We recently went on our first family vacation, due to the current times we ended up taking a road trip to BEAUTIFUL Kelowna, BC. I know the thought of a road trip with a baby can be stressful however with some careful planning we were able to relax from the moment we set off on the road. I wanted to share some of our tips with you all in hopes that this will help one family on their first road trip.
I started off by making a list for Greyson (this list was LONG), you never really know how many things a baby needs to be comfortable till you are leaving the comforts of home. Once I had the list I got my husband to look it over, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything I was missing OR anything that we didn’t really need that was just going to take up space.
Like I said our packing list was long, in order to stay organized I packed baby boys items separately than mom and dads as I wanted to have easier access to his items. This was my personal preference, you can 100% use a larger bag and pack the entire family together, I do however still recommend a tote or box for your babies non clothing items. We purchased a brand new rubber tote that we used for all of the NON clothing items such as toys, dishes, bottles, food etc. and used a small carryon bag for his clothing.
TIP: before you pack everything away, lay it all out and go through it one more time, when I did this I realized I had over packed clothes that I KNEW baby would not wear.
The next thing we needed to think about was our sleeping situation, we knew we were going to have Greyson sleeping in our room and we knew he was going to be sleeping in a pack and play. This was a little scary to me, since we sleep trained our son he has had 100% of naps and night sleeps in his OWN room in his OWN crib. I knew we had to get him use to this new environment, for 1 week we had the pack and play set up in our living room. We wanted to encourage play time in it so that Greyson would associate it with fun and not be afraid when he was sleeping in it on our trip. We also made the decision to bring ALL of Greyson night time comfort items, we wanted to make this new environment as ideal as possible. These items included: blackout curtains, sleep sac, white noise machine and his comfort stuffy.
Now on to the car ride, my biggest advice is to not have a time frame of when you want to get to your destination, let things slide, things will not go as planned I promise you this. We wanted to leave for our drive around our sons first nap (we did this to try and stick to his normal routine and not completely throw it out the window), lucky for us he fell asleep shortly after we hit the road . We did not have any expectations for car sleep time as our son was very use to sleeping in his crib, we figured we would adjust his bed time accordingly on night one to ensure he got enough sleep for the day (total nap time was roughly 1.5-2 hours during the car ride when Greyson normally naps for 4 hours a day). For the drive I decided to use a backpack as a “car bag” instead of my normal diaper bag as I found a backpack had more space,more pockets to have different items and it was also a bit more flexible. (I will be sharing my packing list below) I highlu suggest you download your little ones favorite shows on an I-pad, do not use this time to “limit screen time”, whatever will make your baby comfortable is what you should do. I also decided to sit in the back with baby, this way it was a lot easier to comfort him if he got fussy, feed him, as well as entertain him during wake periods.
TIP: Make pit stops every 1.5-2 hours, this is not the trip to see if you can make the best drive time. Instead make pit stops, stretch your legs and enjoys some of the great views.
Another thing we did that made the whole trip easier was we stuck to somewhat of our normal routine , we didn’t want baby to be cranky nor did we want to come home and have to sleep train all over again. Greyson did wake up earlier than he does at home the first 2 mornings roughly around 6:30am for us this was an hour before his normal wake time, we were however able to stick to our wake times for the day 3/3/3.5. This is something I suggest, just because you are on vacation doesn’t mean you should throw everything out the window and have baby up for hour and hours, your baby will get cranky or over tired and this will make night sleep harder for everyone. On the other side you can be flexible on where naps happen, they can be in the car seat on a drive, in the stroller on a walk of chilling in a baby tent at the beach as long they are happening you are good to go.
Okay so now I am going to share with you our packing list for our son.
Car bag:
- 2 x Soothers
- Change of clothes
- 2-3 small toys
- I-pad and Charger
- Diapers
- Wipes
- Diaper cream
- Bottles/ Formula
- Baby food ( if on solids)
- Puffs and Mum Mums
- Comfort item ( we have a small TY cuddle stuffy named Fred)
- Burp cloths
- Bibs
- Light blanket
- Hat
- Baby sun glasses
- 2 books for baby
- Moms wallet
- Moms phone
- Sanitizer
- Facemask
Packing List:
Clothing:
- 2 outfits per day
- 1 x sleeper a day (plus 2 extra)
- Hat
- Socks
- Shoes
- Swim shorts and shirt
Night Time:
- Sleep Sac
- Blackout curtains
- Sound machine
- Over night diapers
- Pack and Play
- 2 sets of bed sheets
- Stuffy (comfort item)
Toys:
- Jolly Jumper ( if baby is not walking, it was a good item to have to entertain baby while we cooked meals)
- 3-4 larger toys ( 2 weeks leading up to our trip we out away 4 of Greyson’s toys, this was when we brought them back out when we were away it was like a brand new toy for him)
- Foam floor mats ( we wanted something for Greyson to play on a I was unsure if the Air B and B had carpet or hard wood)
Food:
- Formula (if not breastfeeding)
- Puffs
- Mum Mums
- Baby food pouches (if on solids, we also feed Greyson whatever we are eating, but we found that the food pouches are so convenient for travel and day trips.)
** You can of course buy these things at the grocery store when we get to your destination however we knew which brands and flavours we likes (and Greyson likes) so we just picked up everything before**
Other Items:
- 4 bottles (enough for the amount of feeds per day)
- Baby cutlery
- 1x bowl, 1x plate
- Highchair
- Regular and swim diapers
- Wipes
- Baby monitor
We have another road trip planned in August and we are very excited, we definitely learned a lot from the first one and will be taking all of that into consideration when we go away . We learned what to do and not do as well as how much we still over packed .
I hope reading this has helped you feel a little more confident and ready for your little ones first road trip. Remember to relax and have fun, things might not go as planned and that is okay <3
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