As stressful and painful as experiencing a flare can already be at home, the idea of travelling with a flare may sometimes seem downright impossible. With some help however, you and your child can still enjoy taking a trip together. These are Cassie and Friends community member and mother Tanya Cassidy Irwin’s three tips for travelling with child with a flare. These tips are based on her family’s experience and lessons-learned while travelling for 21 days with their four year old daughter Emily who lives with Oligoarticular JIA. You can read Tanya and Emily’s story here, and see their travel tips below!

These are the three things we learned about travelling with a child in a flare:

1. Bring the Tylenol (or equivalent). Even when it already feels like you have a million things to manage when travelling with a young child with JIA, bring the Tylenol.  We made the rookie mistake of thinking we would just grab Paracetamol when we arrived at our destination but hindsight says Emily would have benefited from a dose or two on our two flights.

2. Be prepared to have to carry your child A LOT more than you  expected. As a four year old in outdoor preschool Emily was used to a fair amount of walking and could go long distances even as a small person with JIA.  It took us until day 6 of our 21 day trip to finally wrap our heads, and emotions, around the fact that she needed to be carried and that she was not just being a stereotype. Thankfully I had packed both a woven wrap and a ring sling so we were able to manage without our arms dropping off.

3. Let go of your expectations and schedules so that you can adapt as necessary. This is part and parcel of travel with a child but even more so when the child has different needs. Flexibility got us through as did the many, many playgrounds we had mapped out. JIA has never affected Emily’s ability to enjoy a swing!