People worry about the stress of travelling during the holidays. Now, add kids in the equation and you have the perfect recipe for a giant pre-holiday headache. You can mentally say goodbye to relaxation and hello to anxiety attacks.

NAH! As daunting a task as it may seem, there are ways to making it easier for you and your child. Sure, there are tons of horror stories out there but, to balance things out, there are also success stories of parents who took the risk and came out unscathed.

Stories like mine. Let's enumerate (note that you must, in addition, multiply by 2 since all are round-trips):

• with a 4-month old baby, I travelled ALONE, during the Christmas holiday rush.. The 16-hour airplane ride (with one stop-over) went smoothly. His pacifier helped a lot during take-offs and landings. Fellow passengers gamely checked on him whenever I had to go to the toilet. Diaper changes were a bit difficult but survive, we did.


• with a 6 month old, I travelled ALONE to Paris. It was only an hour of plane ride. The only difficulty I had was in breast-feeding him during the plane ride. The businessman who sat beside me kept on talking to me.


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• with a 12 month old, my husband and I flew to Rome. The Lufthansa stewardess helped us entertain him during the 2-hour plane ride. A restless toddler who just learned to walk was partly kept busy by airline freebies and walking to the toilet.


• with a 16 month old, my husband and I flew to Asia once again, during the Christmas holiday rush. It was a 16-hour ride with one stop-over. Toys, books and walks to the toilet kept him busy. Thank God, the drone of the airplane engine lulled him to sleep half the time.


• with a 24 month old, my husband, sister and I drove to Italy -- 1000km, one way. We made sure that we stopped to stretch our legs, eat and play with our restless toddler. The only drawback I could think of was the fact that tons of barney songs are now embedded in our memories.


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  And in a couple of weeks, we will again be flying for 16hours, during the Christmas holiday rush.
  
  Check the following sites for more great tips and advice:
  
  TinyTravelers.net talks about Depressurizing Plane Flights with Infants. Tips on how to make it easy for your baby during air travel. And even more advices here.
  
  GoCityKids is one nifty online tool. A great resource for parents who wants to know where kid-friendly destination and events. Not all cities are covered but it surely is growing.
  
  Sure, there are ways around the stress and difficulty. If you prepare yourself, you will be able to adjust to the demands of your travel with minor hiccups (if any) and lots of fun.