Toddler Travel Tips: Our Vacation in Punta de Mita, Mexico | Susan Yara

Where's Mika? There's Mika. Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. I just got back from another trip with my toddler and I learned a lot from it. So I'm going to share more toddler traveling tips because I like sharing these things. So we just went on a week-long trip to Punta de Mita, Mexico. It's a place that we've been a few times before we had a kid. We actually got married in that city. It's a little town actually in Mexico right outside of Puerto Vallarta. And it's just a really chill place to go. We had a lot of miles on my Amex card. And so we, you know, we use like Starwood. So we decided to book the St. Regis there. And it was super awesome to be able to do the whole thing on points because it's just really luxurious there. And it turned out to be a great place to have a toddler. They have a lot of like services and everything that I think works out great for kids. So I'm going to talk about that stuff. But first let's talk about the actual travel on an airplane because I feel like that's where we always have the most questions. And this time we actually got Nikash his own seat. We still have a couple of months before he's even 2 years old. But we decided to go ahead and get him his own seat because, you know, he's big. He's a big kid. It's unrealistic for us to think he's going to just sit in our laps and, you know, just chill there the whole time the way he used to do. So we decided, you know what, we want to be a little more relaxed. We want to get him his own seat. We want to try this whole car seat situation. In his airplane seat because hopefully that'll be easier. And we know that in a car seat, he'll take his nap and everything. So we actually planned our flights around the time that he naps during the daytime because he still does nap. And that sort of worked out. Let me tell you a little bit about it first. Usually when we travel, we take our Duna, which is an infant car seat slash a stroller, which has been amazing. But Nikash is now too big for that thing. So we actually had to try taking the stroller and taking a car seat at the same time. And because we were taking the car seat onto the actual airplane, it turned into like a little bit more of a challenge than I expected. But it wasn't terrible. We purposely packed two check-in bags that we were going to like leave right when we check in and not even have to worry about rolling them through. We had one roller carry-on suitcase and then we had two backpacks. One was the diaper bag. One was my husband's backpack. And in his bag, he carried like his work stuff and all that. So it wasn't really a bag that I was going to get to use. It had all his stuff in it. And then in the diaper bag, I carried really important things. Things like we knew we would use even at the airport, potentially on the airplane. And that was things like an extra outfit, diapers, wipes, his blanket, and some snacks. And then like a sippy cup as well. We brought along a sippy cup, a little bottle of milk. You guys know I always talk about traveling with this shelf-stable milk by Organic Valley. We always take this with us because it's really easy to travel with and you don't have to worry about trying to find milk when you arrive. Or if you're in the airport and you're stuck there or anything like that. We carry this. And then in the rollaway suitcase, we basically just had like extras. It took one extra outfit for each of us. One swimsuit for each of us. Like Nikash's sleep sack. Like just the necessity things if we didn't get our suitcases right away. And that was in our rollaway suitcase. So we knew we were going to have that. But I also wanted to have that because we took this. We went ahead and bought a separate car seat for this trip and for future travel in general. This is one of those Costco car seats. I think a lot of people talk about these because they're fairly affordable. This was like $50. This is like 11 pounds, I want to say. And it's so light that like, look, I can carry it like this. It's like one-handed. We can't do that with our Nunaraba or any of the other car seats that we've tested out. Because convertible car seats tend to be really big, bulky, and heavy. This is a really great car seat to have. A convertible car seat to have for things like traveling. It's not perfect. It's not that padded, for instance. So when we buckled it into the airplane seat, you could feel the buckle right here in this area. It's really, really wide. So if your baby isn't chubby like my child, my child is actually tall and skinny. He's really actually very skinny for his age. And so he had a lot of space in here. And he even thought it was kind of funny. He kept banging his head around in it and stuff because he thought it was fun. There's no padding on the straps. That kind of stuff. It's just very, very straightforward. But I will say it was also very straightforward to buckle in and put into the airplane and put into cars. So it saved us a lot of time. And again, it's light. So light was kind of like the key for this. We got this strap online. And I'll give you guys a link in the description box. And we just strapped it onto the Rollaway suitcase. And it was