Five Challenges of Staying in a Hotel Room with your Kids

Tommy Riles
July 9, 2012

Tommy Riles

Lives in: Los Angeles
Occupation: Comedian & Audience Warm-up, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Life of Dad Founder
Twitter: @tommyriles
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When you think of a hotel room, you probably think of relaxation, vacation, or possibly a place to party.

This couldn’t be further from the truth when you are traveling with children.

The Riles crew recently spent two nights in a hotel in downtown Chicago, and here are the challenges that we faced.

 1)  The View.  We had a stunning view of downtown Chicago from our 44^th floor room.  However, our main concern was whether our high-energy two year old would be able to break through the window.  Realistically, it was impossible that she would do this, but we still rearranged the furniture, blocking the floor-to-ceiling window from toddler access.

 2)  Cribs.  We traveled with one pack-and-play, and reserved another crib from the hotel.  But…the hotel ran out of cribs.  A few hours later they tracked one down for us, and we then had two cribs and two double beds.  It was extremely cramped once there were a few suitcases on the floor, and it didn’t bode well for two very active kids who want to run and crawl all day.

 3)  Eating.  My daughter is a picky eater as it is, and doesn’t do well when she’s not eating at a table or in a high chair.   When we were in the hotel room, her meals consisted mostly of Cheerios and raisins, if she agreed to eat at all.

4)  Sleeping.  When we’re staying in one room, everybody goes to sleep at the same time.  With four of us in the room, it is lights out, and no sounds at all starting at 9PM.  The days of partying in a hotel room are over.  If one baby wakes up in the middle of the night, the rest of us have to do everything in our power to quiet him/her down so the other one stays sleeping.  If we don’t act fast, all of us will be hanging out at 2AM for a few hours.

 5) Packing Up To Go.  A kid’s instinct is to unpack. My daughter spends the majority of her day emptying out drawers, boxes, bags, or whatever she can get her hands on.  When we were preparing to check out of the hotel, my daughter was still working feverishly to unpack everything.  Eventually, I had to run to take the kids out of the room, so my wife could prepare for departure.

Can you think of other challenges when traveling with your kids?  Share them in the comment section below.

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Photo courtesy of Atl10trader

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