Vacationing

[mamaturtle]

DH and I would like to take DS on family vacations of the three of us. I mentioned Lego Land but we found last night it was very expensive.

We feel that DS would not enjoy a trip and would just be scared to try anything or tantrum that he doesn't want to go where we are going after careful planning and money spent. DS's patience runs short rather quick.

On the other hand, we want DS to experience everything he can and have a good childhood.

We have taken him to visit family 3 hours away driving to and 3 hours back. Vacations would last at least a few days. When we moved is was over a 12 hour drive and he was entertained with an Ipad and laptop until it ran out of battery with many breaks. We usually went to the mall or stores and out to eat mostly. A lot of our trips were to visit the special Easter Bunny. We did hang out at my parents' house.

DS did go to an amusement park with the daycare an hour away this past summer. They went for the day.

Please share your vacationing experiences with your child with SN.

Where have you all gone?

How did you all prepare your child with SN for a vacation trip?

Thank you all for your responses!

[akafred]

DD has SPD, ADHD, anxiety, Auditory Processing Disorder. We travel fairly often. She doesn't like long car rides but they've been bearable since she was 4; we have driven as many as 10 hours in a day as well as flown.

The best vacations for her have been to the beach. It seems to fill a sensory need for sure. She loves to swim, and we've had fun with activities like glass bottom boat rides, snorkeling, etc. Boat rides TO the activities (like a 60 min fast ride out to an island for snorkeling) not so great. Of course it's not so relaxing for us, but enjoyable.

We have also done shorter trips to city destinations, and we stay busy with things like museum destinations, children's theater, etc.

And we have been to Walt Disney World twice. We have been careful to choose times that have lower attendance (once we had to miss school). They donhave the disability services but we have managed without it both times by carefully planning our rides and arriving before rope drop each day.

We always get a suite or condo where DD can have her own room or a pull out couch in a separate sleeping area with walls and a door. This helps tremendously.

[sahara78]

Have you stayed in a hotel with him before? If not, maybe book a night or two at a nearby hotel for a staycation. DD loves hotels so much that one ABA provider asked me about it. She likes the pool, watching TV in bed, and snacks (not sure why she said that one, maybe because some places we’ve been have cookies in the lobby).

Is there anything your DS really likes? DD is into sand at the coast, so I’m pretty sure she’d love a vacation at a nice beach. Maybe someday...

[waverly]

DS has motor planning issues and hearing loss. I think it works best if we know his likes and dislikes and plan around them. It's a bit developmental as well for example loud noises he grew out of but we had to bring noise cancelling headphones for a while. He is pretty good and confident in most settings he does melt down at the amusement park and movies because they are scary to him. I just know that and avoid that as much as possible. DH likes scary rides so it's hard to balance everyone's needs. We split up as necessary and take turns. As far as the hotel he gets scared if it is a scary movie on tv (not really scary think Minions) so we have to stick to kid shows and documentaries and he is scared of the dark, so bring a nightlight or have a plan in place if that is an issue.

He is very cautious so we have to find the right line of having him face his fears do he isn't scared anymore but also not pushing him too hard. He takes a long time to warm up to things so we have to go over things a lot and give him time to get used to things. Sometimes I bribe him for example to go on a small slide at the water park (pretty small). After he tried it and realized it wasn't scary then he went on 30 more times lol. Not sure if this is all that helpful since I think it's kid personality dependent in some ways.

Not relating to kid personality but we like renting a house or condo especially for the kitchen. It's just so much nicer not to have to go out to eat for every single meal and to have cereal at home or kids mac n cheese and hotdogs for lunch. Going out yo eat for a week, 3 meals a day gets really old. I like that the kids can get up when they done and not as much sitting. Personal preference I'm not a huge fan of long drives. Our longest has been 6.5 hours, 8 when you include lunch and rest stops.

A place with a pool or near a pool always helps entertain them. We also love the beach, playgrounds and when they were younger kids museums.

[auntie]

It really depends on the kid.

Because DS was so old when he was finally dxd, we had already done quite a bit of travel with him. At the time, MIL was alive and 700 miles away. We drove it several times a year. My parents were 200 and 1200 miles away depending on the time of year. Plus vacations.

When possible, we added activities that played to DS's special interests as well as stuff we wanted to do- historic railroads, museums, Kennedy Space Center. If he's into turtles, maybe a city weekend with an aquarium and/or zoo? Washington DC is a terrific vacation for kids- many of the attractions are free, the Metro is super convenient. WE used to stay at one of the Embassy Suites that have a real bedroom, breakfast and happy hour daily.

[mightymaude]

DS (10) and DD (7.5) both have anxiety. DS is not diagnosed with ASD but has many traits. DD has SLI and is generally not able to verbally express her intense feelings.

