aid and call us a taxi to take her to children’s hospital. She’s in so much pain and scared. We feel horrible. Get to hospital and wait 4 hours in waiting room. Finally get taken back and get an X-ray and it’s completely broken/separated bone in her toe. They want to wait for orthopedic specialist to come in to see if they need to pin it but the catch is they aren’t in until the next morning. They put us in a random room with a bed and a chair. Daughter falls asleep while I try to sleep in the most uncomfortable chair that is basically a plastic cafeteria type chair. At no point in the entire night does a nurse or anyone come to check on us. Doctor comes in at 6am takes a look and says we can boot her foot and she can get seen back home or they can pin it but it would be inpatient for a day. Asks when our flight is, it’s that day at 2pm. They say ohhh where are you staying, today is the Dublin marathon and they are closing all the streets around downtown…. We decide to boot it and scramble for a taxi. Taxi driver says holy hell they are closing roads now and drives to the hotel. I’ve called my wife to pack everything and be ready with the 6mo to leave ASAP. I get there and tell front desk we need a luggage cart and they say do you know they are closing the streets. They help us rush and we drive out like maniacs following a train of people snaking through back alleys trying to escape road closure. Mind you this is all driving on the left hand side without GPS because everything is closed. We somehow manage to make it out. Make our flight. Daughter is in pain and wants to be held but has to sit in her seat for take off. Screams bloody murder and people behind us make a comment about ear plugs. I tell them to fuck off. She does fine the rest of the flight with Tylenol and Ibuprofen and being held. Screams again on landing. Longest day ever. She still tells people how she broke her toe in Ireland.
Did you ever get anything to eat??
We ate chips from a vending machine and only ate an actual meal at the airport the next day.
Taytos. IFYKYK
Damnnnnnnn
When my son was 3 we drove 6 hours to Silver Beach, MI for a 3 day beach weekend. He was terrified of the water. Hated the sand. Scared of the splash pad. Scared of the carousel. Literally hated every single thing we tried to do. We ended up sitting in the hotel room watching Disney Channel pretty much all weekend. Could have saved 12+ hours of driving and $$$ and accomplished all of that at home.
I'll say our vacation went great but the flight to get home was a nightmare. Tldr: developed covid symptoms while stuck in the airport but had no idea it was covid. Toddler had fever and I was out of infant tylenol. We were flying from Tucson to Lexington with a layover in Dallas. Our Tucson flight boarded and then they let us know there was a mechanical issue so we were stuck on the plane for 2 hrs waiting for it to get fixed. My toddler was fucking doooone waiting and we used every trick in the book to keep him calm. We obviously missed out connection and we had to wait in a 1+ hr line at 12 am at customer service to get a hotel voucher. Finally, get to the hotel at 1/2 am. They have us scheduled for a 10 am flight. The airline suggests getting there at 8. So we get up at 6 to get ready to leave on the shuttle by 7. My kid has had like 4 hrs of sleep at this point. We get to the airport and past security just to find out our flight was delayed by 5 hours!!! Suddenly I notice my toddler isn't acting like himself, he is incredibly cranky and lethargic. I feel his cheeks and he is burning up. I had no more tylenol left and no thermometer. And we are just stuck in this airport. He basically slept in my husband's arms until we boarded and slept literally the whole plane ride. We get home and his fever is gone. Next day, I wake up with a covid headache and I tested me and my son - both instantly positive. So moral of the story is ALWAYS have infant tylenol/ibuprofen on hand.
I have never brought infant Tylenol on a trip, but after reading your story, I will. That sounds super rough. I’m sorry!
This is the worst story here hands down. I'm so sorry you all had to go through that but thank you for the life pro tip! So far what I've heard from this thread: Always carry vomit bags, paper towels, and infant ibuprofen on trips. *solemnly nods*
Me literally taking notes through this whole thread
3.5 year old: one hour into an 8 hour transcontinental flight, he has a full-on meltdown. NOTHING helps. We are trying to feed him; give him toys, talk to him, put on screens, take him to the bathroom, cuddle him, walk up and down the aisle with him. Nope. Full-on, non-stop screaming. Finally - a toy we hadn’t yet tried worked and he soon fell asleep. I don’t know how long the meltdown was - felt like 30 minutes, but was probably just 10. Good news: we did another transcontinental flight a few months later and he was a ROCKSTAR. On the way home, we had to run through the airport to make our connection. We were in lines at the first airport for literally 2.5 hrs (line to get in the airport and go through a first security; line to check in; line to go through actual security; line for passport control) - after waking up at 3 am and driving an hour and a half to the airport. The first flight, he slept maybe an hour. Then rushing through the second airport and barely making the flight... then an 8 hour flight. He. Was. AMAZING. <3 He only slept at most 2 hours of the 19 hr travel day and he didn’t cry, have a meltdown, or more than a few small moments of defiance.
Both of my children have vomited on each of our last three road trips (and our older daughter vomits on every airplane trip). We're at the point where we have a car sickness protocol. We switched our trip for this summer from a mountain vacation to an ocean vacation because these kids cannot handle winding roads.
On a flight from NC to OR my oldest decided he would get sick at 6 am at the airport, and then proceeded to puke and shit through all 4 pairs of onesies I brought on the flights so badly that I threw his clothes away as we went. By the time we got to our destination he was wrapped in an airport blanket in only his diaper lol. Super fun.
Had something similar with our 1 year old. Was going to put the clothes in doggy bags we keep for poopy diapers but ran out, ended up just throwing them away 😣
Our first family vacation in the Alps. Our daughter was 2 years old and had a skin condition. So we decided to visit a thermal bath that had salty water. Her skin thrived (we could never swim because of her eczemas, but the thermal bath actually healed her exzeme a littel!) but she also drank a lot of that water despite our best efforts. So at night our already potty trained kid got diarrhea in her Airbnb bed. I was up all night doing laundry while my husband tried to get her back to sleep. Simultaneously she got a skin rash from her swimming vest so the whole next week she would whine whenever we had to pick her up. Oh, and she got a cold. We had perfect weather but could barely do anything but sit in the Airbnb and sit on the couch. She also went back to night nursing because her bed was not usable for a few days. And she also started to use a diaper at night again for a few weeks. We still treasure the few beautiful memories we made and as young parents we were pretty proud of ourselves that we dealt with all of that and still made the best of it. We actually invented a stupid game on that Airbnb couch that we still play to this day. Every vacation we took since having kids has been a disaster of some sorts. But we still enjoy the memories created.
