The Starfish family just returned home from spring break in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We had a lovely time playing in the sun, catching up with my husband’s family who was also vacationing down there, and spending some quality time together. But I promise to always be straight with you all – and the truth is that it was pretty challenging to handle two nearly two-year-olds on an international vacation! I want to share with you all the things that I did to prepare for this trip correctly, as well as some things that I would do differently next time.

Packing list

Apart from the obvious diapers, wipes, diaper lotion, warm-weather outfits and swimsuits, there were some things on the girls’ packing list that I was so grateful to have:

  • Pedialite travel powder packets – As I mentioned in my last post, we are dealing with some pooping issues with the girls and right before we left, one of them was fighting diarrhea pretty badly. While my husband was picking up some Pedialite to deal with this prior to our trip, he noticed some powdered packets and grabbed some thinking that they would be easier to travel with. I threw them in the suitcase last minute and although the initial bout of earlier diarrhea had cleared up before we left for our trip, these were fantastic to have on hand when the other girl got some traveler’s diarrhea later on the trip. These will definitely be on my packing list going forward on future international trips!
  • We have these clip-on highchairs that are easy to pack, and I was grateful to have these for the girls to eat their meals and maintain some of their familiar surroundings and routines. If we had been staying at a hotel or resort, I think the odds are high that they would have had something available, but we stayed in a condo so I needed to pack these.
  • Back-up lovies. One of our girls has a very, very strong attachment to her lovie at the moment. We made the mistake of traveling over Thanksgiving without her backup, and I’ve vowed never to let that happen again!


Lilly goes for a walk with her bunny lovie

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  • Water/sand shoes – My mother-in-law warned me that the sand at the beach can get quite hot so I researched and purchased some water/sand shoes to protect the girls’ feet. In the end, we only went to the beach once, but I still loved having the girls in these at the pool because they are at a stage where they like to walk around a lot and much of the pavement was slippery and hot around the pool. As a bonus, I purchased these a touch big so I’m pretty certain they will be able to last through the summer in Chicago for use at splash pads, etc.

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Sand/ water shoes in use

  • Sunglasses – I did a lot of research on sunglasses and chose this brand because they have a strap around the head for the pool, but the strap can also be removed in case your kiddo hates the strap feeling. I’ll be honest, I really wasn’t sure if the girls would wear sunglasses at this age but I figured that I’d order them a pair just in case. It turned out that they were a huge hit. Audrey in particular asked regularly for her “sun-gasses” and even liked to wear them indoors. For what it’s worth, neither of them liked the strap so I’m happy that I purchased the pair that I did.

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Audrey liked to wear her sunglasses all day long, even inside

  • Tea set. My mother-in-law met us in Mexico and she was so smart to pack two plastic tea sets for use in the pool. The girls spent hours pouring the water from their tea pots into buckets and small cups. It was adorable, and also allowed the adults some more relaxed pool time as the girls kept themselves more-or-less independently entertained.

Audrey plays with her pool teaset.

Audrey plays with her pool teaset

  • Umbrella Strollers – We took a lot of walks with the girls during our trip, both in the mornings and the afternoons. I think it was necessary for both the kids and the parents to have a nice, relatively quiet break from all of the activity that comes with a family vacation. These strollers were lightweight and easy to maneuver around the bumpy walking paths in Puerto Vallarta.

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There were a few things that I packed that were mostly or completely useless. I would save the space and not pack these things again:

  • On our last international vacation one year ago, we used the girls’ carriers nearly every day for walks. They were not yet 9 months old at that time and were much less independent and squirmy than they are now as they approach two. These stayed in the bottom of the suitcase the entire trip.
  • Someone made a suggestion to me to bring lollipops for the plane ride, to help with the pressure changes. Turns out that the girls had no problem with the pressure and were distracted by other snacks and drinks, so these likewise were never touched.
  • Fleece pajamas. I nearly always make one packing mistake while I’m sorting through our things in freezing cold Chicago that results from my failure to appreciate how warm and humid our destination will be. Enter: my decision to pack one pair of fleece pajamas for the girls! Thank goodness I also packed plain cotton pajamas; clearly, I should have left the fleece set at home.
  • Too many warm-weather outfits. I packed one set of clothes for each day for the girls. In hindsight, I have no idea why I did this as we had a washer/dryer in our unit and it ended up being way more than we needed. The girls also spent a lot more time in simple cotton onesies than the more-formal outfits that I had packed, so in the future I will pack more relaxed play clothes and fewer dressy (but adorable!) outfits.

Air Travel Tips

One of our girls is very chill and the other is very excitable and energized. You can probably guess which one I was more worried about for a 4-hour flight! Needless to say, I did a lot of research and planning for the air travel component of our trip, but it was still the most stressful and difficult part of our trip. I’ll tackle this again by addressing what I think we did right and what we did wrong. Let’s start with the good moves:

  • There are plenty of flights from Chicago to Puerto Vallarta, but fewer that are nonstop. We really debated whether the additional cost of a nonstop flight would be worth it, and in the end we pulled the trigger and did nonstop. It was definitely the right decision in my mind, and a few days removed from our return home, just the thought of having to connect to a different flight with toddlers (and all of their gear) makes my stomach churn.
  • We also purchased separate seats for the girls. Again, we really struggled with this decision given the additional cost and the fact that they were eligible to be lap passengers given that they aren’t yet two. I do not regret this decision and would do it again if faced with the choice.
  • Studying the airline’s children policies. We flew with American Airlines and I would give them a solid B+ grade. That said, I did a lot of research to prepare for our flight with them and I’m grateful I put this time in because it made things run more smoothly. For instance, American is very strict with the weight limit of strollers and I have heard of families stuck checking their stroller at the desk, and then forced to carry young toddlers through the airport all the way to the gate. I did not want this to happen and so we bought these handy straps to connect the girls’ carseats to our carry-on bags; this allowed us to check the strollers while also wheeling the girls easily through the terminal.

