No…No More Day Trips With Kids!

An interesting phenomenon began to occur after we had our first little bundle of joy: we went on day trips to our favourite spots, but all of a sudden they weren’t nearly as much fun. Weird! 😳

I know what you’re thinking. “Duh! Kids make things harder”.

And yes, you’d be right, but that information tends to take longer to sink in than you’d think.

Give it back you selfish baby!

When you first have a child, obviously you’re gonna notice having less time for yourselves. That’s a given. But after a time, you start to push back against this feeling of “everything for the baby” and want to claw back some of your former life, even if you know you won’t get it all.

This sometimes desperate scramble to re-visit your freer times can come in a lot of forms: evenings out with friends, regular team sports, hobbies you’ve been ignoring, more attention to your career, and inevitably…day trips.

And these day trips take on a completely different character when you’ve got kids in tow.

Let’s go to the lake. What could go wrong?

Let me outline an example for you:

My wife (Bertha, still not her real name, but still funny to me), our 8-ish month old at the time daughter (Gertrude, hers neither), mother-in-law (let’s call her Mabel), and our dog (named, hmm…Spot) all piled into the train to ride an hour south of our home in Munich, down to the mountain lakes of Bavaria.

I cannot understate how gorgeous these spots are with their small village Bavarian charm, the sparkling mountain lakes, the green grass farms of peacefully grazing animals, and all of it surrounded by rocky Alpine cliffs. The food is great and there are more breweries than cows. Well, almost.

But let’s get into the details of our journey…

The ride down to Lake Tegern (Tegernsee) consisted mostly of me chasing Gertrude on my hands and knees through the train. The first half of my attention engaged in keeping her occupied and moving around, the second half ready to jump in with wet wipes if she puts those filthy hands in her mouth.

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So, yeah…not staring self-contentedly out the window at the passing farms and fluffy clouds.

We arrived and wanted to head to the only beach where dogs are allowed, which we’d only recently learned about. Before Gertrude, we’d always come down to go hiking, but that was less possible with the baby and even lesser possible with mother-in-law Mabel along for the day. So the beach sounded a nice alternative.

We had to walk half way round the lake, then take a boat where there was no lakeside path, and finally another walk through an odd, half-built housing development. Not the baby’s fault, but having to stop to grab food, tip-toe when she’s almost falling asleep and then reacting wide-eyed to my mother-in-law fussing with Gertrud just as she’s about to fall asleep, and then…doesn’t.

Quick note about Gertrude: in her first year, sleep was a BIG problem. It was really hard to get her to fall asleep, even harder to keep her asleep, and if she managed to nod off for just a few moments, that was enough to make her not want to sleep anymore for hours but didn’t do anything for the crankiness.

So the longer our stupidly complicated journey to the dog beach took, the more opportunities there were to wake her up and piss her off.

Back to the journey…

Somehow, I think because of a bathroom break necessity, we got separated and tried to meet up at the beach, which we did around 1:30-2:00pm.

There was only a small stand selling sausages, so a full lunch wasn’t gonna happen the way we would’ve liked and if we wanted to get back to the train station with enough time to get Gertrude in bed at a decent time, we could only stay a little more than an hour.

Yeah, AN HOUR after all that! 🤦🏼‍♂️

By the time we got home I felt drained, a bit pissed off, and not at all rejuvenated by the beauty of the mountains as per usual.

So what? You had a bad day trip. Big deal 🤷🏼‍♂️

Yes, one bad day trip is fine in isolation. But this sort of thing kept happening.

If it had been just Bertha and I, then it would’ve been a funny adventure. Something to laugh about as we sipped wine in front of a fireplace in the evening while we listened to classical music on our Persian rug (we don’t have a Persian rug).

But that wasn’t the reality of it. The reality was a mad dash to get home, changed, fed and then fall into bed after the child was finally sleeping.

And all the while, we started to wondering why we felt worse not better?

But Hunny, the Jones Family is doing it

Something occurred to me when I was having a beer with a friend of mine after he’d been sledding in the mountains with his family on the weekend.

The conversation started “oh yeah, I saw those pics of you guys on Facebook. Looked like a lot of fun, and mountains were stunning!”

Then he proceeded to explain that yes, it was, but…

The kid was crying, the sled was heavy, they had to trudge up and down the steep slope, and they fell in the snow a couple times with tears following close behind.

Obviously this is not the first time that the social media highlights didn’t exactly match the trodden reality. But these stories kept collecting.

Think about this equation…

Old habits + New Realities = Disappointment

Before the kids, an hour long trip down to the mountains was a joy with only a little bit of logistical hassle. Usually our biggest worry was whether we’d get a seat at the restaurant that was directly next to the lake or not.

But you add a baby into the mix and the entire focus of the day changes. No longer are you taking in the mountain scenery and appreciating the blessed life you’re leading. Instead, you’re taking care of the kid with a moment or two to enjoy for yourself.

Now, every family and every baby is different. We have friends whose baby is super easy to manage. It slept most of the first year. Having a kid didn’t stop them doing anything. I’m so happy for them. 😏

Our little Gertrude was a handful for the first year. LOTS of crying, very little sleep. After the first year, much better! She was always super cute, but now she’s cute AND sleeps! 😊

The lesson learned

What it came down to in the end was a realisation that taking these trips was costing us more in effort than we were receiving in relaxation.

Where before, a day trip cost us almost nothing, now they were just more hassle than it was worth. At least, the way we used to do it.

So, we rejiggered our weekend plans. We still do day trips but they became a lot closer to home with simpler logistics.

We weren’t getting as much clean mountain air or jealousy-inducing social media posts, but we began to enjoy the time with our kids a lot more.

Thus, the new equation…

More Relaxation and Fun – Less Effort = Happy Family

And now that our son (Abe) is coming up on a year and Gertrude just hit 3yo, we’re able to venture a bit farther afield.

Expect to expect

So much of (family) life, I find, is understanding what your expectations are and figuring out if they’re realistic or not. The more you can align what you can do with what you expect to do, the happier you’ll be.

And for the future…

You keep that promise to yourself of happy family day trips in the mountains safely in your back pocket and trust yourself that you will do it once your family is ready.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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