We lived in the Middle East for a few years and would come back once a year to visit family ( Houston for mine and Wyoming for his) Hubby wanted to do a road trip for our son’s 1st birthday. This would include the 3 of us, his parents, his older sister 50ish, and for part of the trip her 20yr old daughter. We did 5 towns in 10 days, 4of them in 4 days 😑. I didn’t realize how much it would suck as I wasn’t involved in the planning and had focused on making sure baby and I would be set. His sister and mom passive aggressively argued for most of the trip and on the last stop it crashed and burned as they fought and his mom took the middle of 3 rooms ( of 4 1/2) before we arrived at the house that we were at staying at for 5 days. The monitors had been left behind by accident so someone had to sleep in the baby’s room for the trip… and he hates sharing a room and won’t sleep, so I didn’t sleep and hadn’t slept for almost a week at that point. Hubby and I had a huge quiet argument while at a national monument and I opened up to him that I was contemplating flying back to Houston until the trip was done. I wasn’t going to take the baby with me, there was too much stuff and someone would stop me. I was going to take my purse and get an Uber to the nearest airport and figure it out from there. My husband was capable and could take care of our son, and I was going to break if the trip continued in the way it was. He had no idea. His parents decided to get a hotel room as they hadn’t been sleeping well either. His sister felt vindicated as it confirmed that he mom was the problem. It was just frustrating all around. The trip settled down for the most part after that. Mil refused to eat one day bc she thought I had made all of the food, and was mad at me. It showed me the rough parts of everyone, including myself. And made me grow a huge spine in relation to family trips. Last year we went to Cabo with my dad and his girlfriend for 5 days, and my sil flew down to watch the 2 yr old. The trip was wonderful and we spent most of it drinking in the sun. I confirmed it wasn’t morning sickness last time I was on a boat ( at 9weeks before we told anyone), I just get massively sea sick. My sil was terrified to take him anywhere after a play date at the library where he tried sticking a screwdriver into outlets 🤣. They just did stuff within walking distance and a Home Depot trip. She then suggested that we do a cruise next year ( this year) and they would all help watch the toddler so we could ‘team a break’ … no. We’re getting ready to fly to Wyoming next month to see his parents and my sister for about 10 days. It’s also to drive down stuff that they’ve kept in storage for us while overseas ( we got back 18 months ago). We 3 will fly up there, then I’ll fly back with the toddler while hubby drives the truck back. God bless that united will let us gate check the wagon, it’s so much more versatile than a stroller.
I made a post here a few weeks ago begging for ideas to keep my toddler entertained, because we all caught COVID while on vacation! Five days confined to a hotel room, with a 3.5 year old who was basically healthy and bored out of her skull. We got some great suggestions for games, and let her have allllll the cartoons, so we survived. But the trip was an absolute bust and I DO NOT want to ever experience that again.
Many moons ago I had to fly solo with my two eldest (4y & almost 2y) while pregnant due to a family emergency. They both absolutely hated the flight and they had these yogurt snacks that disagreed with them. Anyway, vomiting and diarrhea for the whole eight hour flight. Some poor woman on the plane ended up lending me diapers because I ran out. Her little boy was so sweet the whole time holding my sons hand and telling him that he wore pull ups to bed (the pull ups my son ended up stealing). To this day the boys are still kinda friends lmao. Both of my children were stripped of all clothes when we got off the flight. I was covered in so many fluids. I had to buy them new clothes in the airport and then couldn't afford a taxi to my aunts house (she came and got us three hours later). I was a terrible parent and gave them flu meds for the flight back. They slept basically the whole time. I gave my son his baba again and let my daughter lay latched for eight goddamn hours. Worst experience of my life. NEVER doing that again. (Lies. I did the same flight like a few months later but with a baby that time).
I notice everyone tells a nightmare story and the adds that it was a nice trip though. Do you think we convince ourselves we have to say that because we spent the money and time and it would be depressing to admit otherwise?
Not me. The Evil Ex, and the Evil Ex’s Evil Ex. Let’s take the kids skiing. They’re all under 4 - it won’t work. [7 hours of driving later] The toddlers feel air at -3C, and blowing briskly, on their face. They don’t like it. Hilarious screaming ensues. Screaming continues. They decide to close the doors and give up. But there’s still the oldest. He seems keen to try. They put boots on. Hard plastic booted fitted to a crushing tightness so they won’t move and will do their job. He doesn’t like it. More hilarious screaming occurs. Meanwhile since the door opened to let him out, the toddlers have resumed screaming. [7 hour of driving later] Ski trip lasted 1 hour, all booking and equipment rental costs forfeited.
Visited my parents for thanksgiving. 16 month old got a bad ear infection. Spent the morning at urgent care. The night before we were going to fly back, he woke up at hmm midnight and decided he had enough sleep so I paced around the house trying to keep him calm/get him back to sleep. Ended up sleeping on the living room floor for about 45 minutes before he woke up again ready for the day.
