This summer I had one goal in mind: helping my toddler become a tad more travel-ready. My husband and I have two trips planned: one extensive road trip adventure and one excessively long plane ride.  So, I delved into all the child-travel tips on the interwebs and loved the advice―except for one thing. I didn’t want to give my child Benadryl, cough medicine or any other antihistamine.  

My reasoning is two fold: most of my family members experience a humorous (yet slightly bizarre) reaction to most antihistamine products. Secondly, I hadn’t found a natural substitute (yet) that I felt comfortable using.

With two months left before our first outing, I ordered a handful of products and hoped for the best via trial and error.  Calm ‘Em Down (an essential oil bend from Eden’s Garden) turned out to be (by far) my ideal option.  I added 5-6 drops into some Baja Baby Unscented Body Lotion, mixed it all together and put the newly-created mixture into a glass lotion dispenser. Then I applied it 30 minutes before buckling up “S” for a long car outing.  It worked wonders.

Calm ‘Em Down is made from a blend of douglas fir, petitgrain, lavender, sweet orange, vetiver, damiana, and vanilla. It’s a 100% therapeutic essential oil blend that doesn’t contain any additional bases, fillers, or additives.  The company also rotates inventory every few weeks to give you the freshest ingredients.  Plus, you can feel good supporting a company that gives 10% of all profits to charities.

What I Love:  “S” (understandably) doesn’t like the smell of vetiver (and vetiver just happens to be a main ingredient in this blend) so I was worried that it might agitate “S” instead of lulling her into some sort of serene-travel-sidekick. Luckily, the blend seems to balance out vetiver’s strong scent with a bunch of other earthy tones. So much so, that “S” didn’t complain. It also, probably helped that I diluted only a few drops into the lotion so the fragrance was more subtle. Either way, this oil is potent and made a big difference in my toddler's response to the lack of car seat stimuli.

Cons: I thought applying Calm ‘Em Down to lotion would be a great idea, now I’m wishing I would’ve purchased the pre-diluted roller version. I imagine the roller would be far easier than my rushed attempt to transfer the lotion into 2-3 travel-size tubes.

What resources have you used to help your toddler travel with ease? Do you have any DIY recipes we could try? We want to hear all about it! 

Cheers, 

Hazel

Good for You - Good for Earth - So far on Eden's Garden's website I couldn't find anything about eco-friendly packaging or recycle programs. However, Eden's Garden does promote organic farming with their suppliers. EG also doesn't test any of their products or ingredients on animals. 

Good for You - We love that you get what you pay for with Eden's Garden-- no bases, carriers or additives are added to their essential oils.  Eden's Garden does try to source most of their ingredients from organic growers and distillers but if you are searching for test-verified 100% non-GMO oils then this might not be the brand for you.

Good for Others - Eden's Garden gives 10% of their profits to charities and supports Teen Challenge (a program that helps families overcome drug and alcohol problems through biblical principles) and YWAM (a global movement of Christians from many cultures, age groups, and Christian traditions, dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world)

C&C Overall - I love the Eden Garden's price and the fact that it works wonders with my toddler. Down the road, I do wish there was a touch more transparency about their oil's harvesting maturity, indigenous sourcing info and provided access to more test results other than just the GCMS.