Your Local Risks · With Young Children
A child under five cannot walk to the meeting point. Cannot remember the out-of-area contact. Small children do not change why you prepare. They change what, and how.
Get the family checklistThe baseline
The universal pillars still apply. Water, food, light, communication, documents, medicine. What changes is the calculation behind each one, and the addition of several categories that simply do not exist in a household without young children.
Infants and toddlers require adult transport in any evacuation. Your plan must account for how many adults are present, how many children need carrying, and whether car seats are installed in the vehicle you will actually use.
Formula, diapers, wet wipes, baby food, and infant medications are non-negotiable items a standard 72-hour kit does not include. These also have shelf lives and sizing windows. A kit calibrated to a newborn is wrong six months later.
Children under eight cannot reliably recall an out-of-area contact number or locate a secondary meeting point on their own. Your plan must assume a young child could be separated with no memory of any part of the plan.
Young children regulate stress through routine. Disruption produces distress that compounds an already difficult situation. Comfort items and familiar objects are genuine preparedness supplies, not extras.
Schools and daycares follow their own emergency release protocols. Knowing your school's plan and filing authorized pickup adults in writing before an event happens is a separate task from your home plan.
Infant acetaminophen, prescription medications, and a printed copy of vaccination records are items adults often overlook when building a kit. Pediatric dosing is weight-based and changes frequently. Your medical buffer needs a child-specific section.
The supplies
Build the standard 72-hour kit first. Then layer these additions on top. The categories below cover only what is specific to young children. Water, light, and documents still apply in their standard form.
Feeding
Hygiene
Medical
Comfort and mobility
Rotation note
Diaper sizing, formula type, and pediatric medication dosing all change as children grow. Review and update the child-specific portion of your kit every 6 months, or whenever your child moves to a new size or developmental stage. The rest of the household kit runs on an annual cycle. These do not.
The plan
The standard one-page household plan covers adults reasonably well. It falls short for families with young children in four specific areas. Work through each one before you need it.
01
Standard guidance establishes a meeting point near home and a second one farther away. If your children are at school or daycare when an event happens, neither point is useful until you retrieve them first. Add a "retrieve children" step as the first action, before any meeting point applies.
The meeting point becomes where the family reunites after pickup. Young children do not navigate to it independently.
02
Schools and daycares release children only to adults on their authorized pickup list. That list must be current, filed with the school, and include at least two adults likely to be reachable when the primary caregiver is not. Grandparents, neighbors, and close friends qualify. A name not on the list will not be permitted to pick up your child during a school lockdown.
Review the list and your mobile number on file at the start of each school year. Confirm your school's emergency release protocol at the same time.
03
A child who cannot say their own name or address needs external identification before an event, not during one. Write your mobile number on their forearm in permanent marker before any event you expect to be disruptive. For planned evacuations, an ID bracelet or a card pinned to their clothing works.
Keep a current photograph of each child on your phone and printed inside your document bag. Evacuation scenarios can involve crowd separation.
04
Young children absorb adult anxiety directly. How you discuss preparedness matters as much as what you prepare. For children under six, frame drills as practice with familiar language. "We're going to practice what to do if the lights go out" is useful. Describing disaster scenarios is not.
Children between six and ten can learn one phone number by heart, understand the concept of a meeting point, and remember a single rule: find a trusted adult in a uniform. Keep it that specific. That is enough.
During the event
The sequence below assumes a sudden-onset event: a power outage, severe weather warning, or shelter-in-place order. For events with advance notice, begin at Step 1 as early as 24 to 48 hours out.
01
Place infants in a secure location before attending to anything else. A crib, a worn carrier, or held by a second adult. An unattended infant during a chaotic first few minutes creates a compounding problem. This is not flexible sequencing.
02
With young children, the calculus tilts toward shelter-in-place when the event permits it. Evacuating with infants is slower, physically demanding, and logistically complicated. Only evacuate if directed or if staying is clearly the greater risk.
03
Move to an interior room, low to the ground if the threat is wind or tornado. Car seats can be used indoors during tornado warnings for additional protection. Maintain the child's feeding and sleep schedule as closely as possible. Routine is a stabilizing force in this context.
04
Load children and car seats before supplies. Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle. If evacuating on foot, assign one adult per child and use a carrier for infants. Bring the comfort item. It is not optional in this situation.
05
Public emergency shelters accept families with young children and typically designate family areas. Inform shelter staff of medical needs immediately on arrival. Keep children physically close. Shelter environments are crowded, loud, and unfamiliar.
06
Children read adult emotional states accurately. Steady, matter-of-fact narration is more useful than silence or visible anxiety. "We're moving to the safe room because of the storm. It's okay to feel nervous." Acknowledge their feelings without amplifying them.
Recovery
Recovery with young children is front-loaded with physical demands that do not pause. Feeding schedules continue regardless of whether power is out. Build your recovery plan around this constraint, not around when it is convenient to deal with it.
The sooner you restore something resembling normal routine, the faster children stabilize. This is not sentiment. It has direct effects on how manageable the recovery period is for the adults in the household.
If tap water safety is uncertain after an event, use bottled water or water that has been brought to a full boil and cooled before mixing formula. Do not use untreated water from the tap. Boiling adds preparation time. Factor this into feeding timing so it is not a surprise.
After a significant event, confirm your pediatrician's operational status before a non-urgent need arises. Clinics are often closed or relocated. Know in advance which urgent care or hospital emergency department you will use. This decision should not be made under pressure.
Young children often regress to earlier behaviors after a stressful event: thumb-sucking, night waking, clinginess, toileting accidents. This is a normal response to disruption and resolves as routine returns. It is not cause for alarm and responds well to patient, consistent care.
Managing young children during and after a disruptive event is exhausting in a way that adults without children may underestimate. Build rest explicitly into your recovery plan. If extended family or trusted neighbors can provide caregiver relief, arrange this in advance, not in the middle of recovery.
Local resources
These are the sources this guide is based on. Bookmark your state emergency management agency's site separately. It contains region-specific shelter locations and alert systems that no national source can provide.
Family preparedness guidance with age-appropriate materials and the official Family Emergency Plan template.
ready.gov/kids →
Red Cross planning templates and household-specific guidance, including scenarios with children and special medical needs.
redcross.org →
Guidance on protecting children's physical and mental health before, during, and after emergencies. Includes pediatric medical continuity considerations.
cdc.gov →
Pediatrician-authored preparedness guidance covering infants through adolescents. Particularly useful for household medical planning with young children.
healthychildren.org →
Every state has an emergency management agency with region-specific shelter lists, alert systems, and evacuation routes. Find your state's agency at ready.gov.
ready.gov/local-officials →
Community Emergency Response Team training programs, available in most counties. Practical neighborhood-level skills for when professional response is delayed.
community.fema.gov →
New World Survival is an independent resource. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by FEMA, the Red Cross, or the CDC. Our content is based on their publicly available guidance.
Next steps
This guide is specific to young children. The foundation it builds on is the standard 72-hour household plan. If you have not built that yet, start there. Then layer these adjustments on top of it.