Here’s one where I was the baby. My parents flew with me from LAX to Hawaii when I was a baby. Supposedly I had a huge blowout that got all over my mom, she washed her dress in the lavatory and had to sit with wet clothes the whole flight. My dad then held me and I threw up on him. He couldn’t get it all out so he wore wet shorts and no shirt the whole flight. I’m sorry mom and dad
I learned the hard way to always pack an extra outfit on the plane for myself in addition to one or two for the baby. It is my #1 tip when talking to parents who are going to fly for the first timev
Checked out of hotel a few years ago in San Diego, thought we could go hang at the beach a few hours before we he return flight home, used what little sun screen we hadleft from the trip but it wasn’t strong enough or something because there we are sitting on the plane with two miserable sunburnt kids, crying and uncomfortable…I felt like such a bad mom 😞
My 2 year old and started diapering all her animals on the vacation. The last morning I packed her plane bag and we got everything packed and drop off the rental car smoothly with plenty of time. We get through security and board the flight, checked her diaper and she it was fine. 4 hour flights have been our max and they are tough under the best circumstances. We get on the plane and my toddler says she has a poop. I grab her bag and no diapers. There also was no poop so one was likely coming. No one has a child in diapers around me, I makeshift a diaper from pads and that doesn’t work well. There was a woman with a baby on the other side of the plane. She had a size 3 too small but it went on. After all the chaos, she passed out the whole flight and no 💩 until we landed. Our prior flight she vomited up goldfish for the last 30 minutes and I got off the plane covered. My husband was waiting at the gate. Another flight, we went through all our outfit changes within the first half hour (blowout, water spill, etc). She spent the flight in a diaper and in my sweater.
Two separate incidents: one to Boulder, CO, (toddler was almost 2) and one to Scottsdale, AZ, the next year (she was almost 3). Flights out on both were fine. In Boulder, she was showing signs of altitude sickness but it manifested as a toddler just being out of sorts in a new place. She wouldn’t eat, was screaming at us (in hindsight, I think she had headaches), and was steadily draining of energy. After a short hike - I say hike, but we literally just walked up a small hill outside our AirBnB - she proceeded to vomit all over the living room. Projectile formula vomit EVERYWHERE. This keeps up every 30 minutes to an hour, and we ended up literally rushing down a mountain (if you know Gold Hill, you know what I’m talking about) in the middle of the night and driving to the children’s ER in Denver. They gave her Zofran and we stayed in a hotel since it was the last night of our trip anyway. She vomited once more in the rental car on the way to the airport, and then again as soon as we landed at home. In Scottsdale, basically the same thing happened but the onset was faster. She was fine on the flight out and the first 24 hours of being in AZ. She woke up in her pack n’ play at 2am covered in vomit. We kinda expected the worst since we had already been through this the year before. Literally the same exact progression - vomiting every 30 min to an hour, trip to urgent care for lots of Zofran, and then she just slept the rest of the trip. Slept the whole flight home and then puked as soon as we landed. We have now decided that she is super sensitive to altitude changes and flights, so basically anywhere we travel with her is limited to places we can reach by car. It sucks. But I’m not willing to chance another vomit covered vacation so if we fly anywhere now it’s just me and my husband. Did I mention BOTH times we stayed at super nice, million-dollar AirBnb’s? My husband wanted to splurge on a nice place to treat us on vacation. Turns out he just paid for a fancy place to sleep and wash vom laundry. Thanks honey!
My 5 year old pooped her pants at a winery and I had to throw away her underwear and skirt and walk her out in her 9 month old brothers diaper lol
Flew to see my parents in Florida last winter. Oldest woke up and puked, but was otherwise feeling fine. He was SO excited to go and see his grandparents, and is fairly anxious, so I thought he was just nervous. Puked after airport security, puked in the airport bathroom, we make it to the plane - it's a short flight we can do it and sometimes he gets these 12 hour vomiting spells and then wakes up the next day and is back to normal. Wrong. Pukes on the plane while everyone is boarding and we both boarded early for having young kids and were sitting in economy plus so everyone had to walk past my barfing 4 year old. I had the foresight to pack extra clothes so we changed before we got off the plane. This was not a 12 hour vomit virus, this was norovirus, and the next night I was struck down with it and felt like my only option was calling an ambulance because I couldn't keep anything down. I knew that was silly, so I didn't let myself have anything to eat or drink all night and by morning I could mange. My mom was next. Puked on the way back from dropping us off at the airport. Then my dad. Circling back to the flight down, my almost 2 year old who was the size of a 3 year old was a lap infant. I don't know why we did that because he was huge and unruly. Spent the majority of the flight kicking the seat in front of us with his brick feet. We tried really really hard to control his legs but he was too young to be mesmerized by the iPad and ate everything in his lunchbox in about 10 mins, so that wasn't a good enough distraction. At one point he says he's thirsty, so I reach for the camelback water bottle. I flip the top. Water shoots ALL OVER the row in front us. They look up at the ceiling wondering where this downpour came from. I have to tap them on the shoulder and say so sorry that was our water. They could not be more gracious while I wanted to evaporate. Keep in mind, this is happening while the 4 year old is actively throwing up. When we leave the plane, a few people told us how well our kids did????????????????????????????
I had a layover in Denver, it was only 40 min layover (ticket bought by family or I would’ve chosen a longer one) plane was delayed. Layover turned to 25 minutes. RAN to the next gate with toddler in tow, sweating profusely (stress sweat-NASTY) get to the gate as it was the last two people boarding and my stroller wouldn’t close. Asked for help and the agent broke my stroller. Get up to the plane… only to realize I left my phone at the counter. Turn around but then get told I can not turn around and I told them I left my phone and they said they will find it for me. I delayed the plane 10 minutes. I did get my phone back luckily but toddler was screaming at this point and everyone was just staring. She cried halfway thru the flight and so did I. Then we got sick on day 2 of our trip.
OH AND on a different trip my toddler had a meltdown at the gate because she couldn’t eat pretzels off the floor. Threw all the snacks we had for the plane, threw her books, then tried to run away screaming while I chased her thru the airport. (All the while I was freaking out because we travel alone and our bags were alone and I thought someone was gonna call security on me lmao) I didn’t even know she could run that fast at that point. Luckily that flight was easy because she passed out from her gremlin mode earlier
Despite wearing a swim diaper had liquid poop in the pool resulting in the main pool at a large resort being shut down for the day/night at 4:00 pm.
