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Wow…Family Vacation With Young Children Is Stressful! Login/Join 
Get my pies
outta the oven!

Picture of PASig
posted
Please please please tell me this gets better! Eek

Spent a week at Sandbridge Beach VA on vacation with my wife and kids, her parents and her sister and husband and kids.

The vacation was nice but wow, getting to and from VA from PA with a 1 year old, a 4 year old and a 6 year old was not fun. The 6 hour drive turned into 8 hours with all the various potty break stops, stops to eat, stops to have the wife calm down a crying 1 year old girl, etc

Add the fact that we stopped numerous times in Maryland trying to find a f$@#cking fast food place that was actually open with dine in service with hungry kids with an increasingly irritated wife who is SO OVER all this Covid bullshit that has apparently turned half the worlds eateries into drive-thru only. Mad

I’d like to think it gets easier as the kids get older and can handle long trips and entertain themselves more?


 
Posts: 33608 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Bookers Bourbon
and a good cigar
Picture of Johnny 3eagles
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It gets better, but then the kids get older and want to control the radio. Then, one day before you know it, they get in their car and leave home. Cherish the time now.



BIDEN SUCKS.

If you're goin' through hell, keep on going.
Don't slow down. If you're scared don't show it.
You might get out before the devil even knows you're there.


NRA ENDOWMENT LIFE MEMBER
 
Posts: 7120 | Location: Arkansas  | Registered: November 06, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
semi-reformed sailor
Picture of MikeinNC
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Benadryl is your friend.



"Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” Robert A. Heinlein

“You may beat me, but you will never win.” sigmonkey-2020

“A single round of buckshot to the torso almost always results in an immediate change of behavior.” Chris Baker
 
Posts: 11247 | Location: Temple, Texas! | Registered: October 07, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Back in May we went from PA to Myrtle beach with a 3 yr old. That girl peed in 5 different states going down. Luckily we bought a travel potty and she peed on the side of the road. She only napped for maybe 2 hrs. The saving grace was the ipad with movies downloaded.

I could not imagine 3 kids.


 
Posts: 5406 | Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA | Registered: February 27, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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And I am so glad my kids are grown. BTW, traveling with kids is a pain. If you didn't know.

Vince
 
Posts: 307 | Registered: July 06, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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It's just something you have to get through. As they say, it is what it is. When they're older, some of the trips will be family lore and be pretty funny. I can't say I never got mad traveling but it didn't do any good. You'll get through it. We thought road trips in a 3 seat Suburban would make it easier, a row per kid. It did not. Smile
 
Posts: 124 | Registered: July 24, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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My kids are 51 and 48. I'm sure they discovered the same joys of travelling with children. Now my grandchildren are having babies, so they are learning also.

At least half the folks I know in my age group are raising their grandchildren and/or great-grandchildren. I see relatively few intact family units. Be thankful!


Retired holster maker.
Retired police chief.
Formerly Sergeant, US Army Airborne Infantry, Pathfinders
 
Posts: 1092 | Location: Colorado | Registered: March 07, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
אַרְיֵה
Picture of V-Tail
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quote:
Originally posted by PASig:

I’d like to think it gets easier as the kids get older and can handle long trips and entertain themselves more?
More than once I serious considered sending the kids by UPS, to meet us at the vacation spot without the tsuris of travel.



הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים
 
Posts: 30546 | Location: Central Florida, Orlando area | Registered: January 03, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Savor the limelight
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You drive they fly. Problem solved. Your welcome.
 
Posts: 10824 | Location: SWFL | Registered: October 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Min-Chin-Chu-Ru... Speed with Glare
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quote:
Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
It gets better, but then the kids get older and want to control the radio. Then, one day before you know it, they get in their car and leave home. Cherish the time now.


I'm a grandfather now. As I watch my 4-year-old granddaughter worship her dad, my son-in-law, and vividly remember the day my daughter said she no longer needed to hold my hand, I can only echo the above advice: "Cherish the time now."
 
Posts: 1265 | Location: MA | Registered: December 24, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Retired, laying back
and enjoying life
Picture of low8option
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quote:
Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Cherish the time now.


As you get older these times will some of your best memories and your children's.



