How to Take Kids to Costco!

Today, I took my 3 boys to Costco. I was a little nervous about how they would behave, but I have to say I was rather pleased with their behavior and the way my 5 year old helped me.

So, why can’t every trip to Costco with 3 little angels be like this? Here is a list of things that seemed to work well with this trip!

1 – Have a list Prepared of the Items You Need (sorted by where they are located in the store – i.e. meats together, fruits and vegetables together, etc)

2 – Take them when they aren’t hungry or feed them when you get there! We had hot dogs, polish dogs, and pizza as soon as we got there. So they weren’t hungry while waiting for mom to load up the cart with groceries – much easier to manage kids this way!

3 – Take advantage of the cart with 2 seats in it. Put the 2 younger children in the cart and don’t let them out until you get to the car! Bring snacks for them if they are hungry and ate at home last.

4 – Have them help locate the groceries and load them in the cart. My 5 year old had a blast doing this! He loved helping and wanted to put everything in the cart (I draw the line at the 48 count package of V-8 juice – lol).

5 – Let them try the samples offered in the store. Since they had already eaten, we actually skipped some of the samples and they didn’t mind a bit.

6 – Choose a couple of kid-friendly foods for them to add to the cart. These were already on my list, but we purchased goldfish, cheez-its, and cookie dough at Costco. They were very excited!

7 – Let them help unload the cart at checkout. My son was so excited to be a big help today! I think I could do this again – lol 🙂

8 – Only go to 1 store! This is a very important tip! Too many stores does not set well with little children. Go to 1 store (2 at the maximum) and try to go without stopping to talk to everyone you know.

Have fun shopping!