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The Baby Dreamer family has been on a trip to Morocco, Taghazout, for the fourth time, but now with a little boy of almost 2 years. If we're not just being honest, traveling with children is just a tad more unmanageable than when you were just yourself and your small hand luggage. But you also get so much back as a family when you experience the world and each other together... you grow. And yes, I have stood in a long line at the airport with an overgeared tired youngster and thought, "why am I doing this!" Exactly because you wouldn't have been without the experience, offset against the challenges. You probably have to start by accepting that the relaxation holidays just won't be the same. Here you will find my three pros and cons of traveling to Morocco with the kid(s). 1. Inexpensive Morocco is one of those places where you can cheaply take the whole family on a long trip without breaking the bank. You can eat at a restaurant and get away with 100 pennies for two eating adults. Yes, you don't have to cook yourself! For 14 days with flights, car hire, large apartment next to the beach and lunch, we have given DKK 10,000 (2 adults and a child under 2 years old). Where else can you do that? 2. Super happy with children Yes, you often hear that in Asia they are super nice and happy with children, but I can also agree with that in Morocco... at least in Agadir/Taghazout, as I don't know the other regions. The most surprising thing was that it was men who thought it was fun to play with our boy. They could make the most authentic animal sounds and thereby create an interaction with our boy, because animal sounds have no language barrier. 3. No time difference = 0 jet lag Need I say more? With a 4.5 hour flight and 0 hour time difference, you just get the most out of your 14 days with a small child. At the same time, you also avoid the whole turnaround when you return home. Yes, so it is recommended to fly downwards instead of east or west ;) I would actually suggest a trip with a bigger time difference when the child is smaller and still not sleeping through due to breastfeeding etc. At least easier than a child who has finally settled into his 9 hours of continuous night sleep. Bonus tip, if you are an active family, this type of holiday is especially good for you. Here you can practice water sports together regardless of level. It's a good way to have fun together, both adults and children. Now we come to my 3 "against" reasons, which I honestly think are minor compared to the 3 good reasons. 1. Morocco belly! Shouldn't we just say it like this, we have not yet tried to be in Morocco without getting a round of "Morocco stomach". If you are afraid of bacteria, it can be a challenge. Especially when you have a curious little boy who has to tinker with everything. Lots of hand sanitizer and prevention with lactic acid bacteria is probably the only thing you can help yourself with on the way. 2. Car seats in cars Car seats are something you just have to be extra careful about. It's not something the Moroccans take too seriously. So don't count on the taxis having one in the car, it must be explicitly ordered when picking up and then you're not even sure that it fully meets the standards. If you rent a car, there are much better options for a proper car seat. 3. Trash and plastic It cuts my heart when I see so much trash and plastic floating around in nature. Not that it's a reason not to go, but it makes you sad. You hardly know where to start or end when doing a beach clean. And where do you throw it when the rubbish is collected?! Because that's the problem… no proper way to dispose of the trash. A good and educational activity with children could be to use their beach bucket to collect rubbish. They can easily get the time to go along with that ;) However, there have been improvements since we visited the country 5 years ago. Then we saw garbage trucks unloading garbage over the rocks, down to the beach. Fortunately, there are good things about increased tourism and there is more energy for just that. The message of a cleaner planet is shared and spread, and if it is a need for the tourists, it is also taken into account in the area, which wants to keep its tourists. Plastic bags are no longer used in the Taghazout area, which is really good news! I hope it has given you a little more courage to take your family by the hand and go. Out and share knowledge and get to know other communities. Let your child experience the diversity of the world up close and far away. I wonder if that creates better citizens of the world who can look after each other and the planet. If Morocco is not for you, you can also find some inspiration on some of my other blog posts such as Simple travel guide - road trip in Portugal with a 3 month old baby or When dad goes on maternity leave - road trip in California with 8 month old baby

