What I wish I’d packed for a family holiday

After a visit to A&E, a follow up call overnight, an appointment with a local doctor and text messages and calls to two doctors in the UK, I’ve realised my summer holiday could have been much more straightforward if I’d spent a bit more time packing.

It’s not that anything terrible has happened. It’s just that after 10 days my three travel companions–Baby Boy, BigGirl and Daddy T–had all been down with temperatures above 39 degrees and we hadn’t even packed paracetamol.

In addition, we’d had a few bad eye infections in that time, and the youngest had appeared to have some breathing difficulties, resulting in the A&E excursion.

I couldn’t have avoided the check-up, but I could have saved us from a lot of stress if we’d packed some basic medicines. I used to be super organised when travelling with babies, but as they’ve gotten older I’ve been more relaxed, often thinking we could easily get to a pharmacy if we were to need anything.

This holiday, however, I soon realised there was no such thing as a 24-hour pharmacy in the city where we were holidaying, and in fact, there was no pharmacy open From when I discovered Big Girl was unwell at around 5pm on a Saturday until 4pm the next day.

I’m the only one who’s been well the entire time, and after Big Hitl seemed to pass it on to the others there was a point when Daddy T complained he wanted to return to London, feeling deflated and frustrated about the lack of access to health services we take for granted in London.

The pharmacy opening hours were the main problem, and when Big Girl had a very high temperature on the Saturday evening we found a paracetamol in a supermarket, but couldn’t get hold of ibuprofen for kids, which I like to have at home for emergencies. For the acute eye infection, we knew we needed chloramphenicol, but even if the pharmacy had been open it was not available over the counter, and we had to wait a day to see a doctor and organise a prescription.

Next time I’ll be sure to travel with an ear thermometer, calpol, neurofen, and ideally something for eyes too. I’ve also seen Mr Bump, a little bruise pack to keep in the fridge at a friend’s house, and this and the Little Rescue Kit natural first aid kit I reviewed last year would also have been handy to pack when travelling with a toddler.

It would have been better to be prepared and avoid wasting holiday time on doctor and pharmacy visits.

Tags: A&E, Breathing, Calpol, Eye infection, Family travel, Fever, Health, Travel with toddler