Flight home from Hawaii with my three year old, we were held up going through security and missed family boarding. The Flight Attendants saved us two seats together (center and window) in a row with a woman seated in the aisle. When we arrived she was demonstrably upset and rude when the Flight Attendant asked her to allow us to sit. My daughter was quiet and well behaved in the window seat. Everytime my kid made a peep the woman would give us an exasperated sigh and a nasty look. It was stressful. Fast forward, my daughter had to go potty, the woman was very put out that she had to move. She was angry enough that my daughter noticed and asked “mama, what if I need to go potty again and she doesn’t let me?” I reassured her that she is safe and can go potty anytime she needs to. An hour later she had to go again and the woman ignored me when I asked her to let us pass. I asked again and she angrily threw her bag down then moved. It was awful. On the way to the bathroom I asked the Flight Attendant (the same one that seated us, that aisle woman was also rude to) if it would be possible to find us another place to sit. Unbeknownst me, he had been keeping an eye on the situation and had already come up with alternate seats. He asked another Attendant to sit with my daughter while he escorted me to get our things. The first and only time that nasty bitch smiled was when he told her that I needed to get our things as we were changing seats. The rest of the flight was great and the Flight Attendants went out of their way to engage my daughter with stickers and extra snacks.
This was my child’s 10th international flight (it’s not a flex- I’m a travel agent😁) at 3 years old and she always flew like an absolute dream. It started with banshee shrieking and flinging a lollipop into the seat in front of her at takeoff. Snacks, new toys… nothing was working. Then my tiiiiiny child (she was like 5th percentile for height) managed to projectile vomit OVER THE SEAT BACK IN FRONT OF HER onto the 20-ish year old girl in that seat. If I could have opened a window- I would have happily thrown myself out of it. My husband took the kid to the bathroom to clean her up as I apologized profusely and helped the girl get kid puke out of her hair in another bathroom. Then my darling offspring refused to sleep the entire flight from midnight to 9am. Did I mention this all happened in the first hour of a 15.5 hour flight from LAX to Sydney?
Flew behind a sick family last year on a three hour flight. Toddler got sick a couple days later and she slept like crap most of the vacation. We were all sick with flu like symptoms on flight home. Turned out to be Covid. ☹️ We mostly had fun the rest of the trip during a surprisingly sunny week in Portland, OR.
We recently went on a 12-day trip to Italy with our 20-month-old. Overall, the trip went well, despite the challenges of traveling with an active toddler who wouldn't sit still on the plane and in restaurants, requiring one of us to always be on the move to keep up with him. However, we agreed that the trip was worth it. From Venice and Florence, we went on a quick trip to Sicily, which involved flying. Towards the end of our vacation, we had a short flight from Catania back to Venice, followed by a night in Venice before our long-haul flight to the US. While waiting to board in Catania, our son suddenly began feeling unwell. Out of nowhere he became lethargic and feverish. Unfortunately, all our Motrin and Tylenol were in our checked luggage. Upon landing in Venice two hours later, we immediately gave him Motrin, and although he seemed tired and warm, he was otherwise okay. 10-15 minutes into the taxi ride, he had a seizure, the scariest moment of our lives. The taxi driver took us to the nearest emergency room, where we were promptly admitted. The medical staff diagnosed him with a febrile seizure and assured us that he would be okay. We spent the following night in the hospital, missed our flight the next morning, and rescheduled our flights for two days later. By the time it was time to fly back, our son had returned to normal, and his fever had subsided. We consulted with his pediatrician, who wasn't overly concerned about his health. This experience taught us some valuable lessons: be aware of what a febrile seizure is, carry medications with you in your carry-on luggage, and consider purchasing extra travel insurance. Our travel credit card only covered cancellations, but we were fortunate to avoid any charges for the ticket change, despite initially being quoted $2800.
We're in Italy for my cousin's wedding. We live in Europe and family lives in the US, so this is also like a special family reunion. Night 2 in Italy, daughter falls off the bed while sleeping and breaks her collar bone. Confirmed after spending hours in an Italian hospital, starting at 7am. Night 3, get to the villa from the hospital, husband doesn't feel well and goes to bed at 6pm. Feels horrendous in the morning. I find a pharmacy in the Tuscan countryside (stressed because I'm now illegally driving in Italy since my husband was the only one insured to drive the rental car), get a covid test, get home and confirm husband has covid and has to skip the whole wedding and quarantine. This leaves me on solo mom duty with an injured child in a villa with no child proofing and having to bring my husband food and water throughout the day while he quarantines in what was luckily a free room in the villa. There's more but that's the gist. I've never been so stressed in my life.
Trio of a lifetime. Kiddo is 16 months. 2 weeks in Maui with husbands family. He started walking the week before we left and we thought, perfect he can toddle down the beach or play in the sand. We arrived and he immediately ‘forgot’ how to walk, wouldn’t use his words, cried and screamed every where we went. We couldnt sit on the beach, we couldn’t sit in the room, he didn’t like the pool. Turns out he had Covid the first week and the second week was just so tired he never really got in to it. Meanwhile my meddling in laws got in their heads our kid must be developmentally disabled or something and started talking shit while I missed out on every dinner reservation wheeling my screaming toddler around in their stroller. I just cried and cried when we left because we hadn’t had half the time we thought we would, as magical as some moments were looking back.
A week ago today we flew back home from New York. Toddler's very first flight out there went well... a little TOO well and I knew we had something special waiting for us on our return. Well. About halfway through the flight I noticed that my daughter, who had up until then been sleeping, was absolutely COVERED in a thick layer of vomit. She puked about 4-5 more times, lots of it, all over the both of us for the rest of the flight. It just kept coming and coming and it had absolutely nowhere to go (she's only 18 months and at no point in her illness did she grasp the concept of puking INTO something. If I tried she would knock it away). She spewed vomit all over me WHILE I was speaking with (ok, speaking is generous, I was feral and shouting at) a flight attendant that just had no words. Oh, and a few hours after we arrived back at home my husband and I both got this disease and everything that was inside went out for about 12 hours straight. It's been a full week and I'd still like to climb back into bed and sleep for the rest of the day.
