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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/rezolution13 on 2025-07-11 00:56:37+00:00.
First have to start off saying that this is my first post ever on Reddit, and I’ve decided to post here as we wouldn’t have gotten through this trip without all the amazing advice, tips, etc. I found in this subreddit.
My wife and I have always wanted to go to Japan and even though our close friends and family thought we were crazy we decided to with our two kids (22 & 4 months) this past May. For anyone in the same boat wondering if it’s doable, believe me it is.. but it’s going to come with some hard times, so just be prepared and give yourself a little grace when things don’t go as planned.
For those curious, our trip itinerary consisted of the following: Landed in Narita (9pm arrival) Night 1 in Tokyo Day 2-6 Osaka (day trips to Nara and Uji) Day 6-9 Kyoto Day 9-15 Tokyo Late departure from Narita on day 15
Airplane We flew Zipair out of San Francisco, we are actually from the east coast but the flight cost to go west first and then fly out was still cheaper than flying out of the NY area. When flying with Zipair the toddler price is like 20% of the full fare and they’ll provide a seat and car seat for you to use. You also get priority for extra leg room, which was incredible since our oldest didn’t love sitting in the car seat for 11 hours. She’d get down walk around and play in the extra space. You will get split up though if traveling with four. They put me and my daughter on window and middle on the end row and then my wife and son middle and aisle in the middle section. So essentially there was one person in between us. They have to do it that way since the car seats can only strap into certain seats.
Like others have mentioned on here, you’ll just want to load up on snacks, snacks and more snacks. We brought a bunch of DYI activities for her to play with and then gave her a phone to watch her favorite Disney movies. One thing about Zipair, they don’t have screens, so you’ll just need to be prepared for that. She essentially commandeered my phone for half the flight. The flight really wasn’t too bad though. Our daughter is pretty active, she had a couple minor meltdowns because she was tired and couldn’t get comfortable in the car seat (fell asleep on me) and not wanting to be changed in the bathrooms, but other than that it went pretty well. We prepared for the worst and it worked out to be fine.
Stroller As many have advised you’ll want something light and that can fold up easily. So we opted for the Cybex Libelle 2 for this trip. We decided we were going to take turns carrying the baby in the carrier (Ergobaby) and use the stroller for our daughter. Could not have been a better decision for us. There were so many moments I thought to myself I’m so glad we didn’t bring the double stroller. Getting on and off crowded trains, navigating tiny streets and mass crowds, carrying it up and down stairs when we couldn’t find an elevator, folding it up and putting it under a table at a restaurant. Also, we noticed SO MANY other people were also using the same stroller. Felt immediately justified in our decision. Carrying our LO wasn’t really that bad, he weighed like 13lbs at the time. We took turns a lot, my wife would take him out to nurse or we’d take him out on the train during a long ride while he was awake. For the record, you can definitely do Japan with a double stroller. We saw many people doing that. It would just require a bit more work and probably be difficult in a number of situations.
Restaurants / Food Eating out with a toddler is quite an experience anywhere let alone Japan, and honestly not a super enjoyable one. We love food, and especially Japanese. One of the main reasons we booked the trip in the first place However, our toddler made each meal feel like a chore. I need to preface this by saying that we’ve never given our child a phone while at a restaurant to watch something, and we absolutely don’t judge those who do, it’s just not something we want to do. However, we honestly felt like we had no choice at times but to feed her quickly and then once she was done give her the phone so we could enjoy our meal. She’s just too curious and wants to touch everything, especially when trying to enjoy ramen at a counter only restaurant. Also, she got in the habit of drinking 80% of her water and then dumping the remaining 20% all over the table. Like pretty much every time we sat down to eat. So that was fun!
A few pieces of advice we wish we really considered and thought of regarding restaurants and food:
- Make sure your kid is hungry. Too many times she’d been snacking and by the time we sat down she was just not hungry and wanting to play or explore.
- Let your kid walk around before sitting down to eat. We kept her in the stroller for long periods of time before getting to a restaurant. Now that she was out of the stroller the last thing she wanted was to sit more.
- Always have a toy or an activity, anything to distract. And if you have to hand over a device to keep your sanity then so be it. Our only rule was she had to eat before we gave her the phone. Once she was all done, she was able to watch her shows.
- Always have snacks on you when traveling around. The convenience stores are usually readily available, but better to be safe than sorry. Also we saw a number of locals let their kids eat on the metros. Adults don’t, but if your kid needs a snack no one is going to give you a dirty look. Just remember to take your garbage with you.
- Have a plan for breakfast. Far too often were we grabbing stuff to go at 7Eleven or FamilyMart and eating outside before starting the day. Go to a grocery store and load up on some things for breakfast to enjoy in the room. Will save you a lot of time, money and be less of a headache.
Hotels If staying at a hotel, be prepared to co-sleep. We learned that a lot of Japanese parents co-sleep with their young ones. You can definitely find hotels with a crib, but there aren’t many. We personally never had an issue and have done it from time to time back home, so wasn’t a problem for us. Just something to be aware of. Also, highly recommend staying at a place with an onsen. Our hotel in Kyoto had one and it was amazing. My wife and I took turns each night after the kids fell asleep. Honestly was one of the best parts of the trip. Very relaxing after a long day of walking around and corralling the kids.
Nursing Before our trip I’d had stumbled upon a recommendation to download this app called Mamapapamap Nursing Room App, which shows you nursing and changing room locations nearby. It’s totally free and run by volunteers. We used it everyday and really came in handy when we were in places that we weren’t too familiar with. Many department stores also have a place specifically for nursing or bottle feeding your babies. It was really nice knowing that no matter where we went there would be a place for my wife to go and nurse in privacy. At the same time, we spoke to a couple locals about nursing in public. They had told us that it is perfectly fine to do so and that they themselves have done it when they had babies. So every so often my wife did nurse our son on a park bench or restaurant, etc. however she did always cover herself with a light wrap to be polite.
Transportation Getting around Japan was fairly easy, even with two kids in tow. Having a small stroller definitely helped as I mentioned. We mainly stayed on the transit system, never rode a bus (wasn’t against it, just never needed to) and only took taxis a handful of times. Fun fact, it’s completely legal to have young kids sit on your lap while in a taxi. No need for a car seat, which is why we opted against taking them. However, supposedly a private car service to/from the airport isn’t considered a taxi, so that wouldn’t be allowed. But not 100% on that, so curious if anyone has any experience there. For all transit we both used a Suica card through the wallet app on our phone. Super easy to use. Only thing I’ll point out is you’re better off going to the counter when traveling on the Shinkansen or if using the Keisei Skyliner to/from Narita airport. It’ll save you the hassle of trying to figure things out on the kiosk yourself and if traveling with young ones that’s the last thing you need. Also, regarding the Shinkansen, I’d personally recommend to book ahead of time when traveling with kids. We took the advice that you can just show up and get tickets, which you definitely can do and we did. However, because of that we were unable to reserve seats that included the large luggage space since everything was booked up. I know some will mention luggage forwarding as an option, however we managed to get all of us packed into one large suitcase, plus our two backpacks, so we decided to save money and just roll with it. Other than that getting around Japan was a breeze. Google Maps was our best friend and made things super easy. We switched on the Accessibility setting on the app, as others have mentioned, to locate elevators as well. Although we did find ourselves wandering around a few times in search of them, but more often than not it was a non-issue.
Activities / Attractions Last thing, I wanted to point out a few places we visited that our daughter loved.
- TeamLabs Borderless Tokyo was a huge hit. She loved all of the different rooms and enjoyed following some of the art through the halls.
- Osaka World Expo was pretty awesome. We only got to go inside a few...
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