We have followed the Karaas family, who have just returned from their road trip in California with their 8-month-old son. They have met the concerns and challenges that we probably all think about and which hold us back from booking that maternity leave. We have absorbed a lot of knowledge and experience from their experience, which leaves one with a certain calmness and courage to follow their style, so that children's holidays do not just become playland and all-inclusive buffets. Who? Alexander, Maria and our son #babykaraas at 8 months Social media: @alexanderkaraas and @mariakaraas Where? For many years we had dreamed of going on a road trip in California, USA. So when the opportunity to travel for three weeks presented itself in connection with maternity leave, we of course started planning. We considered for a long time whether we could even have the road trip we really dreamed of, now that we had to travel with a little guy of eight months. In the planning phase, we decided that the trip should take place on our son's terms, so in the end it was a good trip for all of us. It also meant that there were several destinations that we chose not to go to, so instead we could take it easy in the cities we ended up visiting. It was important for us to have several nights in the same place, so that there were not too many changes for our little tour guide. On our road trip through California we have visited: San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and LA, San Diego and finally Disneyland. How long? We were away for 3.5 weeks. When we arrived in San Francisco, it took a few days for all three of us to shake off the jet lag, so it was really nice that we had plenty of time. The first few days our son woke up at 2 in the morning and was completely fresh! So it turned into long nights in the hotel room. But after a few days his rhythm and ours were fortunately adjusted to American time. The flight (number of hours, biggest challenge, best tip) We were really excited about the flights and feared the worst. We've all experienced a full plane with a screaming baby, and we really didn't want to be that family. But the 11 hours and 20 minutes from Copenhagen to San Francisco exceeded all expectations. We even watched four movies while our son slept in a baby bassinet that we had booked from home. A baby bassinet is a small cradle that babies can lie in during the flight until they weigh 10 kg. We had prepared to the smallest detail and had packed all the necessities; clothes, stuffed animals, toys, quilts, teddy bears, food and snacks. We also brought a woolen suit for our son, which turned out to be brilliant, as it can get cold on board. And when he had to sleep, he was given a small cotton cap on his head and down over his eyes, so that he could easily sleep in the cradle, even if there were spotlights on in the cabin. The trip home also exceeded all expectations - and here we even got praise from our neighbors on the plane, who couldn't understand that they hadn't heard him during the flight. We believe that it is all about taking it easy - already when you are on your way to the airport, so that your baby is not stressed and exposed to unrest. At least it worked for us! What did you fear most about traveling with your little boy? We dreaded the flight and the many kilometers we had to cover on the American highways! But both parts turned out to go really well! It was important to us to make the driving lessons part of the experience and not just something to be completed. That's why we went all in on cozying up in the back seat when the little man was awake. We always had a bag of toys in the car, and we had brought sunshades for the windows from home. We also had a mirror with us, so that those of us who were driving the car could see what was going on in the back seat - and vice versa. Coolest experience you had? There are many! Some of the things that stand out are especially our days in Yosemite National Park. It was so unbelievably beautiful and a lovely calm, which we all needed after five full days in San Francisco. For our son, the MoMA in San Francisco and the Monterey Bay Aquarium were some of the biggest hits! Best restaurant experience? All the delicious breakfast restaurants! For us, food is one of the most important things when we travel, and the rest of the program is often planned according to where we are going to eat. But when you travel with such a small size, it can be a bit tricky to go out to eat in the evening, so we prioritized getting off to a good start and spending a little extra on breakfast and lunch. Often we could even get madro around breakfast as it suited our son's morning nap. Win-win! If you're going on a trip to California, catch us on Instagram and get some tips for delicious restaurants. The biggest challenge on the trip? Learning to travel with a baby. Although we had been on a weekend trip to Hamburg a few months before, it was something completely different to be on the road for over three weeks. Keeping a rhythm with fixed eating and sleeping times, which is very important to our boy, could be difficult to maintain sometimes. When we drove from San Francisco, we actually ended up stopping at an IKEA on the way and invested in a high chair so we could more easily feed our son in the hotel rooms. It sounds totally crazy, but the high chair made our lives so MUCH easier over there! Recommendations and