My top 3 holiday destinations // Jamaica, USA & Australia

Luxury Retreats villa in Jamaica

**This is a collaborative post

With all the snow that’s around this week, I am dreaming of a holiday in the sun more than ever! We’re lucky enough to have a holiday to France booked this summer – we’re staying in a gite with my parents and I can’t wait. But as much as I love France I wouldn’t really say it was one of my dream holiday destinations. So I thought I’d share the three places I’d love to visit, if money (and kids!) were no object!

Jamaica

Read more

5 ways to make travel easier while pregnant

5 top tips for travel in pregnancy

**This is a collaborative post

Travel can be stressful at the best of times, never mind when you’re expecting a little one. But don’t worry — I’ve got some great tips to make it as stress-free as possible. A few careful considerations and you’ll be ready for your trip in no time at all. Here are five ways to make travel easier while pregnant. Read more

Top 5 toddler travel essentials

We’ve done quite a bit of travelling with Toby since he was born. With both sets of Grandparents living 250 miles away we’ve been to stay with them a a fair few times plus a couple of self-catering holidays in the UK and the two weeks we spent in France at the beginning of the summer. Each time we’ve made another trip we’ve refined our list of ‘must-haves’ to take with us so I thought I’d share my top 5 toddler travel essentials with you.

Top 5 Toddler travel essentials

So, in no particular order…

Gro Anywhere Blind

(RRP £29.99)

I originally bought this so we could use it at home and when we travel. It’s been fantastic, especially for naps while we’re away or when travelling in the summer when it’s still very light at bedtime. The blind fits windows up to 130cm x198cm (we’ve never been anywhere with a window bigger than that yet) but also has clever velcro along the edges so you can adjust it to make it smaller. It attaches to the window with suckers and we’ve never had any problems with them coming unstuck. The other great benefit of the Gro Anywhere Blind is that it folds up nice and small and even comes with its own travel bag.

Munchkin Travel Booster Seat

(RRP £20.99)

Depending on where you are going on holiday you maybe able to hire a high chair, or if you know you’re going to be eating out the whole time the high chairs are usually readily available. In our experience though the highchairs which you get in rented holiday accommodation are not always great, either they’re a bit old and tired or just not a great design. When we go and visit our parents we need to take something with us, we don’t really go often enough for it to be worth them keeping a high chair at their houses. At home we love our IKEA Antilop high chair but it takes up quite a bit of room in the car so a booster seat is the perfect option for us. The Muchkin Travel Booster Seat has loads of great features. It is height adjustable with the four feet that fold out of the bottom. The three straps mean it can be fitted safely and securely to most chairs. There is a three-point harness to keep your little one safe in the chair too. When folded there are velcro flaps to keep everything tucked neatly out of the way and there is also a handy pocket inside the seat so you can keep cups, cutlery or bibs handy, or you could even fit a few nappies and wipes in there and do away with the need for your changing bag if you weren’t going to far. We used this booster seat on our recent trip to Butlins and it worked really well for us. We’ll definitely taking it when we go away again, and I can even see us using it at home in the future once Toby is too big for his highchair but not quite big enough to sit at the table with us.

Waterproof floor mat

At home we use a big piece of wipe clean PVC material, that I originally bought to use as a table cloth when we went camping, to put on the floor underneath Toby’s high chair so it’s easy to clean up any spills or dropped food. I’d definitely recommend taking something similar if you are staying in self-catering accommodation, that way you don’t have to worry about anything making a mess or staining the floor – especially if it’s carpet! We also reviewed the Messy Me mat which is perfect for the job.

Cheerios (and Munchkin Deluxe Snack Catcher)

(RRP £4.99)

Cheerios (or actually Tesco Multi-grain hoops!) have been our saviour on many trips! Toby loves them, I think he would live on dry Cheerios if we let him! We usually give him Cheerios in his Munchkin Snack Catcher whether we’re at home or away. They’re easy for him to get at but it takes enough of his concentration to keep him occupied, whether it’s while we’re unpacking or in the car. Using the snack catcher also means mess is limited, and luckily even dropped Cheerios aren’t too hard to clear up. If you do a lot of travelling with your kids it’s definitely worth finding a snack they love that also doesn’t make too much mess!

