The same was true on his first international trip to Cancun at eight months old. He was still taking regular naps, and we still wanted him to get them. But we were also staying at a beautiful resort and didn't particularly want to spend a chunk of every afternoon sitting quietly in our hotel room.

So when he got tired while we were at the pool, we found a shady spot, set up our travel fans and let him sleep on a lounge chair right next to us.

He got his nap. We got to stay by the pool. Close enough.

That became a pretty good lesson for us early on: we could respect the routine without needing it to look exactly the way it did at home.

And generally, we didn't schedule an entire vacation day around his nap schedule. We wanted to take the boat ride, go on the tour or spend the afternoon at the museum. We just knew we needed to be prepared to adjust if he wasn't handling the day quite as well as we'd hoped.

Sometimes the Baby Has Other Plans

We approached feeding much the same way. When he was still breastfeeding or taking bottles, we tried to keep those fairly consistent. But one convenient thing about babies is that they're usually pretty good at letting you know when they're hungry - whether or not that happens to line up with the schedule you had in mind.

We learned that one in Colorado when he was about 10 months old.

We'd planned to visit a few breweries one afternoon and convinced ourselves that because we'd be out during his normal naptime, surely he'd just sleep.

He did not.

He was fairly amenable at the first stop. By the second, he was hungry, which meant breastfeeding on the fly, and he still had absolutely no intention of settling down afterward. Eventually we called it, went back to our Airbnb and watched the same baby who had been completely over our afternoon plans become perfectly content to play.

Sometimes going with the flow means realizing you're the one who needs to change course.

For meals together, though, we did try to preserve a little normalcy. When he was around eight to 14 months old, we'd generally eat dinner around a reasonably familiar time, bring along snacks we knew he'd eat, give him milk and let him have some food from our plates.

Was the food different? Yes. Was the setting different? Definitely. But we were still sitting down and eating together in the evening. Again - close enough.

Familiar Things Helped Make Unfamiliar Places Feel Normal

Especially when he was younger, we packed a few things that made wherever we were staying feel a little more familiar: his sleep sack, portable sound machine, favorite snacks and a few favorite toys to help keep him entertained.

As he got older, that included little things like his own child-sized plate and travel fork and spoon. They weren't necessities, but when so much around him was unfamiliar, it was nice to pull out something he recognized. A lot of these little comforts have also earned a permanent place among the travel gear we love.

Of course, familiar things don't guarantee a perfectly happy child.

Sometimes you can lovingly pack the familiar little plate from home and your child will still make it abundantly clear that he's done with dinner.

That's traveling with kids.

As He Got Older, We Loosened Up

As our son moved into the toddler and preschool years, we became much more flexible. Some of that was us becoming more comfortable as parents, and some was simply that he didn't need the same kind of schedule he had as a baby.

Naps are probably the best example.

As he started phasing them out at home, we stopped trying to manufacture them while traveling. If we happened to be at the hotel and he was clearly exhausted, we'd let him crash - and maybe take advantage of the opportunity to nap ourselves.

But more often than not, a bed isn't conveniently nearby when sleep finally wins.

We still generally travel with a stroller, so if he gets tired while we're out, that's usually where he ends up.

After a full day of exploring, sometimes tired just wins.

We Bend Some of the Rules, Too

Food has gotten easier as he's gotten older. We still bring familiar snacks from home, partly because they're comforting and partly because it's nice to know there's always something available that he'll eat. At restaurants, we look for things that seem approachable while also letting him try foods from our plates.

And then there's the tablet.

Yes, the pink elephant at the dinner table.

I think a lot of parents have probably had some version of we'll never be those parents whose kid watches a tablet at a restaurant cross their minds before actually having children.

At home, we don't use tablets at the dinner table. When we're traveling, that rule gets a little more flexible.

It's still not the first thing we reach for. We'll color, play with stickers, work on letters or pull something else out of our bag first. But if we've exhausted our options and dinner is rapidly heading toward a meltdown?

The tablet is in the bag.

No judgment here.

We Keep the Familiar Parts of Bedtime - Even When Bedtime Changes

Bath time is one routine we've generally kept while traveling, although it hasn't always looked quite like it does at home.

If there's a bathtub, we'll give our son a bath and make it fun even if we don't have his usual bubbles or bath toys with us. If there's no tub, we've improvised - sometimes that has meant simply carrying him into the shower with one of us to get him clean.

And sometimes the unfamiliar version becomes more entertaining than anything we could have brought from home.

In Budapest, he discovered that wearing a hotel shower cap while soaking in the tub was absolutely hilarious.

Then there's bedtime itself, where we're much more willing to bend the schedule.

If we're already back at the hotel around our son's normal bedtime, great. We'll get him ready and put him to bed.

But if we're still out experiencing somewhere new, we're probably not going to rush back solely because the clock says it's bedtime.

For us, some experiences are worth the occasional late night. We don't know when we'll next watch the sun set over the Pacific in Moorea or wander through Vienna's Christmas markets after dark. When we're traveling, we're willing to let bedtime slide sometimes so we can enjoy those moments together.

But there are also plenty of nights when we're back at the hotel and a normal bedtime works just fine.

In Cancun, we had a Marriott welcome gift of wine, cheese and chocolates waiting for us one evening. Once our son was asleep in his crib, we took the baby monitor onto the balcony, settled in outside the sliding glass door and enjoyed it together while looking out toward the ocean.

He got his normal bedtime. We got a little time to ourselves. Another vacation compromise that worked out pretty well.

What we do try to preserve is the familiar part that comes afterward.

We always bring a few lightweight books from home, and bedtime stories have followed us just about everywhere - whether our son's sleeping in a crib, curled up in our hotel bed or tucked into his own sofa bed.

The bedtime itself may change. The little ritual that tells him it's time to settle in doesn't have to.

When the Day Goes Sideways, Tomorrow Is a New Day

For someone who loves a schedule, I've been surprisingly unwilling to create an entirely new one just because one travel day didn't go according to plan.

Our philosophy has generally been: tomorrow is a new day.

Sometimes jet lag has a say in that. We've arrived somewhere with plans for dinner only to discover that the entire family was ready to be asleep by 7:30. That happened to us in Budapest, and instead of trying to force ourselves through the evening, we went to bed. We'd try again tomorrow.

We've learned a few things along the way about managing jet lag with a little one, but sometimes the best plan really is to listen to what everyone's body is telling them.

There are also times when we've deliberately called an audible.

Before our most recent trip to Tokyo, we'd planned a day trip on the Shinkansen after two back-to-back Disney days. Then we actually lived through those two days - lots of walking, hot summer sun and three thoroughly exhausted people.

We decided another big excursion wasn't the best use of anyone's energy and stayed in Tokyo instead.

In retrospect, maybe it was actually the parents who couldn't hang.

Either way, changing the plan was the right call.

And Then We Come Home

We don't have an elaborate routine for getting everyone back onto home time, either. Usually we sleep in, take it easy the next day and gradually settle back into normal life.

Well, everyone else takes it easy. I do laundry.

I apparently have a personal inability to go to bed after a trip knowing there is still a packed suitcase sitting somewhere in the house. Everything gets unpacked and is ready to be washed the next day.

Since we've been traveling with our son, we've become more mindful about returning home on a weekend when we can. Having a day to sleep in and adjust before jumping straight back into work, school and normal life makes the transition easier for everyone.

And kids can be surprisingly resilient. Our son has generally fallen back into his usual rhythm pretty quickly - occasionally with the help of a few earlier bedtimes over the next several days.