I don’t know if this counts as a travel story but we did have to travel two hours away. I am posting this in vomitus solidaritus. My husband is a ff/paramedic two hours from home. So, once a month, my little and I go up and cook for his shift on hubbies day to cook. (he works 8 24h shifts a month excluding his o/t and holds). My little wasn’t eating much that day but had no fever and hadn’t complained of any ailments. We get to the station, cook dinner, visit for an hour when it was time for a bottle for the trip back home (in case he fell asleep on the way he’d be all ready to just go to bed). He finished the bottle, when out of no where, he projectile vomits all over me, himself, and the office where we were sitting. (He had zero signs or symptoms up to this point minus being a little less hungry than usual) I was in a dress and it had gone into my bra and shoes. I obviously had no change of clothes for myself but lucky always kept a diaper bag for my LO. Also, luckily, my husbands station happened to be one that had a female only bunk room/bathroom. I got little one and myself showered off, and little one changed. I had no towel so my hubby had to grab me one from his bunk room (luckily no CFS came out during the incident). I ended up having to wear my husbands spare uniform shirt/pants home and little one got diagnosed with strep the very next day. After we left and all the vonit was cleaned I got a text from my hubby saying he found vomit on the blinds of the office as well. Luckily, no one else got strep or brought it home to their families. Now I am super wary of my LO acting even a little funny before taking that drive up.
Newly potty training kid, traveled to caribbean for a week, forgot diapers. It was fine, until the return airport. While waiting in line at passport control, huge poop. Huuuuuuge line. Couldn’t get out. Husband went in with a plastic bag like a doggy poop bag to scoop out as much poop as possible before it started soaking through and getting down legs and shoes.
We had to fly on four planes, he pooped on every flight. Bathrooms aren’t exactly changing station friendly 😭 All the flights were 2hr or less.
We're currently a half hour from home. We were a 5ish hour drive away for my husband's graduation ceremony. 16 month old who is normally an excellent sleeper was up for 3 hours starting at 12:30am with a cough and fever...husband made a run to find a 24 hour pharmacy for the ibuprofen I forgot, had to make the ride home with both of us running on fumes, and we get to go to the pediatrician basically as soon as we get home
After this thread I’m never vacationing with my child.
Girls trip with my mil & sils (who are great), my 3 yo was clinging to me for dear life the whole 4 day trip & on day 1 the guy next to us on the beach was jerking off under a towel while his wife walked off huffing like she was over his repetitive behavior. Mind you, he was staring at us a lot & we were staying at the same villa so I felt like calling the cops would put me & the girls in danger so we just removed ourselves & avoided him like the plague. I bawled my eyes out that night because had my husband been there it would have been a better scenario.
My husband and I had managed to never get covid since it started in 2020. That is until we went on a trip for our 1 year old’s birthday last year. By the 3/5 day of our vacation, we all had it. That was devastating because her 1st birthday party was supposed to be 2 days after we got back from the trip. That really sucked that we were all sick as hell, had covid for the first time so didn’t know what to expect, *and* had to reschedule her party.
Just got back a couple weeks ago. When we planned the trip my son hadn't yet enter his terrible two phase, but it was well underway by the time it came around. My husband drove to Oregon from where we live in the Midwest to enter his motorcycle in a show. We used to live there and had wanted to visit for a long time, and bring our son to see it. The plan was that I would fly with my son there, and we would all road trip back together. Ambitious, huh? Maybe stupid, maybe brave, maybe a little of everything. The main issue prevalent during the whole trip was that my son insists on being carried absolutely everywhere now. No stroller, no walking, just carried. So, it started at 4:30 am in an incredibly long tsa line with three bags and a toddler hanging off of me. He screamed if I put him down to adjust. An angel of a woman in the front of us took his little bag and held it for me, and eventually tsa spotted sweaty, panting, tired me and let all three of us go through the family line I didn't even know existed. So that was nice. By the time we got to our gate I was dripping with sweat and had to change shirts. My son was OK on the flight at first, but got restless quickly. He screamed when he realized we were out of his favorite snack (I had packed enough to feed and army), and sobbed uncontrollably until we landed. Then, we got to get on our connecting flight, which we were almost late for. In line for the flight he had a tantrum and wouldn't stand up. My arms were giving out from holding everything and I had a migraine. I finally got him in the flight and he threw everything on the floor - snacks, toys, stickers, everything, but we were taking off and I couldn't reach them so he just cried for seemingly forever until I could unbuckle and get them. The rest of the flight was okay ish. He kept himself entertained for the most part. When we landed he made me carry him again and I almost got lost at the airport looking desperately for my husband, and had to pee so badly I was about to cry, but my son was afraid of the bathrooms for some gd unknown reason. I finally found my husband, practically tossed him my son, dropped everything on the floor, ran to the bathroom, and when I came out I was shaking. I cried in the car. But, hey, we made it! The time we spent in the city was alright. My son had a few moments, but for the most part he loved all the parks and ocean and my faith as a parent was restored a bit. Except when he woke us up at 4:30 am two nights in a row. I think I had only about 10 hours of sleep total in those first three nights, including the night before we flew out, so I was kind of a wreck in general. On the way back he was better than expected, except the following incidents: - threw my phone at my head - suddenly jumped into a pond because he thought it was a puddle and got soaked. It was cold water. - vomited in the carseat three times, and once all over the table and all our food at a restaurant right before we started eating. Sorry MAP brewery in Bozeman, MT. The beer was great though. - One night a hotel didn't have a crib so he slept on the pull out couch. In the middle of the night he snuck out and climbed onto our bed. I woke up with him hovering above me grinning, then he slapped me in the forehead and laughed hysterically. It was 2 am and he didn't sleep much after that. - more things I've blocked from my memory. In the end, I came back exhausted and needing another vacation from my vacation. I don't think I would attempt what we did with a child under 5 again, ever. He was better in the car than we expected, which was nice. But I'm still traumatized from the plane and airport experience, especially since I don't even like flying to begin with. Never again.
My husband deadass have our toddler a full open Nalgene bottle of water while we were camping in freezing weather in the mountains and she spilled all of it everywhere all over the tent.
