How Mummy and Daddy Daycare plan to survive a family holiday to the UK
We are in the midst of the June school holidays in Singapore, and have seen many social media posts by friends who have gone out of town for vacations with their children.
As our two young boys are not yet in primary school, we are not restricted to traveling only during school holidays; thus, we are not heading anywhere this month. After we had our four-year-old (nicknamed Barnacles) and 16-month-old (nicknamed Kwazii), we mostly restricted our trips to closer destinations, as we did not relish the idea of managing two kids on a long flight. However, we have decided to take the plunge for the first time this August, when the four of us will be heading to the United Kingdom to visit family and friends.
Even though we hope to go with the flow as much as possible, going on a long trip with two young kids will involve some level of preparation. We have completed the first phase of our planning, and we hope the following steps may come in handy if you are also planning a holiday overseas with young kids.
Getting the best flight deal
We used price aggregator Skyscanner to find the best deal. We found a good deal on Qatar Airways at a reasonable fare of less than S$3,400 for four of us (about $1,200 for each adult, $920 for a child aged between 2 and 11 and about $130 for an infant, including taxes and fuel surcharge). There is one transit in Doha for two hours, with each flight leg lasting about seven hours. As Barnacles and Kwazii’s bedtime are at 8pm and 6.30pm respectively, we opted for a 9pm flight departing from Singapore in the hope that they would tire themselves out from all the excitement in the evening at the airport and sleep for a large part of the first flight leg (and hopefully some of the second).
Surviving the flight
As we had visited the UK once before Barnacles turned three, we did have some experience on a long haul flight with a young child. One significant issue for us on that trip was that it was difficult for him to find a comfortable position to sleep in the cramped airplane seat. With one kid, it wasn’t that bad as he ended up sleeping half on mummy’s lap with the other half of his body on daddy’s.
However, with two kids in tow this time, that is not very likely to work. We thus decided to invest in a BedBox by JetKids, a ride-on suitcase which, when placed in the space at the front of the seat, raises and extends to create a mini bed. Even though we got it on discount it was still quite costly, but we both felt it would be worth the investment if it means he can get a good rest on board.
As for Kwazii, he will probably be sleeping on mummy’s lap. We also purchased a first class travel pillow, which works similarly to the BedBox, to fill the space between the seats so young kids can sleep more easily. We’ll also prepare a ‘kids’ entertainment bag’ containing stickers, drawing materials, small toys and snacks. Having new snacks is always a welcome novelty for Barnacles, while Kwazii is quite fussy with and will only eat his favourite few — so our plan to occupy him with new snacks to kill time might be moot. We are thus crossing our fingers that he will have a good sleep on the flight, or at least not be overly grouchy.
Planning the itinerary
While our main programme in the UK is to visit family, we will also be taking a road trip to London for a few days to meet friends, as well as drive to another destination outside London. As such, looking for kid-friendly places is high on our list of priorities.
In London, our must-visit places are the London Transport Museum, Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, which we visited two years ago when Barnacles was a toddler and which he really enjoyed. We also hope to take advantage of the summer weather to bring the kids to visit several parks in London with large playgrounds like those at Hyde Park or the Diana Memorial playground at Kensington Gardens.
We are currently working toward planning the best deals for our accommodation during our road trip in the coming weeks, and will share more useful trip planning tips then!
Mummy and Daddy Daycare are the pseudonyms of a Singaporean husband and wife who are raising two young boys aged four and one, nicknamed Barnacles and Kwazii from the children’s Octonauts series. Get into the minds of this couple who describe parenthood as a lifetime adventure – you are always learning something new! Whoever said parenting was a walk in the park?
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