Traveling With Kids: 8 Tips for a Good Night of Sleep

Two beds, two kids, one night to get through. Credit: prayitno

When I headed down to the Sweat AC fitness festival in Atlantic City, I just had to bring my family along. The city is just two hours south of where we live, and my husband and I had wanted to check it out since we moved to New Jersey. We’re not gamblers, so we hadn’t been sufficiently motivated to head down until I had the chance to work out with THE Jillian Michaels. We don’t have family nearby to help out or take the kids overnight, so we brought them along for the trip. (And there’s the whole breastfeeding thing to consider too and my crazy unwillingness to leave my littles for long stretches of time.)

We were just going to be gone overnight, so I packed the bare minimum. Meaning plenty of clothes and diapers in case of accidents, but no real baby paraphernalia. I didn’t really know how the sleep thing would go with the whole family in one room, and it proved to be interesting. My daughter refused to take her nap in the hotel and then woke up at 4:30 a.m. raring to go. We also got to witness her movement while she slept, and it turns out she sleeps like a tumbleweed. Here are a few tips we learned traveling—and trying to sleep—with two kids!

8 Tips for Good Hotel Sleep with Kids

1. Keep the naps on schedule. As much as possible, keep your routine the same as at home. My daughter caught a morning nap in the car on the way to Atlantic City, and it threw off her whole day. She refused her afternoon nap and by dinner it was crazy meltdown city.

2. Use the car. Don’t be afraid to use the car for naps. If it fits into your schedule to take a drive over nap time, it’ll be a way to guarantee sleep. (It can also be problematic if you’re not careful, see No. 1.)

3. Sweet suite. If you can, opt for a hotel that gives you a bedroom suite with a door you can close. We didn’t have this, but it would be nice because you can have the kids in the bedroom while you watch TV in the living area or vice versa.

4. Bring headphones. Because kids go to bed insanely early, you may want to bring headphones so you can watch a movie on an iPad or listen to music.

5. With that said, hit the hay early. You never know when the kids will be up for good.

6. Home sweet home. If your child sleeps with a blankie or stuffed animal, bring it with you. Like fools, we didn’t. In a completely strange environment, familiarity will go a long way in helping kids settle down for bed.

7. White noise. My daughter still sleeps with white noise, and I wish we had brought her sleep sheep along for the trip. Every little hotel noise had her saying “What’s that?!” and startling her from her sleepy state. It was hard to get her to zone out.

8. Do what it takes. When we got that 4:30 a.m. wake-up call, we were in no way ready to get up for the day. My daughter wanted to be in the bed with me, so we made it happen in a hurry. Sure enough, she settled back down for a couple hours longer. We would have given her a chocolate cake if it had meant she’d go back to sleep.

Have you done the hotel thing with little ones? What tips would you add? —Erin