Toddler travel tips for sleeping

One of the trickiest elements of traveling with a toddler is figuring out sleeping situations. Depending on if you’re visiting friends, at a hotel, or camping, it can look pretty different! Something I’ve learned about navigating toddler sleep while traveling is that there are many possibilities that CAN work: there isn’t one right answer. Here are some of my best toddler travel tips for sleeping, so that everyone can get a good night of rest (or at least, try to)!

Do we think it’s fair to say that all parents can appreciate a good car nap?! N sleeping in our rental car in Turkey on the way to or from an adventure. If only it were always as easy as a car nap!

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Where does a toddler sleep while traveling?

There are several different ways you can set up a toddler sleep situation while traveling, and it can vary with the type of trip you’re on. Here are some of the options you can use.

1.) A portable travel crib. This is the ONLY sleep set up we used while traveling with our son when he was an infant (and up until about 18 months). It is a safe and portable option that you can try using in your own house before traveling, too. There are tons of different portable cribs like this top-rated pack and play or the famous Guava lotus.

What is great about these too is that they contain your baby or toddler as long as your little one can’t climb out of it. We also briefly used this net to keep our son contained when he COULD crawl out of the portable crib, but still needed to be safely enclosed. These also don’t take up a lot of space and can be used in pretty much any setting, including camping. They can also be paired with a blackout tent like this, which allows you to keep hotel lights on after your little one goes to sleep.

Note: An alternative for babies that is lighter weight but still encloses them would be a small travel tent for sleeping. This is certainly more packable than a pack and play if you are low on space or want to reduce the weight of your luggage.

2.) A hotel-provided crib or portable crib. Oftentimes, hotels will list on the booking website if they offer baby cribs or not. You may want to call and confirm what type of baby crib they have; we’ve always been given a pack and play style portable crib when this was listed on the hotel site. This option is nice though because it reduces the amount of things you have to pack for your child, which is always helpful.

3.) Sleeping in a second bed in the hotel room. This is one of my favorite options for our toddler after he “graduated” from the portable crib set up and no longer needed to sleep in an enclosed space. If possible, I move the bed to be up against a wall, and use pillows on the edges to help prevent falling out of beds. Floor mattresses are also great – we used one while traveling in Ecuador and that was really nice because if your toddler falls out of the bed it’s a very small distance.

Our hotel in Istanbul had a fold away bed available for our toddler. Our other hotels had a second bed and a couch that he could use!

4.) Bedsharing. This is not my personal favorite option, as I sleep better when I don’t have a wild toddler beside me, but it definitely works. It’s also great if your child is anxious about being alone or scared of a new environment; we’ve found our son sleeps great when we bedshare. If we plan to share one bed, I try to get a room with a king-sized bed to make it more comfortable for everyone, but we’ve definitely done it often in queen sized beds too. *Note that bedsharing is not recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics*.

Bedsharing during nap time in Oludeniz, Turkey

5.) Air mattress. If you are flying, you can travel with a portable air mattress specifically for toddlers. If you’re driving, you can do the same or share your own air mattress with your little one. We share our king sized air mattress with our toddler while tent camping and it is plenty big and comfortable enough (by the way-this is by far the most comfortable air mattress I’ve ever slept on and has made camping much more pleasant). Be sure to note the instructions on the air mattress regarding safe ages for your child to use one, our adult air mattress listed a minimum of 15 months old for children.

6.) Whatever you can make into a bed. This may make me sound like a bad parent, but I’ve made do on a few trips with a “bed” I made up for him using my host’s supplies. No medical association will recommend this, but you can actually make your own toddler bed with removable couch cushions and bedding. We did this with patio furniture cushions and then with indoor couch cushions another time. It is comfortable for our son and we could set it up right next to our bed which was nice for offering comfort in the night if he woke up. You could probably even make a pretty comfortable toddler bed stacking a few blankets on top of each other in a pinch. Check with your friends or family to see if they have the items for this type of set up before traveling.

Our couch cushion bed while visiting family in Quito.

