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[Millie] This is Aspen, 5 and Milo, 7. They love being outside climbing trees and being covered in mud. They adore art and craft and making models with Lego. 

As per new government guidelines in response to stopping the spread of Cronavirus in Singapore we had to spend 14 days in a hotel room when we landed. Here are some tips I hope you will find helpful.

Take or buy in some snacks and fruit. The hotel provided our daily meals. Our children are by no means fussy but the meals weren’t always to the children’s tastes and no fruit provided. If you’re children are anything like ours they seem to need some sort of snack every other hour! You can order just about anything in Singapore and have it delivered to your hotel room using apps like food panda, Lazada or even amazon prime! After one tough day with kids not really getting on we ordered in ice cream for an evening! Amazing how ice cream can restore the balance.

One of the best things we’ve bought for our children for travel are Trunkies – children’s suitcases that are sturdy, of a decent size and have wheels so the children can scoot along the airport or be pulled along for a ride. We packed those with their favourite toys and activities. Milo mostly had lego where as Aspen packed her smaller role play toys and Lego Friends. 

Take some new toys. We got some toys and games, wrapped them up and hid them for the days when boredom crept in. We bought some group games – uno, dobble, mini snakes and ladders and some activity books. We were gifted a great bingo game called Zingo whilst in our room. To save on space in your luggage remove the packaging from games or put them in zip-lock bags to keep everything together. 

Pack craft resources. Our two can spend plenty of time making pictures and models with scissors and print stick. There are plenty of YouTube links for how to draw and origami for kids to pass the time. I’ll link some below for you. We brought scissors, masking tape, paper, colouring and activity sheets we had printed, water colour paints, felt pens and crayons. The kids had fun making a home for their toys one day with all the empty water bottles from the hotel!  

Get involved as a family. Do the activities together, it will help pass the boredom for you too and we’ve had some lovely conversations with the kids. I find the kids really open up when they are occupied in creative activities. A few times we made pictures and left messages outside our room to thank all the people that were delivering our food, taking our rubbish and doing our washing. We received several replies back and a box of chocolates once!

We had some amazing deliveries from friends and family with snacks, drinks, meals and games. It was so appreciated and really gave us a lift for the day. So if you’re offered things, take them up on the offer – they wouldn’t offer if they didn’t want to (hopefully!) 

For our flight we bought the children headphones. These continued to be great in the hotel for when the children just wanted to be on their own for a while as it meant our son could play on the Nintendo Switch or our daughter could watch her beloved Doc McStuffins and we didn’t all have to hear it! We already had a Nintendo Switch and were bought some great new games that we could all play together.

My sister-in-law and family prepared a card each day for us to open with a little message or activity which the children excitedly opened each morning and served well as a countdown to the end. Perhaps consider doing this yourself or asking friends and family to do a card each.

A few other essentials that you may find helpful to bring are wet wipes or antibacterial wipes. We had a large coffee table in the room where we ate and used for craft and play. While we could ask for cleaning supplies they often wanted them back the same day and having our own wipes meant I could clean the table without having to ask regularly. 

We had a lap top and HDMI cable which meant we could connect it to the tv and watch any bought movies and YouTube. The TV’s in our rooms did have Cable but a small selection and the cartoons sometimes more suited for older children and we found our two wanted to watch their home favourites. Whilst we rather our children play and be creative all day there were many afternoons, and the odd day, where they watched programmes for hours. It provided some much needed down time and recreated personal space! Having an iPad and laptop also meant we could FaceTime friends and family.

We bought and downloaded some of our kids’ favourite movies and TV Shows too. This was great when they (or we!) needed some rest time in the day and helped to pass the time. We started having movie evenings together after dinner which has became a favourite time.

To stay active we watched GoNoodle and Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube. GoNoodle contains work outs, yoga, mindfulness and dance routines and Cosmic Kids is an engaging yoga programme that has a story line. I would join in with yoga to keep myself active.

Our two like a solid 10 hours sleep so we found we were putting them to bed around nine pm so that mornings weren’t so early. We were bought the book Slime by David Williams and read a few chapters each night before bed to keep our home bedtime routine.

Lastly, give each other some grace! Everyone will react to this situation differently and whilst we had points of meltdown from our youngest, we gave her some space and tried to keep calm and diffuse a situation before it blew up. As parents we often have lots of other things to think about, preparing dinner, doing the laundry, cleaning and cooking but being in the hotel room removed all of those tasks so we had time to help her manage her emotions in testing situations. 

I hope you find this helpful if you find yourself in quarantine. Check out our vlog for more and to have a look at our hotel suite. Comment below with any other tips or activities you’ve found useful to pass the time and keep the family active and occupied.