Taking The Kids Along : Is It Possible to Keep Everyone Happy on a Family Trip? Surprising Tales of Joy From the Vacation Front. : Toddling Off to Mexico With Baby, Stroller and Diapers

Before we left last November for Mexico with our 18-month-old toddler, it seemed all of our friends warned us against foreign travel with anyone so young--particularly to a country where he might be vulnerable to intestinal disorders.

But we would make the same trip tomorrow, and would recommend it to any family willing to do some planning and take reasonable caution.

It should be said at the start that the fact that Christopher was still nursing--far from being an inconvenience--probably saved us a lot of concern. For supplemental fluids, he drank plenty of canned and bottled fruit juice. He delighted, in fact, in discovering new tropical flavors such as papaya and mango.

Before we left, the pediatrician recommended child’s-strength Imodium, an over-the-counter medicine for stomach problems, but cautioned us that Christopher might not eat very much. “Let him eat corn chips for a week. It’s not going to hurt him,” the doctor said. “If mom and dad have a good time, it’ll be great for him as well.”

We dragged a suitcase full of disposable diapers to our departure. Would it be enough? We soon found out that while bringing diapers is a great idea--they are only available in tourist areas at a high price--we brought way too many. A package of two dozen diapers would be about right for 14 days.

To be sure, there were some uneasy moments.

The first occurred five minutes after we got to our room at the El Cid Resort in Mazatlan, when I walked in on the little guy sipping a glass of water. “Relax,” said my wife, Lenora, pointing to a bottle of agua purificado on the sink. The hotel maid had left a supply of purified water, which she replenished for us every morning. There was also a bin of purified ice outside our room, and the hotel staff pointed out--although we never tested it--that the tap water was perfectly safe to drink.

The water dangers we found were of another variety. Mexico is not child-proof in the self-conscious way of the United States, and we were reminded of that by the unfenced pools of clear blue water that bordered our ground-floor room. Christopher liked to lean over the rail on the balcony, throw his toys into the water and cheer as dad dove for them.

Like I say, it was a different kind of fun.

We often walked through the Zona Dorada, the shopping district near the resort, and stopped at a small cafe for lunch. Christopher had a bowl of corn soup, one of his dietary staples on the trip, served by a smiling waiter as Christopher sat in a high chair at one of the front tables. A beaming cook came out of the kitchen to get a look at this dribbling-off-the-chin endorsement of his cooking.

On the beach at our hotel, we sat in the shade and sipped pina coladas. Christopher played in the sand, napped on a towel and delighted some Mexican girls selling trinkets along the beach. They stroked his head and he smiled and turned away with embarrassment--probably at the layer of sun block we painted on him every day.

The warm Mexican way of life was probably what made everything work so well on this trip. In Mexico, children are never out of place. The Mexican world turns around its children. When Christopher was fussing at a restaurant, it was rare when a waiter would not take time to play with him.

It was the same way when we flew off a few days later for Cocoyoc, a truly Mexican resort in the mountains near Cuernavaca, a couple of hours south of Mexico City.

We put our son down in a secluded place built by Cortez 400 years ago and alive with dazzling flowers and tropical birds enough to set a little mind to wonder. “Big bird,” he said, giggling and pointing at the pink flamingo. We had a private heated pool outside our bedroom, and Christopher doffed his diaper for his first swimming lesson.

Outside the Cocoyoc resort was a tiny village where farmers brought produce to market on the backs of donkeys. Some of the village children trailed behind us and came up to pat our boy’s head. Christopher tugged at one little boy until he could pat him on the head in return. Both kids stood there smiling. It was one of the neat moments of the trip.

The week we came back, a co-worker told me that he and his wife were taking off for a vacation in Los Cabos and leaving their baby with her mother. “We just can’t wait to get away,” he said.

Maybe they were right. But we can’t help but think they were missing part of the adventure and a whole lot of fun. With Christopher along, our vacation had a charm as special as a happy little boy running barefoot along the beach. Here are a few tips on surviving--and thriving--with a toddler in Mexico, or any foreign country:

--Bring irrefutable documentation of the child’s identity and your relationship to him. A notarized copy of a birth certificate is best. If only one parent is traveling with the child, bring a notarized written consent from the missing parent.

--Pack disposable diapers. They are not available everywhere and where they can be found are quite expensive.

--Pack entire outfits--shirts, pants, socks, etc.--in individual sealed plastic bags. When you have lost track of most of your own clothes at the end of the trip, you can still pull out a fresh outfit for the baby each morning.

--Use those same plastic bags to pack little toys that might entertain when favorite toys are missing, especially during long flights.

--Remember to bring baby sunscreen. Your pediatrician can recommend something for the bellyaches of a traveling baby.

--Take along a cheap collapsible stroller. Even when your little one demands to be carried, the stroller is a fine shopping cart.

GUIDEBOOK

Mazatlan and Cocoyoc

Getting there: Aeromexico, Mexicana, Delta and Alaska Airlines serve Mazatlan from LAX. All offer an advance-purchase, round-trip fare of $202. Children under 12 usually fly for half the adult fare, but check with airlines for special or seasonal discounts. Aeromexico and Mexicana fly from Mazatlan to Mexico City for $92.50.

Settling in: With nearly 1,000 rooms and suites in three hotels, El Cid Resort in Mazatlan offers a variety of rates. For example, a ground-level room near one of the many pools is about $70 a night, double occupancy. Rooms along El Cid’s 800 acres of beachfront property are $90, advance reservations recommended. Suites in the new 25-story El Moro Beach Hotel cost $195.

The resort includes 11 restaurants, with the open-air La Concha being perhaps the best for dining with children. Two adults can enjoy a seafood dinner with wine for under $40.

Cocoyoc is a little more than an hour southeast of Mexico City, about 20 miles east of Cuernavaca. The Hotel Hacienda Cocoyoc will send a car to the Mexico City airport to pick you up. Rooms are $65-$116 per night, double occupancy. Four hotel restaurants serve late dinner. Los Mangos is informal enough that children may enjoy tossing bits of bread to the ducks, peacocks or parrots that gather nearby. Dinners for about $20.

For more information: El Cid Resort, Avenida Camaron-Sabalo, Mazatlan, Sinaloa, telephone 011-526-983-3333.

Hotel Hacienda Cocoyoc, Cocoyoc, Morelia, 011-735-61561.