We took our first car trip to see the grandparents when baby was just shy of 8 weeks. Under normal circumstances, the drive takes about 3 hours, depending on whether we stop. We decided to take the 'usual' route as we are very aware of all the 'good' places to stop (i.e., clean bathrooms!). Traveling with a baby, however, introduced a new kink to the plan. Would the normally reliable clean bathroom stops also have changing tables? And while we're at it, how does one change a baby's diaper on one of those fold-out changing tables?
The question seems silly now in retrospect; we've changed diapers all over the world and in so many different conditions that our initial worry about how/where to change diapers on a fairly straightforward car trip seems almost nonsensical. It's just as the time we were first time parents with this teeny tiny baby and the logistics of moving from point A to point B were daunting. How do you feed a baby in a moving car if you're breast feeding? Do you stop? Do you take baby out of carseat and keep driving? Do you give a bottle even though most breastfeeding advice at that age say no, no, no?
Packing for this three hour trip took us two days. TWO DAYS. I admit to over-packing on baby's clothes (seriously, at this age the clothes are SO cute and you just want to take EVERYTHING), but everything else seems (even today) to have been reasonable for that age. Among other things, we took my Medela Pump in Style, a sound machine, and the Graco SnugRider Elite. Now these things might not seem like big items, but little things like this quickly add up and we were trying to fit all of it into the back seat of a Prius. Back before baby, the Prius seemed like an enormous upgrade from my Corolla, but we were starting to realize very quickly that babies travel with a lot of stuff and there was a reason why people upsized their vehicles big time once the kids came along.
Our trip went smoothly, almost too smoothly. We left around naptime and ignored the breastfeeding advice and gave the baby a bottle in the car and she felt promptly asleep and then proceeded to sleep all the way to the grandparents' place. The issue of diaper changes on the road was pushed to a future road trip as seriously, who wants to wake a sleeping baby? If only future trips turned out to be as easy and peaceful as this one was.
The good news is that a year after we made that trip, we've got our packing down from two days to two hours. Travel enough and you develop a rhythm or as the tired adage goes, practice makes perfect. You figure out what you really need and what you can do without and what you can improvise on the road; honestly, the lighter you can travel, the easier and better it is. The good news is babies do need less stuff to travel with as they get older; it's just that the stuff they need gets bigger (making the Prius seem even smaller!). Also, as my husband is fond of pointing out, most places we go to have stores and we can always buy the thing we forgot. Because of these factors, we've managed to whittle down on the amount of stuff we need to take. I'll talk about some of our makeshift solutions in another post, but there's one problem we haven't solved: I still overpack when it comes to baby's wardrobe.
The question seems silly now in retrospect; we've changed diapers all over the world and in so many different conditions that our initial worry about how/where to change diapers on a fairly straightforward car trip seems almost nonsensical. It's just as the time we were first time parents with this teeny tiny baby and the logistics of moving from point A to point B were daunting. How do you feed a baby in a moving car if you're breast feeding? Do you stop? Do you take baby out of carseat and keep driving? Do you give a bottle even though most breastfeeding advice at that age say no, no, no?
Packing for this three hour trip took us two days. TWO DAYS. I admit to over-packing on baby's clothes (seriously, at this age the clothes are SO cute and you just want to take EVERYTHING), but everything else seems (even today) to have been reasonable for that age. Among other things, we took my Medela Pump in Style, a sound machine, and the Graco SnugRider Elite. Now these things might not seem like big items, but little things like this quickly add up and we were trying to fit all of it into the back seat of a Prius. Back before baby, the Prius seemed like an enormous upgrade from my Corolla, but we were starting to realize very quickly that babies travel with a lot of stuff and there was a reason why people upsized their vehicles big time once the kids came along.
Our trip went smoothly, almost too smoothly. We left around naptime and ignored the breastfeeding advice and gave the baby a bottle in the car and she felt promptly asleep and then proceeded to sleep all the way to the grandparents' place. The issue of diaper changes on the road was pushed to a future road trip as seriously, who wants to wake a sleeping baby? If only future trips turned out to be as easy and peaceful as this one was.
The good news is that a year after we made that trip, we've got our packing down from two days to two hours. Travel enough and you develop a rhythm or as the tired adage goes, practice makes perfect. You figure out what you really need and what you can do without and what you can improvise on the road; honestly, the lighter you can travel, the easier and better it is. The good news is babies do need less stuff to travel with as they get older; it's just that the stuff they need gets bigger (making the Prius seem even smaller!). Also, as my husband is fond of pointing out, most places we go to have stores and we can always buy the thing we forgot. Because of these factors, we've managed to whittle down on the amount of stuff we need to take. I'll talk about some of our makeshift solutions in another post, but there's one problem we haven't solved: I still overpack when it comes to baby's wardrobe.
No comments:
Post a Comment