Tips for traveling with toddler gear

We’ve flown countless times with our pack and play. While cribs are not typically included in airline infant and toddler additional baggage allowance (like a car seat or a stroller), we never had issues getting it sent for free while checking in. However, we also never traveled with a stroller at the same time, so you could possibly run into getting charged for your child’s travel crib depending on what else you’re bringing on your flight. That would be where a travel tent or toddler air mattress could be a simpler option.

Dealing with jet lag while traveling with a toddler

In my experience, jet lag has been more challenging with myself and my husband than our son. However, here are some general tips for minimizing the impact of jet lag while traveling with your toddler.

• Wake up at a relatively normal time on your first day in the new place. Even if you didn’t sleep much the night of your arrival, I’ve found it’s best to set an alarm for a time like 8:30 or 9 am to ensure that you don’t oversleep. The faster you get onto the local time, the easier your trip will be.

Our first day in Turkey, we woke up at 8:30 after going to bed at 2 am local time to try to get on their time schedule ASAP. Thankfully the views made it a little easier!

• Try to go to bed at a reasonable hour local time on your first night. This also depends on when you arrive at your destination; we’ve usually arrived in the middle of the night so we just settle in and go to bed as quickly as possible.
• If your doctor approves, consider giving your child a melatonin at bedtime to help regulate their sleep schedule for the first few days of the trip. We got this one mg one that my sister (a physician) said is fine to give to our two-year-old. I personally take this 5 mg one to help with my own jet lag too. Melatonin is a hormone that is produced in the body and released at night time and it helps promote sleep.
• Be active during the day. Nothing helps a toddler sleep better than a lot of physical activity! We like to walk and hike a lot when traveling, go to parks when possible, or even run around playing at the beach. This is one of the easiest toddler travel tips for a good night of rest, because I’m sure you do this at home too!

Does anything tire out a toddler like a full day of running around at the beach?

• Think through napping. We try to keep our son napping in the afternoon while traveling (as he does at home) but we are careful to not let him nap for too long when jet lagged to reduce the likelihood of issues at bed time. If your toddler sleeps on the go, you can also plan to have them sleep in a carrier or in a travel stroller while on the go. We once tired him out so thoroughly while in Turkey that we literally could not wake him up for lunch. Maybe don’t let it get THAT bad.

Sometimes we nap in the hotel room (like here) but most of the time naps are on the go, in the car or in a toddler carrier.

• Consider just shifting your toddler’s schedule a bit if the time difference is small. For example, when we travel to Ecuador, our toddler usually goes to bed closer to 10 pm (which is either 7 or 8 pm in our home time zone) because that’s often easier and doesn’t negatively impact our trip. This is especially a nice option if you’ll only be gone for a short trip.
• Keep snacks in your room in case your toddler gets hungry at a weird hour. We were eating peanut butter pretzels at 1:30 am in Turkey upon arrival at our hotel and I was really glad we had them. A full belly can help your toddler sleep.
• Expect bumps along the way and be prepared to be tired. It may be some rough nights while traveling with a toddler, regardless of if you have a large time difference or not. We always travel with some toys so if needed you can quietly play in the room if your toddler is struggling to sleep. If you’re a coffee drinker, you may enjoy getting an extra cup on tired mornings with your little one.

Our (very unmade) bed set up in the cloud forest, with our toddler floor mattress at the food of our bed. This was probably the very best for us with a 2.5 year old!

Final thoughts on toddler sleep while traveling

I think that after the fear/concern about flying with toddlers, sleeping is probably the second biggest concern for parents when it comes to toddler travel. And the reality is, it can be harder to keep a good sleep schedule and set up when traveling with a toddler. However, armed with the right knowledge and tips, and a positive attitude that you will all survive even if you’re a little tired, you can have an incredible time traveling with your little one. Toddler sleep shouldn’t be a reason to avoid travel. You got this!

We have even braved interrupting sleep further by waking up at 5:00 am two mornings in a row to try to watch the sunrise hot air balloons in Cappadocia. Joke was on us because the weather conditions meant they didn’t launch either day. But we still got to see sunrise!

What questions do you have about toddler travel tips for sleep while traveling? Let me know in the comments.