Hey fans! We are back from our Europe trip. Actually, we have been back for a week now, but I’ve been busy with work for the last several days. An interesting thing I noticed while we were recently in Europe was that our toddler wanted us to carry him pretty much all the time. I could understand this if it were after walking for long periods of time and he got tired. However, this happened at almost every moment we walked outside. The moment we stepped out of our hotel, or even our hotel room, he asked us to pick him up, which became a challenge when we had to carry numerous other items at the same time and were quite tired ourselves. 40 pounds can feel quite heavy after a while. My son and I go for walks around the neighborhood at home, and he’s not asking us to carry him constantly; only after several minutes, when he gets a little tired.

I looked into why this was the case, and here are a few reasons this might have occurred:

1. He was overwhelmed. I think this is a strong possibility, as he was in many new surroundings, like the airport, plane, hotels, and city streets he’d never seen before. While our little guy has a lot of travel experience at such a young age, it is still new for him overall. He certainly saw an overabundance of crowds, new languages, transportation like trains, and an abundance of food. This was likely a shock to his nervous system in a big way.
2. It was his safe place. Being in Mom and Dad’s arms gave him physical closeness, reassurance, and most of all, familiarity. He was in unknown and unfamiliar circumstances, and being with mommy and daddy was something he was used to. He felt safe in our arms and could check out from the noise a little bit.
3. His normal patterns were disrupted. We were in a different time zone, and his normal schedule, including naps and meals, was disrupted. We also had a lot of stimulation in most of the places we traveled to. Toddlers can become more clingy when tired and stimulated.
4. He was genuinely tired. For those who have traveled, especially internationally, understand how tiring it truly is. A three-year-old is going to feel this exponentially. Even though we carried him much of the time, his little legs did a lot. Plus, all of the transferring and moving around was not easy. A young child will reach their limits much sooner than an adult will.

We quickly understood that once our child knew we were there to carry him, he asked more and more. While we did still carry him most of the time, we made some deals with him. We had him walk certain distances, like to the end of a block or a stop sign, before we picked him up. Therefore, he knew he had to do some of the walking by himself. That said, our toddler wasn’t just being lazy. He loves to walk and go out, and there were understandable reasons for him to want to be carried. I will write a separate blog post with some advice on traveling with a toddler.