advice? Plan from home! We got to experience SO much on our trip, but only because we had made a good itinerary from home. When you are constantly focused on making sure this little one is well, there is rarely much time to google and less energy to be spontaneous on the road. Therefore, we were very happy that we had booked all overnight stays from home, had found good places to eat in all cities and always had a list on hand of things we wanted to see. Then we didn't have to spend the evenings on travel planning, but could actually relax! And let's just be honest… traveling with an 8 month old baby is hard and extremely tiring, so we fell asleep ourselves every night after he was put to bed! We had also planned our route so that we would not drive too long distances in the car and put in a lot of time for breaks if needed. We were also really happy to have food, diapers, wet wipes, etc. from home so we didn't have to stress about shopping. Americans have a strange tendency to stuff a lot of scents into diapers and wipes (even if they say they're perfume-free!). And our sunshade for the pram was absolutely indispensable, just as there was a crisis if we couldn't find the little man's bully hat! Coolest place you used your diaper bag? The coolest and funnest places we used our Baby Dreamer include an observation deck at the Golden Gate, a jail cell on Alcatraz, a Yosemite National Park parking lot, in the emergency lane on Highway 1, and during the parade at Disneyland. Let's just say our diaper bag got a little bit of everything! Our Baby Dreamer was simply worth having on our road trip in California. The diaper bag is so spacious and super divided with lots of pockets that you can actually keep ALL your baby stuff for a whole day in it. And we were also happy that the nappy bag works both as a rucksack and can be attached to the pram, so it's super easy to take on the go. If you feel like it, you are always very welcome to contact us on Instagram if you would like to hear more about our maternity trip to California. The Karaas family chose the Baby Dreamer diaper bag in recycled polyester. See it here

Children's joy and anticipation of Christmas is absolutely wonderful to experience. BUT how do you get through Christmas without everyone's forehead lobes being melted by the time we get to 3pm on Christmas Eve? It is a question I have asked myself and two wonderful women and mothers. This morning I was woken up at 04.55 by my husband: " Would you mind getting up with him today, have been sitting in his room since 04.00." That DAMN Christmas stocking !” Our son has been given a Christmas stocking by my sweet parents, so Santa can put a present in EVERY day. (It's only December 12th and I've been looking like this for the past few days Want to beat my parents though. Because how lucky you are that they want to make a packing calendar for your son. They have even spent time finding good recycled toys - yes, on top of that they have become some of the most sustainable people I know. With own shopping bags, good flea finds, sorting rubbish and buying a holiday home, as the time has come to holiday in other ways than before with lots of flights - GOD I hope I get the same pensioner profit one day. Well, back to the many joys and expectations that Christmas offers. At our place, we have deliberately chosen that rice porridge is served to Santa every Sunday. Our son has two chocolate Christmas calendars that he has to open every afternoon when he comes home from kindergarten, we see Pyrus and then he has the awesome morning alarm clock - the Christmas sock 😊 There are so many nice and funny pranks the Santa can do. As much as I want to dye the milk blue, swap around our furniture, and save all of our shoes, our son's forehead lobes would be completely melted by the time we get to December 17th. Honestly, my husband's and my caffeine intake would be downright unhealthy if we also had to struggle to tuck him in at night due to excitement and nervousness about what pranks Santa might come up with. I am very much looking forward to Christmas this year. After I had a child, my Christmas joy found its way back - since my grandfather died, it has been hidden well away. It has been many years now, but he was something very special to me and the Christmas memories from Falster in his house have been magical in my head. Christmas is associated with many feelings, memories and expectations. Christmas can be a sensitive subject as, in addition to joy, it can also be filled with great sadness, frustrations and worries. I am neither qualified nor experienced to elaborate on this subject, but as I sit here writing this for the first time - probably the last time - writing a blog post on a subject that we all relate to, I hope , that you will read this post with an experience that it was written with humility. Christmas is definitely not perfect with us! But it is our Christmas with all that it entails. For the first time, we will spend Christmas with my parents in their summer house together with my sister and little nephew. During Christmas we go to my parents-in-law, who live on a farm with a big Christmas wreath on the door and