Rolling with Lilly through O'Hare airport.

Rolling with Lilly through O’Hare airport

  • Toddler play area. We flew out of O’Hare and they have a fabulous toddler play area where the girls were able to run out some energy before boarding the flight. As soon as we exited security, we marched right over to the play area and only headed to the gate as soon as it was boarding time.

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The girls play in the airplane cockpit at O’Hare’s toddler area

  • Toys and snacks. I had an entire bag devoted to distraction devices for the girls. Among the things that were packed and used: water-wow books, crayons and stickers and a pad of paper, books, post-it notes, small toys, and snacks including cheerios, goldfish crackers, dried apples, pouches, raisins, and water. We also purchased Amazon Fire tablets for the girls right before this trip and we were counting on this being the biggest distraction device. In the end, this worked wonderfully for Audrey, who sat quietly with her tablet for long stretches of time, but didn’t hold Lilly’s attention for more than 2-3 minutes at a time.

We also hit some speedbumps on our air travel and I would do the following differently:

  • Mr. Starfish and I have had Global Entry for years and we love the speediness of passing through immigration with the program. We signed the girls up for Global Entry a few months ago with this trip in mind, and it was a pretty big hassle and expense to set up, but we figured it would be worth it to get home quicker with two cranky tired toddlers. We were wrong. We were stopped at the Global Entry kiosk because children under age 5 do not have the biometric data on file to pass through without a check by an immigration officer. So in the end, we had to wait just as long as we would have without Global Entry because the girls are under 5. This was incredibly frustrating, especially because we had even brought the girls in for interviews with the program and no one ever mentioned this.
  • Accept help. Boarding and unboarding the plane was easily the most difficult part of the air travel days. We had two scared and crying toddlers, two carryon bags, two carseats, the toy/distraction bag, and two laptop bags. There was simply no way to do this gracefully or easily. While the flight attendants were really wonderful and helpful, there were also some passengers who offered to help and/or offered words of encouragement. I recall one instance where a woman said we were “doing great!” and offered to roll some of our bags on to the plane or help in any other way. I didn’t feel comfortable accepting her help (I guess because of mom guilt and just generally feeling overwhelmed). But in hindsight, I should have said, “Yes, please! I do need the help and you are so kind to offer it.”

Other tips

Traveling with toddlers on vacation is so, so different than traveling as a couple on vacation. One of the best things that I did for my mental sanity was to remind myself of that fact for weeks before we departed. I prepared myself for the trip to be a lot of work, with very little R&R. In the end, the trip was better than I had expected, but still challenging in many respects. For me (and I admit to being a bit of a natural pessimist), having such an expectation was helpful in order to cope with some of the challenges and frustrations that accompanied the trip.

My next recommendation is to put more thought into your vacation schedule and routine than I did. My toddlers, like most others, thrive on routine and they are really thrown off balance if that is disrupted. On the first full day of vacation, I realized that while we had a loose routine (sleep and meals), we needed more structure around the rest of the day. That is when I introduced our twice-daily walks, and I found that this was extremely helpful for all of us. Next time I would also plan out a structured activity most days rather than depending only on the pool and beach. While such activities really kept the girls entertained and happy the first few days, as the trip went on this became less of a novelty.

Mr. Starfish and I planned our vacation to Puerto Vallarta because he has family there and his mom spends her spring break down there. To be honest, we have yet to attempt a vacation with the girls without having at least one set of our parents around, and this trip I was incredibly grateful to have the extra sets of arms and eyes. This trip would not have been as much fun without my husband’s family, and it definitely would have been way more work. If you’re deciding between a vacation with or without family at this particular age, my advice would definitely be to go with family! Alternatively, selecting a resort or hotel with a kids club or babysitting service would be a good choice in my mind. Mr. Starfish and I had a few hours here and there where we left the girls with their grandparents, and this was really helpful for us to recharge and reconnect with each other.

Finally, I noticed that one of my girls seemed to hit a bit of a vacation wall around 5 days. Her behavior worsened, my patience thinned, and suddenly I was sitting on a beautiful beach and dreaming of the familiarity of cold and gray Chicago. For our family at this age, I think that leaving on the 5th day would have been ideal. Going for a full week was simply too much at this age and stage.

So there you have it. My honest thoughts and advice about traveling with twin(ish) toddlers. For me, it was a trip of plenty of ups but also some downs. I do think that this is a very tough age for flight travel and there were moments of intense frustration on both flights. But I also will carry with me sweet memories of the girls splashing around in the pool with the bright Mexican sunshine beaming down on them as they poured their hundredth cup of “tea” from the plastic teapots. Cheers!

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Have you traveled by plane with one or more toddlers? Please share your travel stories and tips.