Thursday, June 28, 2007

summer road trips

Now that Summer is in full swing many families are packing up the family car and heading out on a road trip. Last summer we took a three week road/camping trip with our then 10 month old baby. Figuring out how to travel by car with an active baby proved to be a bit of a challenge, but we figured it out. The hardest thing was figuring out what we didn't need to pack. Babies these days come with so many accessories that the department stores and other parents will tell you are must haves, that when it comes time to pack it is hard to figure out what is truly essential. We brought our pack n' play but we probably could have done with out it, because our daughter almost never used it. The pack n' play was only used when we stayed with family or in a motel. When we were camping our daughter refused to go in the pack n play at all. I think this is specific to our child, any child that is used to spending time in a pack n' play would probably do fine.

We didn't bring a stroller and we didn't miss it. The stroller took up too much space and my daughter was used to being carried in an Ergo back pack, which is a fabric baby carrier that will hold up to 60lbs. We carried her on hikes and in shops and she was fine. Through Pike Market in Seattle my daughter slept in our Ergo and she didn't see a thing.

We packed a few toys and books for her and we bought a few on the road, but for the most part she was interested in pine cones, rocks, sticks and tree branches. We did buy some kid music for the road, which was very helpful. We would sing a long to the cd and this would keep our daughter happy for a long time.

The tent was interesting with our daughter, dog and the two of us all sleeping togehter. At home our daughter slept in a crib so in the tent she thought we were having a party and it took a while to get her to settle down enough to sleep. Even after three weeks we were still struggling to get her to go to sleep. She did sleep in the car about the same amount she would sleep at home so her naps were very regular, probably more regular than at home.

With camping we had to give up a lot of our standards for what went in her mouth and how clean she was. She loved eating dirt and rocks when we were camping, I had to remind myself that dirt and rocks wouldn't hurt her. We also didn't get to give her a bath every night. Mostly we would take family showers in the campground and in places where this wasn't possible I would shower with our daughter and my husband would wait for me to finish washing the baby and take our daughter and get her into her pjs while I finished bathing.

In the end we had a great trip. The memories will last forever and I would do it again in a second. We haven't taken another long road trip since last summer but we have taken some trips that took a day and our family has had a great time. I think road tripping with a toddler is harder than an infant. If we were to road trip today we would only be able to drive for about two hours at a time then have a break near a playground for 30 minutes. It would take us forever to get anywhere far.