Venturing aboard with small kids can seem very daunting. It requires a deal of preparation, but I think it’s worth it to spend a bit of family time in the sun if at all possible.

You might need to offer up extra luggage space, sacrificing the hair straighteners for nappies and the jewellery for rattles. Times have changed, that’s for sure.

The main thing to do on holidays – and something I regret not doing when my own kids were tots – is to take lots of family photos while on holidays.

I’d come home with my camera reel flooded with baby photos and some of Dad too – but no photographic evidence of my own presence on that holiday! For various reasons, mums tend to shy away from the camera, but our kids will cherish those photos in years to come – or lament Mammy’s absence from them. It’s up to us to make sure it’s the former and not the latter.

While laundry should be far from your mind on holidays, if there’s a washing machine in your apartment, resign yourself to the fact that you’ll probably use it. Pack a few laundry pods to save you buying a whole box over there. At least the clothes will dry fast on the sunny balcony.

I’d also strongly recommend that you bring a stroller on holidays, even if your tot rarely uses one at home anymore. It’s so lovely to head off on a long walk to find new playgrounds and other interesting sights and sounds in the area. Spare their wee legs for the playground and let them chill in the stroller on the way. It’ll give you much more freedom too.

Very often, the temperature cools quite a bit in the evening, and with sea breezes too, you don’t want the baby to get a chill.

Make sure you bring cardigans and tights or long joggers for the evenings. Babies at the crawling stage will also need long trousers for scooting about without hurting their knees. As cute as summer baby clothes can look, it can be quite impractical.

Make sure you bring any medication that you frequently rely on at home. For instance, yummy strawberry flavoured Calpol is often unavailable abroad. You’ll be offered an alternative in the pharmacy that tastes more like a shot of sambucca than the Calpol we know and love.

The same applies for teething gels and bum creams. Pack the old reliables that you know work well for your baby. As for dodos – pack more than you think you’ll need. Specific brands of dodos can be hard to come by abroad. Dodo clips can also help keep those precious dodos safe on the move.

No one wants to need their European Health Insurance card (EHIC) on holidays, but you really should have it with you – just in case.

You can order them online by doing a quick Google search and it’ll be posted out to you. They do expire too, so make sure the ones you have are up to date before travel. The card, formerly referred to as the E111 card, will allow you to access free medical treatment in EU countries.

Holiday insurance is all well and good, but they’ll make you fill in tons of forms and jump through hoops to get reimbursed.

On the contrary, there’s no paperwork or upfront bills to contend with if you have the EHIC with you.

Enjoy the sunshine and embrace the madness if you’re heading off with young kids over the next few weeks. I’ve noticed pumpkin decorations cropping up in the shops already, but I’m not prepared to let go of the summer just yet!

Louise Flanagan is an admin of Letterkenny Babies facebook page and the author of the children’s book series, Dragonterra and Dream Beasts. www.dragonterra.ie.