Grobags

(prices vary)

Toby has used a sleeping bag since he was about six weeks old. We have had several different brands in the past but always come back to the Grobag as they seem to have a bigger selection of togs and also bigger sizes (Toby has been using the 18-36 month size for a while now as he is so tall). When travelling I would always recommend taking whatever bedding and toys/comforters that your child uses at home. They’re already going to be sleeping in a strange place and a different bed or cot so anything you can do to make it as familiar as possible will help them feel settled – and hopefully sleep better, although this doesn’t always seem to work with Toby! I would also recommend taking a couple of sleeping bags of different thicknesses, or togs, as you never know what the temperature is going to be like where you are staying. There’s been a few times when we’ve been using a 2.5 tog bag at home but then gone to stay somewhere which has lots of heating and we’ve only needed the 1 tog. It’s always handy to have a spare anyway in case of any accidents!

WD40

OK, I know this is the sixth thing on the list but Barry wanted me to add this one! WD40 isn’t actually something we have taken away with us before but after our last trip I’ve bought a small can to keep in the car so we always have some when we’re away. I think every single place we have stayed has had creaky, squeaky bedroom doors, guaranteed to wake Toby when we’re trying to go to bed quietly. One of the wheels on our stroller is prone to squeaking too and we always forget to do anything about it when we’re at home as we don’t tend to use the stroller that much so it’s only when we get away that we remember how annoying it is!

There you go, my top 5 toddler travel essentials. Do you have anything you wouldn’t leave home without when travelling with your toddler?

**Disclosure: We were sent the Munchkin Travel Booster Seat and Deluxe Snack Catcher as a part of my role as a Munchkin Lindam blogger. This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own.

Child safety on the move with Lindam

Lindam is the name that comes to mind when thinking about child safety in the home – they are well-known for their safety gates, play pens, cupboard locks and all kinds of other ‘baby-proofing’ products. Did you know though, that they also have lots of products to help keep your child safe whilst in the car and out and about?

When we went to France at the beginning of June we spent three days driving to get there and two days driving home so Toby had to spend an awful lot of time in the car. We wouldn’t have managed without window shades and these ones from Lindam are great – I like the White Hot spot that lets you know if it is too hot inside the car, and also the two step release so if Toby manages to unstick the bottom of the shade it’s not going to ping back up.

SunBlock Shade

The other thing we couldn’t do without is the Adjustable Back Seat Mirror – Toby is still in a rear-facing car seat and will be for a few more years hopefully so having this mirror means we can easily see him, and recently he’s just worked out he can see us in the mirror too!

Back Seat Mirror

The Lindam 2-in-1 Backseat & Pushchair Organiser now lives in our car to keep Toby’s toys and drink in, plus a few other bits and pieces that otherwise always seem to end up just rolling around in the back! And if you like you can easily unclip the organiser from the back of the car seat and pop it on your stroller instead!

Lindam travel

Lindam also have this fantastic backpack with an optional strap to keep a hold of your little one. We haven’t really needed this yet as Toby isn’t walking. I’m sure it will come in very useful once he is though, and for now it was great for carrying Makka Pakka around and for me to try and stop Toby exploring the understairs cupboard!

Another great product for use at home and away is the FlexiGuard safety gate – a gate which is pressure fitted so doesn’t need to be attached to the wall and also folds up into it’s own case for easy transportation. This will be really handy for when we go on our next cottage holiday or even just visiting Toby’s grandparents.

I didn’t realise that Lindam had so many different products for use away from home! Are there other any safety essentials you’d recommend?

Disclosure: We were sent these items as a part of our role on the Lindam blogger panel. All opinions are my own.