I forget how old your DS is, but TBH, we waited a long time before trying a real (not to visit and stay with family) vacation. I believe our first one was when DS was 5 or 6.

The first one went pretty poorly. DS was so anxious about being in a new place he stopped eating and then started spending the mornings in anxiety spirals because low blood sugar makes him vomit, and vomiting is a sesnory trigger for him. We quit the vacation three days in and went home. It was pretty upsetting for all of us, particularly because we had a trans-Atlantic trip planned for the next summer, which was pretty important b/c we would be visiting my parents.

We took short weekend trips after that and then tried a family vacation again at spring break of the following school year. The goal was to get him used to new places and new experiences in short doses before trying a longer trip. During the longer trip, we stayed in three separate hotels so that he would get used to being in new places.

Each trip was a little bit better. By the spring break trip, he only had one morning of nausea and then we were good to go. We always plan our days with one activity in the morning and then time to relax in the afternoon before dinner. We try to find playgrounds near the place we are staying b/c an afternoon or evening playtime seems to reset them and make them feel more at home. Playgrounds are everywhere, and while the style of them differs, they work essentially the same way. DD and DS now sometimes look forward to their vacation playground time more than the big events of the trip.

ETA:
Places we have been:

The beach: it is so-so. DS likes the intensity of the waves, DD is scared of them. Once she gets over that, she will spend all day playing in the sand though.

Florida 2x (North Florida and central Florida): North FL was our first real trip. We made many stops and did swing down to LegoLand one day. (FWIW, there are coupons you can find--one free kid ticket with an adult ticket). DD refuses to ride all rides, but loved the lego statues and both kids loved the model city. Both kids also loved the back area which had an old botanical garden. It was very quiet (b/c who goes to botanical gardens at LegoLand?) and it gave them time to reset and also a place to explore without crowds. On thet trip we also hiked down a sinkhole and went to a beach. For central FL, we did LegoLand again b/c the kids had loved it, and also a science center and an aquarium. We did not do Disney and probably never will b/c DD has major anxiety about people in costumes.

Wales: Stayed with my parents, which helped a ton with eating and comfort level. Lots of castles, house museums, one "amusement park" that was more like an enormous playground. The kids loved it there. Everything was relatively quiet and allowed for a lot of exploration. DD adores house museums and has since she was a toddler, so it was her favorite trip we've done so far.

Just got back from Atlanta. We did the aquarium, zoo, CNN building, Olympic park, Coca-Cola museum, and natural history museum. It was by far our most crowded trip. I think if we hadn't had a bunch of practice traveling, the kids would have had many meltdowns. DD did have two, one in the aquarium when a sea lion bellowed at her and it was too crowded for her to run away, and one in the CNN building because it was so loud, but we were able to get her recovered and could continue our day instead of having to go back to the hotel, so those are major wins.

[waverly]

I agree with smaller practice trips and starting early. Both kids did car trips since infancy to visit family 5 hours away and both went in airplanes and stayed at hotels/ rental houses since they were 1 for DS and maybe 2 for DD.

[lemonberry]

We brought DS to the beach & southern Arizona last summer. DX-ASD-GDD, he was nearly 5 at the time.

Beach was a 3 hour road trip and went over really well. DS loved staying at the hotel and begged to stay at another one after we left. The place we stayed was on the beach and had several restaurants inside for meals & dessert, a couple of pools indoor & outdoor, rental equipment & boat tours. So we never really had to leave the hotel.

He loved playing in the sand, but was really nervous about stepping in the ocean (because his feet sank). We got him a pair of water shoes and he was okay from there out. He also had a jellyfish net that he used to strain sand to find seashells. His favorite things were probably going on flashlight walks along the shore and finding sand crabs and just swimming in the hotel pool. We did bring lots of toys and his i-pad, but he mostly just played with what was out there.

Arizona was just to visit family and we flew there. The flight was his favorite part although we did have our flight get delayed for a few hours and that triggered a huge meltdown because he could see the plane outside. When we did get to our gate, I told one of the people that he had autism and we were allowed to board first. I think getting him on first helped a lot. He played on his i-pad the whole flight. Oh! We did do a Wings for Autism event before so he had been exposed to airplanes once before.

[miranda]

How old is your son again?

We took DS on a plane twice before he was diagnosed. The first time he was 13 months and at the time I didn't think it was odd that all the things I brought along to entertain him on the plane were things like tin cans and flashlights (sensory seeking stuff).

When he was 2-4 we didn't travel much at all. It was too overwhelming. We needed social stories to get him through a trip to Target.

I vividly remember our first camping trip, when he was on the latter end of 4. It was at a campground very close by, and we got an electric site so he could use an Ipad at will. I brought a huge water gun and asked him to "wash our car." Occupied him for hours. He also watched a lot of movies in the tent. He even explored on his own a little bit, as the playground was within sight of our tent. All in all I remember it feeling like a turning point for us- if we kept expectations low, we could do "normal" family things again.

