8 Tips for PCS Travel with Young Kids
A PCS is hard enough, don’t you think? Then, when you add young kids into the mix, you’ve entered a whole other level of complicated. But what about their PCS travel experience? How do you prepare for that?
Here a few ideas to help your children cope with the travel and for you to hang onto your sanity:
1. Keep their routine as normal as possible.
What’s normal about spending three days in the car driving across the country? Not much. The more you can do to maintain children’s routines, the better. There’s a lot of change for them, so keeping their bedtime regimen the same might be their only consistency. If you’re driving all day, take time to have your normal family dinner, bath time, read a story, and say goodnight when you stop to sleep.
2. Plan for delays.
You’ve all heard, “I have to go potty!” the second you leave the house (never mind the fact that you asked your toddler 15 times before getting into the car). It’s almost as if buckling into the car seat serves as a diuretic for little kids.
Whether you’re driving or flying (especially if you’re flying), it’s a good idea to accommodate for more time to travel. The idea of sitting in the airport hours before your flight with three young kids who need to be entertained doesn’t appeal to most. But, I think many of us would argue it’s much better to sit waiting than to miss your flight because you had to stop to go potty and got delayed in security.
3. Communicate with your children.
Explain the move to your kids. If this isn’t their first PCS, then they should have a better handle and understanding of what the process looks like. Allow time for them to say goodbye to their friends.
When it’s time to make the trip, explain that they’re going to be in a car for a few days or on an airplane for a day to help prepare them mentally. Make it sound fun. Tell them that they get to go “night night” on an airplane, and when they wake up, they’ll get to see their new house. Tell them they can eat fun snacks in the car and watch a new movie on the way to their new house. How fun is that?
Our children look to us for so much, and how to feel about a big change, like moving, is one thing they’re sure to learn from us. The number one thing you can do for them (and yourself) is to be calm and focus on the good things.
Related: 7 Tips to Help Your Military Kid Cope with PCS
4. Bring snacks.
Snacks, snacks, and more snacks. What do we do when we’re bored? We eat. We all want our kids to be healthy, but sometimes introducing a new, fun snack can be motivation for your children to behave in cramped spaces. Bring fruit snacks of their favorite characters, mini cookies, or lollipops.
Having said that, pumping your kids full of sugar isn’t the best idea either, so prepare a balance. In addition to a fun treat, put a cooler with healthy snacks, like carrots and apples, in the car to keep your kids busy.
5. Re-introduce old toys.
There’s no need to go out and buy all kinds of new toys for your trip. After all, you’re already trying to juggle everything you own. Instead, find old toys they haven’t played with for a while, and wrap them. Every hour tell them they can open a wrapped toy. This not only gives them something fun to play with, but it also gives them something to look forward to when they behave well.
6. Prepare for the worst.
Fits, messes, sickness: expect it all to happen, because it probably will. Traveling to new areas exposes your children to all kinds of germs that can make them sick. Not only do they come in close contact with a large number of people when flying, but they’ll also run into new environments that might spark allergies.
If the best happens and you all make it with minimal fits, with the same outfit on, and no runny noses, then you can pour yourself a celebratory drink!
7. Pack extra everything.
You don’t want to get stuck on the plane without enough diapers or a change of clothes for your baby who just had a blow-out. Bring an obscene amount of diapers. Bring a handful of spare clothes. A blow-out and spit up aren’t usually contained to just your child, so bring a change of clothes for yourself as well. That way, you aren’t stuck smelling sour for the day.
8. Have fun!
Unless orders dictate it, you don’t have to travel from point A to point B as fast as possible. Try planning some fun stops into your trip. Include your kids in the plan, and see what things they’d like to stop and do. This will allow them to feel like they have some control over the situation, give them something to look forward to, and break up the trip a bit. For more tips, see How to Plan Military Travel with Pinterest.
Traveling with young kids can be overwhelming. Even if you’ve done it a million times already, each trip is different, and how your kids behave is different. Use all the help you can get, and remember these tips to help make it a smooth transition for the whole family. You’ve got this!
By Danielle Keech for MilitaryByOwner
