Lessons From A New Mama

So this last month Jason and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel with Jackson. I say this with a lot of sarcasm! Traveling with a baby is hard. I'm sure that as he grows up and gets more active and mobile it  will present a whole new world of travel challenges, but for now this is what we ran into...

1)  I know that it's hard because you want to make time to see all your family and friends, or you have events that you need to get to, but you have to try to stay on a sleep schedule. Although the times of naps may change a little try to get in your normal number of naps and try to keep them as close to their normal time as possible, otherwise your "vacation" will become a lot of work. We had the lovely task of changing time zones, so we will see what happens to our schedule when we head back to Michigan.

We were lucky both grandparents had cribs for us to use!

2) I don't know about you guys, but I have a hard enough time packing for myself let alone a little one, so my advice on this one...pack everything because you just don't know what you are going to need. I think on this two week journey Jackson had about 15 outfits, a whole box of diapers, all of his swaddles, a boat load of toys and pacifiers. I even brought my own tub to wash my bottles, my bottle brush and even my own dish soap. I know my mother-in-law and mom would have a lot of these things waiting for me back in South Dakota and they don't care if I use their items or not, but I just felt like I needed them.

3) Depending on where you are going will determine what outfits you need to bring, and then pack a few more hehe. We recently went to a wedding on Iowa and I had packed three outfit choices for just that day. I did not know what the weather was going to be like...the Midwest can be so unpredictable so he had one for nearly any weather type day. Also packing a variety of outfits ensures that if you do run into any weather problems you don't have to run out at buy something new!

4) Try to drive during the night or at least nap time. A few of our friends said that they traveled this way and I always thought they were crazy! Now being a parent I see how brilliant it is. Jackson's sleep schedule is something very precious to me and I will do almost anything to not mess it up. So, when we ha a long drive to Missouri or recently to Iowa we drove through the night to avoid any sleep time troubles.

Night time driving!

5) This one is a big one! Have extra diapers!! Jason and I were leaving his graduation and heading back to South Dakota and we were just cruising along when Jackson starts to make the poop face. I look in my diaper bag no diapers..they are in my parents truck. "Recalculating" goes the Garmin so we can find a grocery store and buy diapers so I can change our stinky man. Needless to say we now keep two spare diapers in my glove box just in case we run into another shortage.