Travelling abroad with small children

As many of you will know, travelling with two small children can be a nightmare. Especially when you have four suitcases to carry between you all as well. Yes that’s right, four adult hands – four suitcases and two small hands to hold. It does not add up at all well. It is so stressful but we took some measures this year to try and make our journey to Turkey a little easier and more comfortable for the children.

Online check in

First of all a week before we flew out we had the option to check in online, which was a huge time saver: we went to a different queue when we got to the airport and it was a lot quicker process. A simple check of passports against names and our faces matched the passports and also making sure our suitcases were within the weight limits.

For me, the most stressful part of going on holiday, the constant worry that you have packed unevenly or are just simply over the limit on all of your suitcases. If you can check in online with your flights I would recommend this, especially with little children. Very efficient.

Lightweight luggage

We managed to get ourselves some fantastic new suitcases for this holiday: lightweight, wheels that move in all directions and all at once, hard cased and to top it off looked pretty funky if you ask me. I was in love with my bright pink suitcase and the compartments inside were really practical as well. I was able to seperate smellies from the clothes, shoes from the nappies. It was easier to pack our clothes away and I really enjoyed being “organised” for a change. We purchased the suitcases from TK Maxx as they have a huge collection of luggage and different styles to suit all tastes.

The perfect buggy

We took along to Turkey the Babyzen Yoyo buggy, it was sent from above I am sure! So lightweight, so easy to steer and push it, it was a dream and made our experience in Turkey so much better. I cannot describe to you enough just how smooth it is to push this buggy, I could use one finger to do it and it would be fine. This came in handy when we were at the airport because I was able to push the buggy and hold Noah’s hand; whilst Daddy pushed the suitcase trolley and we were both laden with hand luggage. I am painting a joyous picture I know!

The buggy folds up so small that it should go on to the hand luggage shelf on the plane, but as we were flying on a smaller plane the air stewardess would not let us take it on board. Their hand luggage compartments are smaller than a larger plane, so I was a little disappointed. We were counting on the fact we could have the buggy available to us as soon as we land, especially as it was the middle of the night and both our babies were asleep.

Meet and greet parking

This was the best idea in the world, especially for us: a family of four with four big suitcases, two small children in the dead of the night on our return and going out flights. Having someone meet us at the drop off car park of Birmingham airport and pick up the car, to then go and park it for us whilst we make our way to the terminal. They took care of the drop off car park ticket, no fuss and it was so quickly done and so smoothly as well. The attendants were really helpful, they got us a trolley for our suitcases and kept an eye on the kiddies for us when we were trying to organise everything.

We had to wait around 3 or 4 minutes when we arrived for our attendant to meet us, it wasn’t very long at all, it gave us time to organise the car and get the children comfortable. On our return we waiting for a similar time and there it was our little car coming back to us at the drop off car park. This service was not much more on top of the regular airport parking that we have purchased in the past, but for an extra £30/40 I will most definitely be ordering this service everytime we fly in the future. We used Purple Parking from Birmingham airport on this occasion, but I know that they run this service at other airports across the UK. It meant we got more time to spend in the terminal, watching the planes, Noah’s favourite: