The kit changes when children come along
Not because children need more, but because almost every line becomes a different question. Forms differ by age, doses are not scaled-down adult ones, half the module has to be reachable during the journey rather than in the hold, and the paperwork matters more if anyone else might be looking after them.
What actually changes
Forms, not just amounts
Children's versions are usually liquids, sachets or dissolvable — which moves them from the dry half of the kit into the liquids bag, and makes the cabin exemption relevant for the first time. Ask the pharmacist for what suits the ages travelling, and buy it before you go rather than in a country whose packaging you cannot read.
A thermometer stops being optional
Travelling alone, a thermometer confirms what you already suspect. With a small child it changes what you do next, and it is the one instrument in the kit that earns its space every time.
Everything moves to the cabin
A toddler does not wait for the carousel. Plasters, wipes, anything for a fever and anything for a winding road all belong in the bag on your shoulder, and the suitcase gets the spares.
Names and doses on paper
If a grandparent, a childminder or a hotel doctor might be involved, write down what each child takes, by generic name, with weights and ages. It is a five-minute job at home and an impossible one at 2am abroad.
Babies are their own trip
A baby's kit is barely a first-aid kit at all: it is feeding, changing, temperature and skin, plus whatever the paediatrician has advised. Our planner keeps baby items as their own category for the same reason.
Packing it with children in the party
- One pouch per child for anything individual, labelled — you will not be reading small print in a dark hotel room.
- Duplicate the small things rather than the big ones: two thermometers is silly, two strips of plasters is not.
- Sun protection and repellent both state the ages they are meant for, and those are the labels to read rather than the marketing.
- Keep a change of clothes in the same bag as the wipes. The two get needed at the same moment.
What we are not telling you
Nothing on this page is a dose, a product or a decision about a child's health — those belong with your paediatrician or pharmacist, who will ask about ages and weights before answering. What we can help with is the packing: what form it comes in, which bag it rides in, and what to write down before you leave.
packset.travel is an independent trip-planning tool, not a pharmacy or a medical service. This page is about packing — what form things travel in, which bag they belong in and what paperwork crosses a border. What actually goes in each slot is a question for your pharmacist or doctor, and the official sources linked here have the last word.
Questions
Build one. Ready-made kits are sized for an average that no actual family matches, and the parts that matter — the right forms for your children's ages — are exactly the parts a generic kit gets wrong. Take the checklist to a pharmacist and let them fill the lines.
Everything you would need during the journey and the first evening, which with small children is most of the kit. Liquid children's medication is covered by the medical exemption from the cabin liquid rule — declare it, present it separately, and expect it to be checked.
For ordinary medication in original packaging, no. If a child takes something regularly, carry a copy of the prescription and a note listing it by generic name with the child's age and weight — the same paperwork an adult would carry, and more likely to be needed because someone else may have to read it.
It is a real problem on descent and a small one to prepare for. Something to drink or suck on during descent is the packing answer; anything beyond that is a question for your pharmacist, who will ask the child's age first.
Everything on this page that is a rule rather than an opinion comes from one of these. They are all official, none of them sell anything, and if one of them disagrees with us, it is right.
packset.travel is an independent trip-planning tool, not a pharmacy or a medical service. This page is about packing — what form things travel in, which bag they belong in and what paperwork crosses a border. What actually goes in each slot is a question for your pharmacist or doctor, and the official sources linked here have the last word.
Our planner puts the health pack next to everything else you are carrying, with a weight for the whole bag rather than a list you have to add up yourself.