Thank you for making our website, KidsTravelDoc and our newsletter, TenTips the sources for keeping kids healthy and safe for travel and outdoor recreational activities. TenTips has almost 7,000 subscribers in about 55 countries. Our articles frequently make the top five references on Google.
In fact, we have many more readers than subscribers. Many of you [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Prevention, Safe & Healthy Travel, Travel Comments Off

Common sense, air conditioning and readily available drinking water have greatly reduced the incidence of heat-related illness in infants and children. But don’t let your vigil down. Cases do still occur, generally due to lack of forethought, and sometimes with horrific results.
Here is what you must know:
1. The younger the child, the more susceptible to [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Prevention, Safe & Healthy Travel, Sun Comments Off
Tags: acclimatization, air conditioning, air temperature, baby carriers, children, Dehydration, drinking water, fluids, healthy, heat index, heat-related illness, HI, hot weather, Infants, national weather service, obesity, perspiration, Prevention, relative humidity

Just when you thought that you knew all you had to know about children’s car safety seats, the experts come up with a slew of new recommendations, forcing you to rethink what you were sure that you already knew.
1. The new recommendations:  Children should ride in rear-facing safety seats until they are two years of [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Prevention, Safe & Healthy Travel, Travel Comments Off
Tags: AAP, car accidents, car seats, children, front-facing car seats, infant car safety seats, kids car seats, kids travel doctor, nhtsa, parents, pediatrics, rear-facing safety seats, safe car seats

All children should learn to swim, and learn to do so at an early age. But there is no consensus as to the optimum age to start; guidelines vary from six months to four years. In addition, there are health issues to consider regarding placing infants in public pools. 
Here is what you should know: 

Teaching young [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation Comments Off
Tags: AAP, babies, children, children swimming, chlorine, drowning, flotation devices, indoor pools, Infants, outdoor pools, public pools, swim, swimming lessons

• Infants are the only items on an aircraft that need not be battened down for takeoff, turbulence and landing.  In case of severe turbulence or survivable crashes, an unrestrained 20-pound (9 kilos) infant sitting on your lap effectively and instantaneously becomes a 300-pound weight  (136 kilos) that you cannot restrain. Such infants have hit the ceiling of [...]

Posted in Air Travel, Outdoor Recreation, Safe & Healthy Travel, Travel No Comments »
Tags: aviation safety, CARES, child air safety, child airplane safety, Child Aviation Restraint System, child restraint system, child restraint systems, CRS, in-flight safety, Infants

Remind children about “freeze” before taking trips, visiting amusements parks, and outings in rural areas.
Remind them of what?  Yes. Freeze. This is a game in which children run about until a designated caller yells, “Freeze!” The children stop in their tracks (freeze) and remain in that place until the caller gives the all-clear signal and [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Prevention, Safe & Healthy Travel Comments Off
Tags: amusmement parks, becoming separated, child id tags, child lost, child safety, electronic surveillance kids, elevator safety, freeze, how to prepare children for trips, hug a tree, kids safety, kids safety tips, kids travel tips, lost child, report lost children, retrace steps, tips for not getting lost, what to do if your child is lost

You’re planning to take your family to Disneyworld: parents, two children, one in fourth grade, the other in second. You are as anxious to go as they are: you’re feeling guilty. Lately you’ve spent too little time with them because of your work schedules.
You find a package that seems too good to be true: off-season, [...]

Posted in Destinations, Outdoor Recreation, Safe & Healthy Travel, Travel Comments Off
Tags: disneyworld, kids travel, Kids Travel Doc, kids travel doctor

A frequent dose of sunshine is the right tonic to keep your kids hale and hearty if you reside where winters are long and the days short.
Here is what you should know:
1. Sunlight helps minimize being sad and having SAD.  Sad (small letters) is having the “winter blues.”  SAD (capital letters) stands for Seasonal Affective [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Prevention Comments Off
Tags: antidepressant medication, artificial light, children, counseling, cranky, depression, Dr. Karl Neumann, Forest Hills Pediatrics, Health, kids, Kids Travel Doc, kids travel doctor, mental health, pediatrician, SAD, safety, seasonal affective disorder, sunlight, winter blues

Backpacks here. Backpacks there. Backpacks practically everywhere. Kids of all ages wear them – and, increasingly, so do adults. Toddlers wear them for the sake of wearing them, often empty and sometimes in the shape of cartoon characters. Older kids use them for books and sporting equipment and when hiking and traveling. For high school [...]

Posted in Outdoor Recreation, Prevention, Safe & Healthy Travel Comments Off
Tags: backpack etiquette, backpack kids, backpacks, body weight, bodyweight, children, heavy backpacks, kids, shoulder straps, sporting equipment, Toddlers, waist strap

I recently received this email: “Dear Dr. Neumann: Do you think it’s OK to place a leash on my 20-month old daughter? I use it mostly for travel, especially at airports and amusement parks, but also at malls. What an attention-getter! Some strangers tell me that leashing children is cruel and stunts curiosity and independence [...]

Posted in Ask Dr. Neumann, Outdoor Recreation, Safe & Healthy Travel No Comments »
Tags: child leashes, children leashes, Dr. Neumann, freedom, infant, Kids Travel Doc, kids travel doctor, leashes