so easy. So I highly recommend getting a convertible car seat like this one. Because having a light one that you don't care as much about is kind of key on a trip like this. And then besides the car seat, we ended up taking our Babyzen yo-yo stroller. It's not as amazing as the Duna. Obviously, I would rather have an all-in-one like the Duna. But there's nothing for toddlers at this point that I know about. The Babyzen stroller is awesome, too. It's like 13 pounds. It really folds up to something very itty-bitty. It's essentially like having a tote bag with you, which makes it awesome. We were able to actually carry all of this stuff onto the airplane, which saves you time, especially when you have to go through customs. Because you're not waiting for your stroller or your car seat to kind of like come back while everybody else is like deplaning. I, you know, sometimes have some issues with the Babyzen. And that's because it's like a really expensive stroller for what it is. And I feel like little parts of it are a little bit cheaply made. But overall, I'm very happy with that purchase. And I really like having that stroller as like an alternative stroller to like the big one that we usually have. It's really great to travel with it. It didn't fail us whatsoever. It was a really great stroller to have on this trip. And then on the actual airplane, we also brought his sleep blanket. And we brought his binky because we wanted him to nap on the airplane. And he just kind of knows when he's got both of those things that that is time. The thing that made having a binky awesome is this was the first trip where we realized that the air pressure was bothering his ears a little bit. Because, you know, when they're like infants, they can't really talk to you and tell you it's bothering you besides crying. But sometimes you just don't even know why an infant's crying. Whereas this time, Nikash would look at us and he'd go like this, like, and stick his actual fingers in his ears. So we knew that it was like at least like weird to him that something was happening with the air pressure. So it was good that he had his binky because we knew that it would at least like pop his ears for him. So that was a huge deal. And a big tip for you guys is definitely try to make it as much of like a sleep experience by, you know, trying to plan your flights around the nap time for your child. Taking all the stuff that they need to sleep with and having that car seat in their own seat really is a game changer. So the next thing I want to talk about is, you know, we had an overall very good experience on this trip. So what we decided what made this trip super awesome was we were at a nice resort that kind of caters to families. So that's one. And two, we didn't make a lot of plans. You know, it's kind of like counterintuitive in some ways because you think like when you go on a trip, you want to have things planned out and you want to like be able to get the most out of it. But we realized it's kind of different now that we have a kid. I think the last few trips that we did, we tried to make plans as if we were like a couple without a child still. You know, it's like just so hard to plan that when you have a kid because you just don't know how they're going to be and what situation you're going to end up in. So planning a vacation where we literally planned nothing was actually kind of awesome. We made the vacation more about resting and having a really good time with our child. And that really, I think changing that mentality really helped us this time. And so this was our first trip where we were like, it's all about Nikos. It really kind of is. And when I say that, I don't mean like 100 percent. We took some time for ourselves. So a good thing about having a resort that caters to families. First off, they have nanny services, which I have found to be really incredible, actually, especially in Mexico. We went to Cabo last year and we did obviously Punta de Mita this year. What I found is a nice resort really vets the nannies. So, you know, you're going to get someone who's quality. You can request like their most requested nanny, which is what we actually did. We worked with a woman named Diana Gonzalez and she was amazing. Just like our trip to Cabo. She's like the kind of person you wish you could actually bring home with you. You're like, please come home with me because you're so awesome. We would just book her for like a few hours and we did this way in advance. We booked her like three weeks before she would take Nikos like in the afternoon and they have like a kid's room. And obviously there's like, you know, tons of sand and there's, you know, just like fun things that kids love to do. You know, there's like a little soccer field and everything. And Nikos loved it. Also, when you go to a nice resort that caters to families, you can ask for things that you need. Like you can ask for a high chair, for instance. They brought a high chair that they keep in the restaurants. They brought one to our room and we had it there the whole week. We were able to get a diaper pill. You can ask for a crib. You can even ask for a cot if you want. But in this case, we decided it was just easier to have Nikos sleep in our bed. We