Freedom comes from the will of man. In America it is guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment
 
Posts: 876 | Location: Northern Alabama | Registered: June 21, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I used this technique for long distance trips with family: I loaded the entire mess into the vehicle at 11 PM. Within about 30 minutes, the whole crew was asleep. Peaceful cruising ensued and I woke them up when we arrived at our destination. Less traffic too.
My parents simplified travel by beating us into unconsciousness for the duration of the trip. I understand that type of family travel is no longer socially acceptable.


End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
 
Posts: 16005 | Location: Marquette MI | Registered: July 08, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Spread the Disease
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I have a four and seven year old. I’m not sure if it gets better, but it does get different.


________________________________________

-- Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. --
 
Posts: 17248 | Location: New Mexico | Registered: October 14, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of P250UA5
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10, 7 & 1 here.
We did Houston > Destin this summer. Supposed to be an 8 hour drive. Took closer to 10.
14 on the return, due to construction in LA.




The Enemy's gate is down.
 
Posts: 15154 | Location: Spring, TX | Registered: July 11, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Prepared for the Worst, Providing the Best
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You just need to make more trips! We drive to my in-laws in FL several times a year, plus at least one long road trip out west for vacation, and my 4 kids are acclimated, now. They're 13, 11, 8 and 6, but we've been doing this since they were born. When the youngest was 2 months old, we did a 2 week road trip to CA towing a camper...it was crazy, but it was a blast and we have great memories. They know not to drink a bunch, because we're not stopping till we need gas, and they also know better than to mess with each other because dad has long arms and can reach back there if I have to! They don't have tablets or movies, either... entertainment is looking out the window, or whatever audiobook I have on to keep me awake.

We've started packing food, because even if you can find something open, it takes forever to stop, order, and eat...and it's gotten crazy expensive, especially as the kids get bigger and hungrier. We have stops down now. We try to find a truck stop or some other big gas station that's easy on/easy off the highway. My wife takes the kids to the bathroom while I gas up the suburban, then move it to a parking spot away from the pump. About the time I'm done with that, they're coming out. I go in to pee whole she makes and distributes sandwiches out of the cooler in the back. By the time I get back, she's usually about done and we're back on the road. 10-15 min max per stop, with all fuel, bathroom, and food needs satisfied.

With me working nights, we've also done what Yooper suggested on occasion...drive all night so they just sleep. I take the night shift, and my wife takes the day....it works out pretty well.
 
Posts: 8419 | Location: In the Cornfields | Registered: May 25, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Don't Panic
Picture of joel9507
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quote:
Originally posted by PASig:
I’d like to think it gets easier

Yeah, but by then the dentures and Depends thing kicks in......
 
Posts: 15001 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Fourth line skater
Picture of goose5
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My kids always traveled great. Of course at the end it looked like someone tossed a pudding grenade that used Gold Fish shrapnel in the back seat.


_________________________
OH, Bonnie McMurray!
 
Posts: 7506 | Location: Pueblo, CO | Registered: July 03, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Leatherneck
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quote:
Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
I have a four and seven year old. I’m not sure if it gets better, but it does get different.


This is about what I was going to say. Road trips are certainly easier now with two teenagers, they tend to put their headphones on and we don’t hear much from them anymore. Is it better? I mean I don’t worry about living through another hellish drive through the mountains at night with a screaming kid in the back who just wants out of his car seat, but a part of me sure misses the whole family singing along to some Disney CD or hearing cartoons coming from the DVD player in the back.

I truly enjoy my kids at this age, particularly my son as we are very similar, but I sure do miss them being tiny.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pale Horse,




“Everybody wants a Sig in the sheets but a Glock on the streets.” -bionic218 04-02-2014
 
Posts: 15249 | Location: Florida | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Stop Talking, Start Doing
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We have a 6 and 4.5 year old. It’s getting better, but I still always say that we don’t go on vacation .. we just take care of our kids in a different city Big Grin.


_______________
Mind. Over. Matter.
 
Posts: 5070 | Location: The (R)ight side of Washington State | Registered: August 31, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Uppity Helot
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We didn’t start vacationing again until ours were 3 & 5. Any earlier would have been madness and fun for no one.
 
Posts: 3128 | Location: Manheim, PA | Registered: September 04, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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