Bea’s first Santa Cruz trip at four weeks old!
Have baby, will (someday) travel. While big time travels are out the window these days, short weekend road trips and overnights at the grandparents are plenty ready! We ended up spending about half of our parental leave down in Carmel to find some peace and quiet (read: saving our neighbors from baby cries while we were figuring out this whole parenting thing). We definitely packed the car to the brim on those first couple of trips, looking back, it was quite comical. Now that we have a few road trips under our belt and time spent away with grandparents, we feel a little less frantic. Here are a few of our go-tos to make baby travel just a smidge easier.
Click the number below for direct links (full transparency, a few affiliate links are included but all opinions are 100% my own and everything was purchased myself at no discount). Truly sharing what works for us in the hopes of helping you too because parenting and making a million decisions is hard enough on its own!
SLEEP | FEEDING + PUMPING | TRAVEL | PLAY | CLOTHING / MISCELLANY
ONE
Prepping for baby to arrive can be super overwhelming. We chose a couple of items on our splurge list and having one travel system that included a stroller base, rumble seat, bassinet, and carseat all in one ($$$). While a little on the spendy size, having one system has been fantastic and so easy to use because all the pieces are interchangeable with a simple click and release mechanism. The stroller itself is amazing, glides really well offering a comfortable ride for our little one. We also used the bassinet from day one while we had Bea sleeping in our room until she outgrew it (how is that possible already?!), we continue to use the car seat that has a base that sits in car (pro tip: we got a second base for both of our cars so we wouldn’t have to switch out). Everything is super easy to use, there’s no work that goes into it, and there are tons of YouTube videos to show you the tips and tricks.
TWO
Our girl has always been a big fan of white noise even to this day so we knew if we wanted to go anywhere else outside of the house that we needed something easily portable which makes this tiny yet mighty sound machine the perfect option. We ended up buying two, one to keep in the diaper bag for emergencies and another for car seat on longer drives. One charge will give you eight hours worth of noise machine so you can get through whole night.
THREE
This was another item that necessarily wasn’t at the top of our list but the time spent away from home with grandparents (and packing our pack n’ play one time) made it clear that we needed something easier and lighter to cart around! We opted for this travel crib, it’s super duper easy to set up and take down, it’s light, and it even has its own travel case, so when and if travel by airplane becomes an option again I have no doubt this will be our go to when we are on our way. Bonus, we found these adorable sheets that fit the mattress perfectly and make for cute photo backdrops. ANNNND if your little one is used to sleeping in the dark, consider one of these handy dandy helpers. Trust me on this one!
Needless to say, traveling with a baby is just a litttttttle different. Remember to go with the flow, there is always a store nearby in case of emergencies, and so long as you have the basics covered: car, mobility, sleep you should be good to go!
With deep love,
Paige