had a big king size bed anyway, so he slept right in the middle. And then during his naps, we'd put like pillows on the side to make sure that he fell asleep. And we actually brought like a travel monitor with us. So that was awesome, too, because he was just much more comfortable in the bed. So another tip that I have is to pack tons of snacks when you travel. This one I've kind of like learned over time. I overpacked the snacks. We came back home with some of the snacks still because I had packed so much. But I decided, you know, like at this point, Nikos has become a little bit more of a picky eater. So I was worried that if we get there and we don't have access to the snacks that he likes, like he's visual. Like he knows which snacks he likes just by looking at it. He's like, no, that's my favorite applesauce. That's my favorite peanut butter. Like he absolutely knows, like he's very detail oriented at this point. And so if you don't have the right snacks, you could like run into a lot of issues. So I made sure to pack all of his favorite snacks. We definitely packed a ton of snacks, mostly his favorites, because I just wanted to make sure he would have stuff to eat throughout the week. And that worked out really, really great. All right, so now let's talk about products that we brought with us that I thought were kind of key on this trip. I feel like the last few trips, when I look back, I maybe overpacked a little bit. First time mom, sometimes you overpack it. The first products have to do with mosquitoes, because in Mexico this time of year, especially, mosquitoes are still a big deal and we obviously don't want to get bit. We especially didn't want Nikos to get bit. The resort and like all of the rooms and stuff and in like the lobbies and everything, they had insect repellent. But we don't want to keep putting that on Nikos because, I don't know, you just know it's like it's truly a poison because it's supposed to repel mosquitoes and other insects. So we would spray it on ourselves and everything. But instead for Nikos, what I did was I got a bunch of these stickers. They have a really strong citronella scent on them. And I would just stick them on like the back of his shirt and stuff and like on the back of his pants, where he wouldn't even notice that he had them. And I'd put them on like my purse or like on like his diaper bag and stuff. And he just wouldn't even notice that we completely smelled like citronella everywhere we went. So these were really, really helpful. We also got these bracelets. And, you know, I don't really know if they worked. But I can say that we didn't get bit by mosquitoes when we were using all of this stuff. We got these bracelets that also smelled a lot like citronella. Like it was one of those things where it's like you didn't even notice that you had this on. And it was all good. Like it just helped a lot. My husband purchased this thing. I don't even know what it's called, to be completely honest. But it was like an insect repellent where you would put in a little cartridge. And then it came with almost like a propane kind of cell. And you would stick it in. And then you would light it. And it would just kind of like put this insect repellent in the air. And it would cover up to like 15 feet. And it worked really, really well. The next products are all mostly for swimming because swimming was kind of like the main focus of this entire trip. We were so grateful to have this. You guys have seen me talk about this in some of my other travel videos. It's like a life vest floaty for kids. First off, I wanted to show you guys how it rolls up because I got DMs on my Instagram asking if we traveled with it. And it's really not bulky. It's super light. Really, really light to carry. So it doesn't make that big a deal. And because it folds into itself, it doesn't take up that much space in your luggage that you're going to check in. So you basically just put the arms through here. And then you put it around your child. And then they get to swim around. And they get to swim around really safely. Obviously, you have to 100% still watch your kid at all times in a pool. He was so into this thing because he, I think it was like the first time he felt so much freedom in a pool because we would like put this on him and just let him go. Like he would get in and out of the pool. He really got like really strong with like kicking his legs and getting to like the edge of the pool by himself and getting to the steps by himself and getting back in and stuff. It was just really great to watch him. Another thing that we took, and we ended up actually leaving it at the hotel and telling them like you can give it to somebody else that comes, is we took this float with us where you just like put your baby's legs into it. And then it's got like a canopy over it. And the baby can just like chill in it with you in the pool. We put Nikos in it in the beginning. But once he got the hang of this thing, he was like, no, no, no, no. It's 100% this that I want in the pool. I think this is great for a toddler if your toddler actually fits in it. But if you have a baby that's smaller, like an infant or a toddler who's not big enough for this yet, then I would get that float because