Last weekend we decided to take a 5 hour trip north to visit Grandma for Labor Day weekend. Since this is our first kid, I was preparing for the worse. What happens if she needs a diaper change? Food? Attention? Time to stretch? Needless to say, I had our van packed to the gills with various baby contraptions and devices. We decided to leave Friday morning at 5:30 am since I was used to being awake at that time and I was the only person who was going to be driving. We left and I was ready for the worst which I’m gladly reporting, was not needed.
She slept almost the entire way.
Let me clarify this just a bit, when I say “almost”, I mean she slept 4 of the 5 hours there and 4 1/2 hours on the way back. It was awesome! Unfortunately, it didn’t give me much to report on now that we’re back. What I did find interesting were the items that were packed for this trip.
Since we were going to visit Grandma, who hasn’t had a baby in her house for a good 13+ years, we had to bring everything from changing pads and bouncy chairs. To my surprise, we actually used all of the items we brought. Here is what we packed for our 6 week old daughter on our 5 hour trip:
- Bouncy chair
- Auto-rocking swing chair
- Instant baby food formula (and a water bottle for food on the go)
- 4 bottles
- Breast pump
- Mountain of diapers (and said changing equipment)
- A couple of onsies
- A couple of socks
- Spit rags
Looking back now, there wasn’t really anything we didn’t need. It was all used, and came in handy. I guess my favorite part of this trip was recalling how we used to travel pre-baby.
2 bags with clothes, a jacket and an extra pair of shoes. Oh, life was so simple back then.
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It was pretty uneventful on the way up to Portland. We needed to stop only once and that was mostly for our benefit. It gave us time to stretch our legs and feed the little one. On the way back, however, that was more challenging. She woke up during the last leg of the journey. Only about 30mins til we were back in town. So when the crying started, I jumped to the back seat of the van via crazy ninja skills. Somewhat of a challenge given I-5’s windy mountain roads. I’m definitely glad we had the van at that moment as I can’t imagine trying to climb to the back seat in my little 4-door Suzuki. Not to say that the van was easy to hop around in. My backside can attest to that as it had an up close and personal encounter with the front passenger door handle on the way back up. Ouch!
And for those safety fanatics out there, yeah yeah I know I shouldn’t of done that in mid transit but a hungry baby is not someone you ignore. Especially in confined quarters.
So now that we have a longish road trip under our belt I’m curious on how we’ll handle a plane ride. Clearly the amount of gear we had in the van won’t cut it on a plane. I’ve been checking into portable crib devices and that honestly may be the way we go. Further research needed. I’m just going to be super sad about not being able to bring the swing. We don’t call it the “Magic Chair” for nothing.
Ah the joys of figuring out travel logistics.
Very nice site!
Dustin Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Thank you!