Travelling Tot

We've been on many a trip with the babe now, and I want to remember what ages are best for travel.

5 weeks - weekend trip to a friend's house - I packed my entire CRV full for just John and myself for 2  nights.  But we survived! 3.5 hours away, I drove while he slept.

9 weeks - 1 week trip to my parent's house in Sacramento. We drove the 6.5 hours, stopping twice to feed him along the way. At that point, he was taking an hour to nurse, so I pumped while my mom gave him a bottle.  I warmed the previous bottle in the car before each stop with my Medela microwave steamer bags and a carafe of hot water.  He mostly slept the entire drive. We repeated the same steps on the way back.  I packed less this time, and seemed to survive.  I had his travel sleeper and the pack and play so he could lay in it away from the dogs. He hated the pack and play that trip.

10 weeks - 3 day road trip with mostly driving each day.  I scaled back John's things to a diaper bag, one shoulder bag, and his sleeping case. (here but it used to be a fraction of that price!)  He slept most of the drives, but the difference this time was each time he nursed, we tried to look at interesting things for a bit afterwards - i.e. stopped at a restaurant, another time at Hearst Castle, etc.  By this trip my MIL had recommended to only let him nurse 5-10 minutes per side so that became faster and less messy than dealing with a pump and a bottle.

3 Months - airplane trip. This was a fantastic time for this sort of trip. He was young enough to sleep on us whenever he needed a nap.  He was young enough that a handful of toys were interesting for the entire trip.  He would sit on our lap at the table, etc, but not grab at anything.  Yet he still had at least a solid hour or more of awake time per cycle to enjoy with all the folks we were visiting.

4 Months - Christmas and a week plus driving trip up North. I don't remember much about this trip, except stopping somewhere strange to nurse in the parking lot and then taking John into Walmart for some stimulation. And finishing my stocking stuffer shopping while we were in there.  We broke up the driving into a lot of segments with visits in between so it wasn't too bad.  I was really sick in December so I don't remember much from this trip because I was always sleeping.  We had to fit presents in the car so we really scaled back on what we "needed" to bring.

6 months - another week up North, driving.  This time I drove up myself - the first 4.5 hour leg after John went to bed one night, and the second 1.5 hour leg the next day. This worked fine but a late night 4.5 hour drive with no pit stops is NOT easy. Dark chocolate!  On this trip, John slept wonderfully in the pack and play and actually began to take naps on his own.

8 months - another week North, this one the torture one. John screamed most of every leg of the drive both ways, no matter how I timed it.  Like at 6 months, he slept in the pack and play except could never sleep in the mornings. Wakeups at all ungodly hours of the morning.  I don't know why he wouldn't go back to sleep.  We brought a lot of toys this time and he was very mobile.

Summary:  Trips under the 4 month mark are my favorite so far, with 3 months being the best!  I never want to road trip during the 7-10  month stage again. But we have some more trips coming up, so it could get worse before it gets better!!!

So there...when to travel with your baby, the not-so-condensed version.