Christmas lights in the trees. My brother-in-law, sister-in-law and their two children are coming home from Norway. It oozes coziness and idyll! I am absolutely sure that there will be lots of fun, but the truth is also - at least with us - that being in a small cottage with a fire in the wood-burning stove, the smell of Christmas food and sweets on the table, Christmas presents under the tree , three families gathered in a small space and the excitement about whether you are lucky to see an elf or perhaps even Santa's sleigh with reindeer can also become very intense and hectic! I'm already dreading if we can even cuddle our son, if he gets so overtired and overheated with euphoria that he becomes super annoying and it's not pleasant at all. SO, what do you do to create the best setting at Christmas, so that both children and adults can follow along? I don't have the recipe! What is important to me is that Christmas does not become a race, where all our Saturdays and Sundays in the month of December are filled with Christmas lunches and the entire Christmas holiday is already occupied with events. We must have time to hang out in nightwear and take on the flight suit in addition if we feel like fresh air in the late afternoon. We must have time to build caves and take a moment just completely to ourselves . I insist that in our family we do not have two Christmas Eves - Little Christmas Eve at my parents' and Christmas Eve at Andrea's parents' or vice versa. As we have children aged three and one respectively, we dance around the tree and open presents in the afternoon. We eat afterwards, so that the kids can release some of the tension - and who knows, maybe they won't be completely wobbly from fatigue and can get to bed at a fairly decent time. One thing my sister and I have agreed on this year is to practice just being in it. Try not to get frustrated when the kids don't want to sleep at their normal bedtime, when there is a little more speed and gunpowder in the butt - because even though it can be a certain pressure, when you have many people gathered in a small summer house, it after all, it's also wonderful to be able to be so happy about Christmas and everything it brings. I wonder if, as parents, you can accept and be relaxed that Christmas does not have to be "perfect". That you don't have to chase the children before their clothes are soaked in food and that after 30 attempts you get the "glossy picture", that you can move on after the brown potatoes for the third time didn't quite go according to plan, that everyone's forehead lobes can be a little smaller overheated… I have asked Sarah about how their December months are going. Sarah is 32 years old, lives with her husband and two children aged four and a half respectively. "This year, I think Christmas is extra cozy with us. Alma has been looking forward to December for a whole year and cried a little this summer when she missed her elf. This year we have decorated a huge Christmas tree and Alma has been out choosing Christmas baubles and it has turned out so nice. Fortunately, the elf has moved in again this year and it makes elf streaks and trouble and Alma flies out of bed every day to see what it has been up to during the night. We have Advent gifts, as I think it would be a bit too much of a hassle if you had to have gifts every day. I have delegated the task to the grandparents, who think it's really nice. On Christmas Eve, the children usually get some presents in the afternoon and then we make sure that they eat at the usual dinner time and that it is not too late before bedtime. On the 25th, we (the years we celebrate Christmas on Zealand) have dedicated relaxation, cleaning and recycling of toys that are not used, so that there is room for the new and so that we are not drowning in plastic. It's actually quite nice.” Rikke and her family have also thought about how they can be a bit ahead of the curve in order to avoid too many meltdowns. Rikke is 32 years old, lives with her husband and 4-year-old son. "Christmas is a wonderful time - ALSO when you have children. Slightly provocatively written 😊 . But I think most people with small children will catch it. They know very well that the sweet Christmas season can become quite intense if you as parents are not a little ahead of the curve. Especially because nothing is quite as usual and because it is a time full of expectations. Among other things, we have thought about limiting sugar during the month of December. So that the craving for sweets hasn't completely disappeared when we get to the Christmas events, and it might be a little more difficult to manage/set limits on intake. The greater the urge, the more intense the teasing or the reaction when the adults say stop to more sweets. To that extent, the youngest in the house has a sweet tooth and a well-developed pestering and negotiating gene, and we can quickly tell by his appearance if he has had too much sugar. We have therefore chosen a Christmas calendar with dried fruit instead of chocolate - because the latter 100% would have caused more trouble than joy 😊 ”. All that remains is from Baby Dreamer to wish you all a Merry Christmas.