My daughter circumnavigated the globe before she was 6 months old. Here are my tips for traveling with kids.

• When my daughter was 3 months old, we flew from Boston to Dubai to Australia.
• Since then I've done more long-haul flights and long-term road trips with two kids.

I held my squishy 2-week-old up, trying to position her head for a passport photo. "I've never done one this young," the post office worker said, snapping a picture.

When I married a man from Australia, I knew that travel would be a fixture in our family life. Even so, I've traveled with kids more than I ever imagined. Before the pandemic, I took nursing newborns on long-haul flights to the United Arab Emirates and Australia. My older daughter literally flew around the world before she was 6 months old.

Since then, my husband and I have driven through Eastern Canada streaming "Sesame Street" to appease a toddler. During the pandemic, we spent seven months traveling through 33 states with our two kids.

Traveling with kids can scare off even the most seasoned jet-setters. But it doesn't have to. If being stuck at home has left you dreaming of a family trip, it's time to get planning. Here are my tips for success.

Take care of yourself

It's easy to spend most of your energy thinking about what's going to make your kids happy. But the truth is, we are also traveling for ourselves. Make sure to take some time and space to think about how you'll take care of yourself during travel.

This can happen on a basic level. When I traveled to Dubai with a 3-month-old, I spent ages perfecting my carry-on with everything the baby would need, but I never thought to put in a change of clothes for myself. When she vomited on me during landing, I found myself arriving in a conservative country in my undershirt — not my finest moment.

Embrace the small moments

To survive with children, you have to learn to find joy in the little moments, and it's no different with travel.

I'll never forget my 6-year-old staring at the ground hunting for rocks while my husband and I gazed skyward, taking in the massive open space of Arches National Park. She was having as much fun as we were.

During one long-haul flight with a 6-month-old, I called to book a bassinet seat. The airline representative asked whether I wanted a meal for the baby, who was hardly eating solids. I was prepared to say no when she took a grandmotherly tone.

"I used to be a flight attendant," she said. "Get the meal. Eight hours into this flight you'll be thankful that she has something new to look at."

She was absolutely right. That meal served as a perfect novelty for my baby so I could eat my dinner in peace.

Take help

When I flew a long international flight solo with an infant, my biggest concern was how I was going to use the bathroom on the 12-hour flight. I called up a woman I used to nanny for, who was an experienced international traveler with three kids.

"Take every bit of help," she told me. Once, she said, an airline worker escorted her and two small kids off the plane in a wheelchair simply because he offered and it was easier than wrangling the children. That image set my mind at ease during the moment when I needed an extra set of hands.

I peed on that flight thanks to the flight attendants who held my baby and the child-free woman next to me who watched her doze in her cot.

Traveling with kids is different. There's no way to completely step away from your daily routine. You'll spend a lot of time doing the same boring parenting tasks you do at home, albeit in a new space. Despite that, I've realized that traveling with kids can fill my cup, almost as much as solo travel used to.