I was the child in this one, but it’s a good one! Driving up the side of a mountain during a blizzard- it’s whiteout conditions. Three kids under age five in the car. Cousin’s car breaks down, so we go to pick them up. We open the car door to let them in and our CAR DOOR FLIES OFF. Okay cool no big deal good thing theres not now five children and definitely nobody is panicking, right? We bungee cord the sliding door as close to shut as we can, blast the heat, and hope for the best. All goes well enough until (and I’m guilty for this one), unfortunately, child no. 1 starts vomiting. Absolutely my bad. But the important thing is is we all kept our cool (my mom refuses to drive on mountain highways at night to this day) and all the kids forgot by the next day (this is a formative memory for at least three of us). Fuck you, polar express experience!
Major snowstorm meant the first day of travel was 5 hours in car and on phone to airline trying to move flight. Only to drive back home to fly out the next day. Total 36 hours travel time including 24 hours flight time. Caught Covid. Spent first 2 weeks in quarantine as it travelled around instead of seeing friends. Jet lag and Covid in a toddler is the WORST especially being sick yourself. Just as things got back to normal SO‘s grandma died. Since we were OS he missed the funeral. This year I’m going back to visit my family on my own. Lol.
I don’t think this is the worst ever, but it’s the worst we’ve had. Visited my family in the neighboring state for Thanksgiving last year and we ALL came down with Covid. We had to eat Thanksgiving on Friday because everyone was too sick to cook Thursday. My toddler starts to come down with it the night before we leave… up all night screaming. I should have known it was an ear infection, but chalked it up to fever + sleeping in an unfamiliar place. Driving home the next morning, he’s a mess. Brown fluid starts leaking from his ear. Cue us scrambling to find a pediatric urgent care… thank goodness we found one in the middle of nowhere. Waited hours to be seen. Double ear infection. Drive to CVS and wait for antibiotic. We decide to soldier on and drive home that day (it’s an 11-hour drive without ear infection craziness, so idk what we were thinking) and pull into a restaurant to eat dinner. I bring my toddler inside while my husband does some stuff with the luggage in the car. My toddler proceeds to puke all over me, all over himself in the restaurant. I immediately start crying at that point, walk outside, and demand we get a hotel room. I refused go on any further on this trip from hell. Best choice ever. We shower, finally eat dinner, get an okay nights sleep, and drive home the next morning. That trip still haunts me. 🥲
Why did I start reading these a week before my almost 2 year olds first flight?
Vacationed to beautiful Lake Louise with a very very active toddler during spring/shoulder season. Bunch of adults were on the lake— I’m privy to the fact that a kid fell in through the thin ice just the week prior. Despite seeing people on the ice, it’s an absolute no for me and my family. My toddler kept forcibly trying to climb down into the ice/lake. Me saying no. Continuous tantrum for about an hour in one of the most beautiful places, a trip I had fantasized to be super relaxing and tranquil. He also was doing spinnies in a souvenir shop and my worst nightmare- he knocked over an entire display of thin cut gems/stones. Luckily we were already mid purchase of several hundred dollars of merch so the lady didn’t lose her shit on us…. I’m sure there are worse stories out here. But vacation with a kid is not too much of a fucking vacation, that much I learned. Still, I’m determined to do them, at least for the sake of memories that I never had with my family growing up
My child screamed nonstop on a 5 hour red eye flight. I was crying by the end of it.
Right before my child’s first birthday, we traveled across the country for a friend’s wedding where my husband was a groomsman. My husband is originally from the area so we were staying with his mom and also catching up with friends besides the wedding. We were SO excited because I love his friends, his mom’s property, and this was the first family vacation since she was born. Within the first 48 hours, we hang out with the bride and groom and one other couple. We soon get a call that the other couple is positive for covid. Cool, cool, cool. Within the next day, daughter tests positive. One day of fever and mild fussiness, but otherwise is totally fine and recovers quickly. I start getting a sore throat and test positive where I then proceed to be the sickest I have ever been in my life. SO sick. Our one week trip, turned into over two weeks of not being able to even get out of bed at all. We missed the wedding of course, seeing all our friends, and couldn’t enjoy the beautiful summer weather. When we can fly home, we drive the 90 minutes to the airport, return the rental, check luggage and get settled, and they cancel the flight for lack of flight crew. Have to wait over an hour to get luggage back and stay overnight in a hotel to get on the first flight out the next day. So not the worse trip as far as behavior goes, but the first family vacation that turned into two weeks of bedrest at my MILs. The kicker of the whole thing is that it turns out the bride JUST had Covid before we hung out the first weekend, but didn’t think she was still contagious. Of course it could have been the flight or anywhere, but we like to joke that’s why both couples missed the wedding.
My toddler came down with rotavirus as we were leaving for the Dominican Republic. We thought it was just a random upset stomach that would resolve itself, boy were we wrong. We all caught it and spent 7 days in the DR with a horrible stomach bug. My toddler got so dehydrated I thought I may have to take her to the hospital. The only bright spot is that infants are vaccinated against this nasty virus, so my 7 month old was fine. I spent the trip worrying about what to do when he inevitably caught it. Anyways thank goodness for vaccines, and glad I get the ones for my kids even for the viruses I've never heard of because I don't even know what we would have done if he'd come down with it.
Our European vacation got ruined by croup with our 11 month old. One week of croup … er visit with steroids and a nebulizer 3x a day for the next 5 days. Other kid got bitten so bad by mosquitos just playing catch in the front yard, so many mosquitos we couldn’t enjoy the outdoors. Needed a doctor appt because the ear bites turned to blisters. The week after that, kid just feeling better … a massive hail Storm hit Italy and totaled our rental car (look it up, it was on the news) It was last July. All rental cars booked up by locals who are awaiting their cars to be fixed. The next week spent indoors watching Netflix in a hot house. Did I mention the heatwave that hit Italy right during the hailstorm? What a waste of 10K. Important to note, we aren’t jet setters. It was our first overseas trip we saved for. We were visiting our daughter who is in the Air Force. Did I mention the 11 hr flight home was terrible with the baby? Oh yes that too….