it's really, really great. Also for swimming, we obviously took a lot of swimsuits. We brought a bunch of these like almost full body kind of swimsuits. And they're great because they protect you from the sun. So you don't have to keep putting sunblock all over your child once they get in the pool and out and stuff. You just have to like make sure you're reapplying to like the face and like a little bit on the tops of the hands and the ears, tops of the feet, that kind of stuff. So we brought a bunch of these. I took these with us to Hawaii last year. So they still fit Nikos. We took like five of them with us. And that turned out to be great because it was so humid in the air that if you would like hang one out to dry, they wouldn't really dry very fast. So it was actually good to have enough swimsuits for each day of the trip because he swam every single day and we needed a new swimsuit every single day. Speaking of that, we took some of the reusable diapers. But because again, it was so humid in the air, they weren't drying fast enough. And I was so glad that we had these disposable diapers. I can already tell because of the last comments I got on a vacation video that somebody is going to say I'm being wasteful. But we took some of these disposable swim diapers. And I love these things. I think they're actually really great. I don't see them being that much more wasteful than using regular diapers. So you're essentially just using a diaper for the water. And they come in handy a lot because you don't have to wait for your reusable diapers to dry. We didn't have a dryer in our hotel room. So this was really great to have. We took just like ten of these with us. And we didn't even use all of them. We used like half of them. And they turned out to be really great because we were going in and out of the pool the entire day. So these were awesome. And then of course sunscreen. We had sunscreen with us. And I've been really into this one from Kula. It's a mineral sunscreen, SPF 50. And it's just a really great one. It's unscented. And I feel like it doesn't bother any cautious eyes or anything if it like runs into his eyes. So it's just a really good straightforward sunscreen that you can use on your kids. You can use it on yourself, but it's really thick. But obviously it's like it's still sunscreen. So if you really need to, you can use this on yourself. But it's great for your baby. And next we have water shoes. And that came in handy because it rained a lot too. So having like regular like sneakers or something wouldn't have been great because they would have been wet the entire time. These turned out to be the best shoes that I took for him. I don't even know the brand of these. Like they're just like this cheap brand that I got on Amazon. They had good reviews. They have, you know, like a nice rough sole. So you're not slipping all over the place. If Nikash hadn't pulled this little toggle out, I probably would keep them. But now I probably won't because of that. But it was key having these because they dried really, really fast. It didn't matter if he walked through the like water or if he got them wet in the rain or anything like that. They stayed on him and he didn't slip everywhere. And that was super key because it was so slippery the entire time we were at the resort because it did rain a lot while we were there. And then the last item that I thought was key was we took this towel. It was like a baby shark towel. And it was kind of like a poncho because it had little buttons on the side. And it was awesome because it had like this shark hood. And then you can button it on to your child. And I thought it was just great because every time we were getting out of the pool and stuff, I could just throw it on to Nikash. He wouldn't be cold. He would dry off right away. And I could just like take his swimsuit off him right away underneath it. And it wouldn't fall off him because that was kind of like the key is every time we would like try to wrap him in a towel, even like when we go to a pool and stuff here, he's like freezing. And then the towel falls off because he doesn't know how to like keep it wrapped on himself. I see him like trying these days, but he can't really keep it on himself. So this shark towel was awesome to have on the trip. I'm going to probably use it all the time now here at home too because he loved it. And it kept him warm and it kept him dry the entire time. So those are all my toddler travel tips. I hope that these are helpful for you because I'm constantly looking online for tips and I hardly find really good ones. So I'm sort of winging it, sort of like asking friends and stuff. So if you have any suggestions and tips, definitely tell me in the comments below because I'm sure it'll help me and it'll help probably somebody else too. If you follow me on Instagram, I actually did an IGTV video of our entire hotel room because it was really cool. So you can see an entire tour on my IGTV on my Instagram. So I'll leave a link below in the description along with links to all of these products that I talked about. Thank you so much for watching this video. Subscribe to my channel and give this video a thumbs up and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.