Trick or Treating With Toddlers, What Actually Helps

Trick or treating with a toddler is not really trick or treating. It is a forty minute walk in the cold with a very small person who is thrilled for six houses and then wants to be carried. I say that with total affection. Once I stopped expecting it to look like the version in my head, it became one of my favorite nights of the year.

If you are in Kansas City like me, you already know the real variable is the weather. Halloween here is almost always in the thirties or low forties by the time the sun goes down, and roughly every third year it is drizzling. That one fact should drive most of your planning, and it took me two miserable Halloweens to accept it.

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Buy The Costume One Size Up, For The Coat

This is the single most useful thing I can tell you. Buy the costume a size up so a real winter coat fits underneath it. Not a fleece, an actual coat.

The alternative is the fight you have on the porch at six fifteen where your toddler will not wear a coat because it covers the costume, and then you are the parent negotiating with a shivering dinosaur in the front yard. Been there. The size up costume ends that argument before it starts, and nobody can tell.

The other version that works is picking a costume that is inherently warm. Anything with a full body fleece or a hood. My kid was a bear one year and it was the warmest, easiest Halloween we have ever had.

Layers Under Everything

A toddler fleece base layer under the costume does more than any outer layer, because it goes on before the costume and therefore before the opinions start. Thermal top, thermal bottoms, thick socks, and then the costume over all of it.

Do not skip the hat and gloves just because they ruin the look. A cold toddler is a done toddler, and the night ends the second their hands get cold. If the hat clashes, let it clash. Nobody at the door is grading you.

Go Out Early, Like Genuinely Early

Most neighborhoods here get going around six and peak around seven. Go at five thirty. It is still light, which is less scary for little ones, it is warmer, the crowds are thin, and the people answering the door are still enthusiastic and fully stocked.

By seven fifteen the older kids are out in packs, the yard displays with the motion sensors are going off constantly, and a two year old who was having a great time is now sobbing about a fog machine. Early is better in every single measurable way.

Set The Route Before You Leave

Pick a loop. Not a plan to keep going until they are done, because they will not tell you they are done, they will simply lie down. A loop of maybe eight to twelve houses that ends back at your own front door is about right for a two or three year old.

Doing a loop rather than an out and back matters more than it sounds, because there is no long walk home at the end when everyone is finished. You are just always heading back toward the house.

Bring The Wagon

They will want to be carried. You will be carrying a toddler, a candy bucket, your phone, and a discarded costume accessory, in the dark, on uneven sidewalks. A folding wagon is worth every penny on this one night, and the canopy version earns its keep when it drizzles.

Throw a blanket in it. When they stop walking they will sit in the wagon under the blanket and stay out another twenty minutes, which is twenty minutes you would not otherwise get. A stroller works fine too if that is what you have.

Be Visible, Because It Is Genuinely Dark

Halloween costumes are almost all dark colored and the sun is fully down by around six twenty here at the end of October. Drivers are not expecting small people to dart between parked cars.

• Glow sticks are the easiest win. A bracelet on each wrist, one around the bucket handle. Toddlers love them, so this is not a fight.
• A strip of reflective tape on the back of the costume and on the wagon.
• A kids headlamp, which they will think is a toy and which lets them see the porch steps.
• You carry a real flashlight. Your phone light is not enough on a dark sidewalk with a curb you cannot see.

What Actually Goes In My Bag

• Snacks that are not candy. A pouch, crackers, whatever they normally eat. A kid who has eaten dinner handles the whole night better.
• Water. Everyone forgets water because it is cold out, and then somebody is thirsty at house six.
• Hand warmers, two in my pockets. One for me, one to hand over when their fingers get cold.
• Wipes. Obviously.
• A spare pair of socks in a zip bag, because a wet sock ends the night faster than anything.
• The backup coat, in the wagon, for when they change their mind at house four.

Manage Expectations, Mostly Your Own

Your toddler does not care about the candy. Genuinely, they do not. Mine was two and would have been just as happy walking up to one door, saying the words, and going home. The candy is a parent thing and a big kid thing.

What they actually love is the walking around at night part. Being outside in the dark, which never happens. Seeing dogs. Seeing other kids in costumes. Ringing a doorbell, which is normally forbidden. Lean into that and the night gets easier immediately.

Also, they will probably not say trick or treat. They will stand silently and stare at a stranger. This is completely normal and every single person answering that door thinks it is charming. You do not need to coach them through it on the porch.

What I Would Skip

Masks. On a toddler, a mask is uncomfortable, it blocks their peripheral vision on dark steps, and it will be off within ten minutes anyway. Face paint if you want the look, done at home, applied to a kid who is sitting down.

The big inflatable or animatronic yard displays. Just walk past them. There is no reason to test whether your two year old is fine with a screaming skeleton, and if they are not, the night is over and you have three houses left in the loop.

And any costume with shoes that are not their real shoes. Costume shoes are terrible on cold wet sidewalks. Put them in their actual sneakers or boots. Nobody is looking at the feet.

The Short Version

Costume one size up over a real coat, thermal layers under it, out the door at five thirty, a short loop back to your own house, a wagon with a blanket in it, and glow sticks so drivers can see them. Then let the whole thing be short. Forty minutes is a great Halloween at this age.

Ours has ended with hot chocolate on the kitchen floor, still in costume, every year so far. That part is honestly the best part.

So glad you are here. Pam