by Dr. Erin Clifton

Vacationing with little children is not relaxing. It is not rejuvenating. And yet, we keep doing it.

The night before we leave, I lay out the girls’ clothes for the next day. By that I mean their pajamas, because I am not changing children into daytime clothes when, at 3 a.m., we will be carrying them downstairs and loading them into their carseats thinking, “They’ll sleep on the way to the airport.” No such luck.

Getting through security isn’t too bad until we get the stroller through and only one child wants to go back in it. Somebody is hungry. Somebody is tired. They cry and complain about every little thing. Then we board the airplane.

Have you ever tried keeping a 20-month-old on your lap without allowing her to intrude into the space on either side of you? Even when the person sitting next to you is her own sister? A foot touches a thigh, and it’s, “Don’t touch me!” “She’s in my space!” “She’s pushing me!”

Then comes the moment I’ve been dreading. We still have an hour and a half left in the flight when I smell it. Poop.

I glance around to see if anyone else has noticed. I actually convince myself that maybe—maybe—we can hang in there until the flight is over. But, not five minutes later, my toddler loudly announces, “Ewwww, she stinks! I think sister pooped!”

Okay. We’re going in! I gather “sister” and supplies and make my way to the back of the plane, where I squeeze myself and a 20-month-old into a bathroom about the size of a shoebox. It’s loud and confined, so she immediately starts screaming bloody murder.

I pull down the diaper-changing station and attempt to wrestle her shoes and pants off while she is completely losing her mind. I finally get the dirty diaper off. She kicks it and the diaper flies off the changing table. It hits my foot first, then the floor. At this point, I am moving as quickly as humanly possible while silently praying, “Please don’t have landed poop-side down. Please don’t have landed poop-side down.”

I wipe her down, get a fresh diaper on her, dress her, grab the dirty diaper (which thankfully had landed poop-side-up), dispose of the evidence and finally open the bathroom door, only to discover the beverage cart is blocking the aisle back to our seats.

Back in our seats, my kids are still too little to leave headphones on for any meaningful length of time, so watching a movie is not an option. But I’m prepared. My mom used to pack little surprises for us when we took long road trips. I loved that, so I try to do the same. I have new toys. I bring activities. I pack new markers and little surprises. These work for maybe three minutes at a time. Then something gets dropped … or a marker rolls under a seat … or someone inevitably wants whatever her sister has.

Vacations with little kids are difficult largely because everything that normally keeps them regulated gets thrown out the window. They don’t sleep on schedule. They don’t nap on schedule. Their routine is completely altered. Then, because they don’t sleep enough, they’re cranky. And when they’re cranky, they are especially cranky with me. Sure, I am their safe space, which means they would crawl back inside my body and return to the womb if that were possible.

One of the biggest changes I’ve made is simply readjusting my expectations. I leave plenty of time on vacation to move at my children’s pace instead of trying to jam everything into the schedule. Sometimes the thing I thought would be the highlight of the trip lasts 20 minutes, and the thing they love most is so blazingly simplistic. Sometimes we need to go back to the hotel because somebody needs a nap or to veg watching ParaNorman for the billionth time.

I know Embassy Suites may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but when traveling with little kids, it scores some serious points with me. First, they usually have a huge, open common area in the center of the hotel. Nobody seems particularly bothered when your children use this area to run around like banshees, screaming with delight. When they get tired of running, they can wave to people riding the glass elevators. Free entertainment! Additionally, Embassy Suites guest rooms include a separate sitting area off the bedroom. This is huge when you have little kids. You can fit a family of six into one room, the price is still manageable, and the breakfast is pretty darn good.

One rule I have learned to follow upon returning home is to give myself at least a day and a half—preferably two days—before real life starts again. These are not bonus vacation days. These are recovery days. We unpack, do laundry, and try to catch up on sleep. We get food back in the house and slowly get everybody back onto something resembling a normal routine.

Traveling with little kids is exhausting. It is also messy and loud and hard on everyone’s nervous system. It is absolutely not relaxing. But I don’t think that means we shouldn’t do it. We just need to stop expecting a vacation with little children to look anything like vacations we took before we had them. Slow way down. Leave room in the schedule for chaos. Accept that, sometimes, the glass elevator is going to be more exciting than the activities we paid for. Realize the memories they retain may be of trivial moments.

Someday traveling with them won’t be this hard, but I have a feeling I may miss the clingy “Velcro stage” when that happens.

Just not the airplane poop. I will never miss the airplane poop.

Dr. Erin Clifton DC, CACCP, is a partner in Positively Chiropractic in Stockbridge, Michigan. Her specialty is pediatric, pregnancy and family health care. She is “mom” to two sons and two daughters and leads various health and wellness classes in the Stockbridge area. Dr. Erin has a personal passion for achieving optimal health, while educating and inspiring those in the community to work with the body, not against it.