Since then we do a lot of beach vacations because he is a sensory seeker. We've learned that his attention span is short, though. I always marvel at families who pack up and spend the day at the beach. DS loves the beach but 2 hours is probably max. We build in breaks throughout the day. I don't really like staying with family when we vacation, because it's an added layer of being with folks in small spaces. We especially like staying in bigger condos when we can find them, so DS can have breaks by himself. We compromise all the time- I'll tell him he can have an hour of Ipad time if he promises to go on a hike with me at 2:00. We gently nudge him into foreign experiences. We just came from a long weekend away and while he/we spent a lot of time playing Xbox and watching movies in our toasty condo, he also hiked up to a lighthouse in 20 below icy weather.

We've cruised twice with him. The kids programs have been duds both time. We've learned that a smaller, older ship is much better than a big flashy one. We did a brand new ship this winter and it was just a big disappointment- all the brand new waterslides didn't work and the weather was crap so he didn't have much fun and was acting like a pill. We got the smallest inside room and that proved to be just fine; he liked the cozy bunk bed. We didn't stay out late and watched a movie at night to unwind.

I've got vacations on the brain because we're planning our next Euro vacation and plan on taking him. He'll be in 6th grade when we go and I think we're going to plan a train-heavy experience. He'll enjoy watching the scenery go by. I'm thinking we'll avoid Paris and do Munich instead. We've taken him to NYC and Chicago, both of which he loved, but smaller more "accessible" cities are more pleasing and relaxing. We may go to EuroPark (like Disney) in Rust, Germany.

[kkfeb04]

How old?

My two kids, now 8 and 6, love vacations so much. They have flown and have been on long car rides (1200+ miles). Anything over 4 hours gets the dvd players hooked up. We started when they were 3 and 1. They both have asd.

They loved Legoland at 3 and 5. Loved. They have an awesome disability program. Waiting in lines are not their thing.

Beach is always a great time. It definitely fulfills sensory needs.

We just spent their birthdays at WDW. Ut was amazing. No meltdowns, no tantrums, disney magic is real. Now we did chose the Contemporary since my daughter loves fireworks but hates the noise, she was able to watch from our room. We only used the disability return twice, one for a princess greet that we couldn't get a fast pass for and one for a ride that didn't do fast passes. They told us when to return, saved us from waiting in the line. We also scheduled in character meals or breaks during the day to recharge and we went back.

We have season passes to a local busy amusement park built by chocolate and have held them for 5 years now. Either my H or I take the kids by ourselves and we can easily handle them. We stopped using strollers years ago (hence why they were fine with all the walking at WDW).

We've also done the Smithsonian several times and as long as it interests them (like Air and Space) they can handle the museums as well.

[agedsubaru]

Age, kids' abilities, my abilities, and sanity all are equal factors. When young, the beach was and still is a good way to go for us. I don't like to eat out on vacation and prep a week's worth of (dinner) meals. It keeps us together as a family and takes pressure off the whole what are we going to eat. After so many years, we have a good give and take routine for my husband and I. We eat at the beach so the prep of the cooler is usually shared now. We also look at the beach we are going to. It must be family friendly, not too commercial, and walkable. Bikable is a bonus but we have found it varies.

Camping. We just started in the past two years to introduce. My skills are not strong in this area. Kids are doing well. So far the Yogi Bear has proven successful.

WDW. We went when they had the old Guest Assitance Card when the kids were younger. It was the best. We stayed on property with meal plans. Customer service and GAC made it easy for us. Last we went, the new special need program wasn't as great but the kids are older and we could work on skills that I wanted to work on. The elopement stuff is much better. It was fun. Customer service is fantastic and a bit easier without the stroller. Use the forums to help you plan. Those Disney devotees are a great source of info.

Hiking. We have had some different vacations with hiking both young and now. Young. so much easier with structured carriers. Now they can argue. We do still do hiking but it is tailored to them. I have bought from the ranger gift shop a laminated picture card of plants and stuff to look for.

Wineries. We go. We have found some are great with kids and others suck. The kids are now accustomed to a pit stop here and there to a winery. We usually do this with kid stuff tacked on. It was tough when they were little. At 11 and 8, it is much easier. I also tend to go to ones that aren't on main roads (elopement was an issue).

We have found some stuff that works for us. Bring food for the picky kid, a pool is very helpful, and the usual electronics. Audiobooks have gotten to be helpful lately.

[agedsubaru]

Also the kids still think Hotels are a genuine fun place. Last year we got a hotel for a large city nearby during the winter break. Travel costs were minimal b/c it is nearby. Kids heads exploded with joy b/c hotels are fun and we got to do more in the city. We did a bunch of free stuff and more b/c were had a hotel.