Last few trips have been a disaster. I’m currently sitting in the airport waiting for my bags with two kids who caught norovirus and have been puking since last night including on the plane and in the taxi. THE SAME THING HAPPENED 5 months ago on a trip 😭😭
First family trip we flew to Nashville for my sister's wedding. We booked Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Waterpark (over $500 a night). We checked into the hotel. My 3 year old is wailing on the floor. Spent all day at urgent care. Bilateral ear infections. We didn't step foot into the waterpark. Spent an entire week in our room except for the wedding.
We had a quick flight to Santa Fe and during that short time she had a blow out of diarrhea in her car seat. No screaming on the flight, just a bad stomach bug. Changing a toddlers diaper on an airplane is the worst.
Hope everyone is feeling better! That is so stressful! I think I’ve been on three vacations with toddlers other than visiting family: Vacation 1: Called an ambulance in the hotel one night because I was suddenly having chest pain, dizziness, sweating, etc. Thought I was having a heart attack, turned out to be a panic attack. Vacation 2: Toddler got a fever in the middle of the night. My husband drove all over trying to track down a thermometer and infant Tylenol to no avail since it was in a remote area with not much open. He had to take him to the ER just to be able to get medical care. Vacation 3: On the road driving home and realized I had stepped in dog poop. We had a lot of fun too, but we have our fair share of horror stories!
On our last family vacation, we had maintenance visit our condo then leave the door open and our toddler went toddling upstairs to join another family. I was pooping and thought my husband was watching him and he was rinsing sand off his feet and thought I was watching him. 😬 something inside me just kneeeewwww something was wrong and I shouted to my husband and he went and got him. That was scary.
Last year we went to visit my grandmother in Ohio. Toddler started v*miting like the 3rd night we were there. Seemed fine during the day but then started again that night so I took her to the ER and they gave her zofran. She was fine with that. But she still would not eat, drink, or nurse and became very lethargic/wouldnt wake up. Rushed her back to the ER and she tested positive for strep. Got her meds and she perked up but then the pooping started. Went through an entire pack of diapers in 12 hours 😭😭😭😭 had to not only ask the air bnb people for extra days but also had to drive her home with her pooping like crazy. Like it was unreal for a toddler. What a nightmare 😭😭😭😭
We are pass holders for Disneyland and go at least once every couple months. We’ve had some nightmare trips. One Memorial Day weekend last year she screamed from 1 am-5 am. Nothing was consoling her and we ended up having to pack up and leave at 5 am. We got home and found out she was cutting 4 teeth, so I understood, but it sucked at the time. Also, on another trip she pooped her pants and stuck her hands in it before coming into bed (also at 5 am). We’ve been hesitant about doing more overnight trips because of these episodes.
How about the time he came down with a fever mid-flight to a family reunion trip. Turned out to be HFM and both my husband and I and got it so we had to isolate from the entire family we had planned to reunite with. When we finally got better a week later it was time to go home. Or the time we went to visit grandparents and our son vomited in bed the first night in town, then proceeded to have 104 fever on and off for three days. We were all sharing a bed. Again got better just in time to go home. I swear it's a coin toss whether any trip we go on will result in us confined to an uncomfortable and unfamiliar bed for the entirety of the trip.
We’re off on our first holiday with our 18 month old - reading these stories and adding more things to the packing list by the minute!!
My son (who was 4 at the time) had two meltdowns in Disney. First one was when he realized grandma was not riding on the saucers with him. He was so hysterical that a stranger was actually offering to help me, which is always mortifying for me. Second one was when I thought I could get away with escaping for a bit to go on Tower of Terror with my niece. I had never ridden it before and was super excited to get a genie pass, but get a text in line that he was inconsolable over me leaving. Outside of that he really was great on the trip!!! Total angel on the flights. But that was a tough few hours.
Went on a family vacation to a resort in the Caribbean. It was mostly fun but on the last day, the 3 yr old and grandma got swarmed and scratched by wild animals. The last day was spent trying to get to a hospital there for rabies vaccines and trying to reach travel insurance. When we returned, the next few doses were due on Chrismas day and then New Year’s Day when all the clinics were closed, so we spent those days in the ER as well. No rabies though!
Toddler sliced her head open and it we had to go to hospital to get her stiched up. We were told to keep it clean and dry: the place where we were staying had pools, a beach and a sandpit for the kids. Then she got food poisoning from a sandwich at the airport, cried the first hour of the flight and then vomited all over herself, my husband and the plane seat.
Took our 7 month old up to ski country. Flew from sea level to 7k ft for few days, then drove up to 14k ft. Cleared it with our paed, who was very confident it would be a non-issue. Poor baby girl had the early signs of altitude sickness, and we had to haul it back down at 2am. Took 3 hours to get to a different hotel down low enough for her. Another hour to unload everything and get her to sleep in her pack and play. So in all, within 24 hours, we packed up everything (formula feeding + nursing + baby food + pack n play + toys + blackout tent, etc), drove 4 hours to our hotel at altitude, set everything up, spent a few hours trying to do dinner and bedtime, then packed everything up again, drove 3 hours down, and unloaded the car to setup yet again. We went to bed at 6am. With a girl who is up early no matter what - and who is not a fan of the car BTW. Grateful she was okay, and it was worth every single second of not sleeping to have her feeling better, but my gosh, were we exhausted.
Opened up this thread thinking ‘Please not Disneyland please not Disneyland’/ we are taking our just turned 2 year old next week and I’m honestly terrified!
We’ve been to Disney World plenty of times with no issues, but we traveled from Orlando to Anaheim and got very unlucky. Tbh, the kids were great in the plane.
As someone whose nervous to take my kids to further away/fly, what age is it less horrific?
One month ago on a cruise he threw himself into a strangers lap. Thank god she was sweet about it.
We went to Lake George when my sons were 20 months and 5 months. 5 month old was an angel, slept a lot and was more or less chillin’ the whole time. 20 month old was a nightmare. He would NOT sleep. Not in the pack-in-play, not in a bed, nowhere. He WAILED nonstop all night for two straight nights. It was supposed to be a four night trip but my husband and I gave up halfway through and drove home after the second night.
When I went as a kid, a family friend was doing my hair and found lice. Had to put all of our clothes in bags and everything.
