I have to admit: they warned me. Every parent I spoke to said the same thing – that 18 months to 3 years is the worst time to travel. Toddlers are just little agents of rage, constantly doing stupid things, impossible to reason with. This does not bode well for planes, or trains, or non-baby-proofed places like hotels and restaurants.

But Japan was calling for a ski trip, and we had such a fab time last year with our seven-month-old, we thought… how bad can it be with a 19-month-old?

Throw in some complications, and this trip has been an interesting reminder that not all ski trips are made equal. Some are all powder days and bluebirds and après, while others are more about survival… and finding those glimmers of great times among the madness.

Here are some lessons we’ve learned from this trip.

  1. Holidays are not the time to die on hills

We were kind of smug before we left home. Toddler essentially weaned off dummy? Tick. Toddler eats great diet with things like homemade organic chia seed jam? Tick, tick. Hand us the Parents Of The Year Award! We’ve got this!

I fell off my high horse quickly when he discovered unlimited access to the dummy during the 8-hour plane ride from Brisbane to Tokyo. And as for diet – he picked out the cream puffs in 7/11 almost immediately, which we gave into during a moment of tantrum-avoiding desperation (because Japanese toddlers honestly do not seem to throw tantrums or even make a sound? It’s just ours shouting on the train for his 715th snack of the day??).

Bread and noodles have been getting us through, as well as one night that he ate nothing but pizza crusts for dinner. We have just surrendered to the mayhem to ensure sanity for fellow passengers/restaurant-goers/general public, and will return to normal programming upon return.

2. Prepare for worst-case scenarios

I thought our first aid kit took up too much room in our bag, but we ended up using almost everything in it – especially baby Panadol, nose spray, eye wipes, gauze, strapping tape, and hydration powder. When the toddler’s teething (he’s cutting molars – IYKYK) turned to a cold, we had everything on us without needing to dash to a pharmacy and try to translate.

When we did end up needing to call an ambulance and go to the hospital for a fractured wrist in the group, Google Translate was a lifesaver. The hospital was wonderfully efficient and inexpensive (around AU$450 which included x-rays and a brace), although we remain very grateful for our travel insurance, especially when Cyclone Alfred popped up to cause further issues in our travel plans to get home.

3. Pack minimal, but keep what you really know will help

We learned from last year that trying to get on and off bullet trains with so much baby paraphernalia, along with suitcases, was a poor choice for our nervous systems. So this year’s trip saw capsule wardrobes for all (there are coin laundries everywhere! It’s fine to do washing!) and vacuum storage bags for our snow gear, which was packed into a separate suitcase to be Yamato’ed directly to the slopes.

I saved precious room in bags for nappies (they can be tough to find in Japan and I didn’t want to waste time searching for them), wipes and baby food (like the pouches we know he loves, and those weird puffy corn sticks that every toddler seems to live off). While this left almost no room for say, our adult toiletries, it did leave some space for the shopping we dragged home.

4. Consider how much adventure you’re up for

The Japanese babies are so well-behaved, a lot of their high chairs don’t even have a restraint to keep them in.

I love a new place. But with a toddler in tow (and all his aforementioned baby paraphernalia), there is only so much ‘new’ we can handle. And so we bookended the fresh, more adventurous parts of our trip (Kyoto, Nozawa Onsen) with some familiar places we’ve been before (Tokyo, Madarao). This worked well: we got our fix of exploration in the new places while taking some comfort in the places we’d already experienced.

If you’re new to all of it, we have some recommendations for mega baby friendly locations in Myoko Kogen, Madarao and Tokyo.

5. A true lesson in gratitude

This phase between baby and small child does feel strange for a snow trip. They’re not old enough to be in ski school, but not young enough to be a potato that’s just dragged along for the ride. They want to play in the snow, but hate that it’s cold. They want to walk, but don’t like that it’s slippery, etc etc.

But between babysitters, day care, help from friends and swapping out between ourselves, my partner and I both got some great laps in. The runs I had to myself on a 40cm powder day in Madarao, alongside the views I enjoyed from up top of a picture-perfect sunny Nozawa Onsen day, will remain in my memory as some of the best I’ve ever experienced.

We built more family memories, we tested ourselves through tricky moments, and we’ve come out the other side with a real appreciation for the smoother moments. And now we just need a bit of a lie-down.

Have you done snow travel with a toddler? What did you find easy, and what was difficult? Any tips for other toddler parents out there?

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