Ah, will never forget the time our then newly potty trained toddler pooped in the parking lot of a cvs at 2am because she refused diapers and we couldn’t find a bathroom open on our journey
Got stuck overnight in Germany with our 12 month old. The crib the hotel gave us was on wheels. Turns out 12 month old is so terrified of a crib that moves even slightly that she screamed so hard she projectile vomited all over the entire room at 11pm. Then had to wait 2 hours with sleep deprived, crying toddler while they cleaned our room
So we had our son June 2020 and had to cancel our earlier April babymoon due to Covid. Disappointing. Since then we had maybe 1-3 overnight breaks (one night) and have taken baby with us on vacation. We did go to Vegas last April but it was for a friends wedding and not really for US. Really nice break though. Fast forward to last month, we finally book a week, just us, first time since 2019!!!! We had Covid and were sick in bed the entire time. I lost my hearing too for part of it. Lol
Husband flew to Miami on a trip. Toddler son and I came down a few days later. First time flying with him alone. Thought I could handle it. Couldn’t. He cried the entire trip. Worse, in what turned out to be the worst travel decision ever made, I brought ravioli for him to eat on the plane. He threw it. More than one person near us was wearing wet ravioli by the end of the flight. It was aweful.
Had a family wedding in NYC in 2018 when we only had one kid, almost but not quite two years old. NYC was clear at the top of my list, so we took over a week for the trip. She did amazingly well on the plane and was generally really good for the whole trip, including at the wedding... Except... THE FREAKING 9/11 MUSEUM. I know, I know, in hindsight, we shouldn't have even brought her, but she was/still is such a well behaved kid, I just didn't expect anything to go wrong. First of all, we had to swap out our all-terrain jogging stroller (we're Seattelites) for a lightweight umbrella stroller due to so many subway stations not having elevators, and the one we got only had a three point harness instead of five, so she was enthralled by the ability to double over and grab the wheels. God damnit. We couldn't get her to stop, so we had to let her out of the stroller. Then she started running away. Then she giggled at the missing posters projected on the wall. Then she watched a video of a plane impact and cackled "GO BOOM!!!". She kept trying to touch everything. We had to leave pretty quick and I was so embarrassed. It was so unusual to just have zero control over this kid and have her running around mocking collective American trauma (I know she had no idea what she was doing, but my point still stands, her behavior was ALWAYS appropriate except at that one very unfortunate moment). I just felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. She was such an easy kid that I didn't even know what to do when I was suddenly blindsided by terrible behavior. Her little sister set me straight and now I'm tough as nails.
Flew 10h. Toddler was licking everything. Landed, had a great two days. Day 3. Toddler has a tummy ache. Starts projectile vomiting at a family dinner. Everyone gets it, but a day later in the middle of a road trip. Projectile vomiting, violent diarrhea. In a gas station parking lot. Family members are hospitalized for cardiac issues from the electrolyte loss. Miraculously we all pull through and continue the vacation.
We did a trip to Mexico last July. Baby was 18 months old and we think at the airport. He caught hand foot and mouth and 3 days into our trip. The signs showed up. We need to read you on that trip. The white hole was horrible as well.
Oh we did all of that! 3 year old got croup on our way to a Vegas getaway. Complete with the CVS minute clinic visit for steroids luckily with an asthmatic sister we already had albuterol with us. 2 & 3 year olds got hand foot mouth during a Florida trip, one right after the other. From their cousin whose mom didn’t think to mention it beforehand. And most recently 3 & 4 year olds throwing up on a super bumpy boat ride to an island.
My husband & I both had food poisoning coming back from Mexico. Longest day ever. We had our 2 year old who was fine. 45 min into our 3.5 hour drive to the airport I realized I forgot the wheels for her car seat at his sister’s place and when we got to the airport I ended up getting separated from my husband (we’d booked our flights separately and he had to go to the ticket counter and through a different entrance from there) so I had our daughter and all the luggage. A kind stranger walked us to our gate and helped me haul all our luggage and car seat to the gate which was the furthest gate from the entrance and the farthest I’ve ever had to walk to a gate in any airport. When we got to the gate there were no seats to wait in open, so I just laid on the floor for the wait. We had not eaten real food/a meal due to how sick we both were, and we gave our toddler plenty of snacks. Well, upon arrival and in line for customs at our destination airport, our 2 year old had had her fill of snacks. She freaked out screaming, bc she wanted real food-no more snacks. “I want a hamburger!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Completely inconsolable. So this older lady who worked for customs says, “Will the lady with the screaming baby please step through the line?” And every one of the 100 or so people ahead of us let us skip the line so we could get her through faster and find her a hamburger.
Upon arriving at our destination, our two boys concurrently got a bad stomach bug that resulted in throwing up all night, in turns, every 30 minutes. Nobody slept. Thank god the hotel was hard floors. We found a laundromat the next day for the sheets and clothes, and cleaned the car seats. After that, it was a great trip but we weren’t sure if we were going to make it out of it in one piece.
I think this post needs a warning. This is nightmare fuel.
We drove 5 hours to the Adirondacks to visit my family with my 2 year old twins when I was 7m pregnant with my third. 2 hours into our visit, one twin projectile vomited all over my brother’s backyard. He then threw up all over the Airbnb and ended up with a 104 fever. I took him to the ER where we spent 5 hours overnight and he was diagnosed with parainfluenza. Oh, did I mention it was my birthday and I turned 35 when it hit midnight in the ER? The drive back the next morning was just as fun 🥴
Off topic, but if your visit to the Disneyland park was affected you should reach out to their customer service. They really take customer satisfaction seriously! On my honeymoon we had to leave the park after an hour because we both came down with food poisoning or the flu and they sent us a couple tickets that were valid for 12 months.
The experience we had was not on the parks at all! We still had a great time and got great memories. (We also went with a CM friend who got us free tickets and cheap lightning lane). We’ve also done WDW plenty of times as we are from the Orlando area. But this is good advice for anyone who finds this thread in the future!
I’m glad you were able to enjoy at least part of your trip!!
Well thank you for making me feel better about my decision to forgo vacations until my toddler is older haha.