Traveling with a Little One

When we decided to move to the west side, I did not plan to do a lot of traveling. However, this spring Olivia and I (and sometimes dad) find ourselves quite a bit! We have been to San Diego and Spokane so far. We still have two more trips to Spokane and a TWO WEEK trip to Arizona coming up! Then it is nothing but graduations and weddings for the rest of the summer. Phew! Planning, planning, and more planning. Here are some observations/lessons learned:

San Diego: Since Olivia has traveled with me on a plane before I thought that she was going to do okay when we traveled to San Diego. For the most part, she did do well; better than we thought.

1. Know your little one's schedule. Since it was going to be the longest flight she had ever been on, we wanted to make sure we were prepared. We skipped her nap in hopes that she would fall asleep on the plane. And she did! However, that night it took me two and a half hours to get her down at 10:30ish. Brutal. I think we could have given her a nap before we left and tried to entertain her on the plane. Mike downloaded some movies so that should she happen to be awake, she could just sit and watch. It worked pretty well.

You gotta do what you gotta do... watching a movie while in the security line.

Refusing to go to bed!

Without a pack-n-play or crib, this is what we had to do to get her to sleep.

2. DO NOT OPEN A CAMELBAK WATER BOTTLE ON A PLANE. How embarrassing.... That's right, I opened the water bottle that happened to be full of apple juice and lo and behold, apple juice everywhere. It squirted out so fast and before I knew what was going on it has sprayed the people in front of us, us, and the people behind us. I just remember Mike reaching over and slapping it shut. Yeah, I hit the rest of the flight.

3. Be prepared for a constipated little one. "Babies thrive on routine and schedule". Yes, it is true. When unexpected things happen, they get stressed. Babies won't poop unless they are relaxed. That is why for a while Olivia would poop not long after I put her down for a nap. She was constipated for the whole trip. Thankfully the return was not as bad. She got back on a regular schedule quickly. 

It is easy to throw out your eating habits when you travel and just eat junk (that is pretty much what Mike and I did). The first morning we were there, we went to the store and got some fruit and yogurt for Olivia. One day, we went and got fruit and veggie smoothies for the heat as well as the nutrition.

Yummy!

4. Make time to let you little one be a little one. We went down for a wedding but wanted to make sure that we let Olivia do something that was familiar. So what did we do? We Googled a close park and let her run :) She really enjoyed swinging and the slides. However...

5. Remember the sun screen. Poor Olivia. She does not like it when it is time to put on sun screen. I picked some up at the store before we left and it took me half way through our trip to realize that it was not baby sun screen. She started to have a reaction to it. I wanted to give her skin a rest so we took a shower that day and tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible for the rest of the trip.

Those were probably the big take-aways as far as what to remember when traveling with a little one. Here are a few other pictures from that trip:

She found entertainment in some rocks while daddy got fitted for his tux

More movies when we found out that the flight home was delayed and would not be taking off until 9:20 pm

She slept on the plane and we didn't... can you tell??

Spokane: I was asked to help chaperon a group of students to and from Spokane. My only responsibility was to make sure that the students made it there and back on the bus safely. My first question was whether or not I could bring Olivia and they told me yes! A free ride to hang out with friends and family AND I get to bring my child? I'm in.

Front row, movie, food, and a microphone? What could be better?

1. Really, the big take away is this: WHEN TRAVELING WITH BABY, MOM CAN ONLY HAVE DRINKS IN CLOSED CONTAINERS. Yup, on our way to Spokane we stopped for dinner and I brought what was left of my soda on the bus with me. As I was fumbling with Olivia the driver started to take off and there it went! My cup went flying off of the tray it was on and onto the floor. Then, on the way back from Spokane, it was the same thing, but only with my beloved Dutch Bros blended Carmelizer instead of soda :(

2. Have a towel handy. My friend was going to use paper towels to clean up my mess until I pulled out my big bath towel. Her response, "Aly you would. You are a mom, you would have a big towel with you!" What can I say? I must have just known that I needed it.

3. Do not unbuckle your little one on a moving bus or you will be scolded. Yes, I tried to unbuckle Olivia so she could stretch her legs (we were on a charter bus) and she yelled at me and tried to re-buckle her seat! I was offended and proud all at the same time :)

The struggle to get back in her seat.

Here are some other photos from our trip. We had fun visiting with family and friends who we have not seen for a while. (As I was loading these photos I realized that they are mostly of just her... and a few with me and her. I should probably work on that

Walking to the street and getting upset when mom will not let her go in the street...

Yummy smoothie!

Sausages even on a trip!

The ride home:

While we waited for the last couple students to get picked up, Mike gave Olivia a "driving lesson". It was so cute!

I know that as she gets older there will be more lessons to learn and different lessons as her needs will change. We have to remember to just go with the flow and for the time being, have grace because she cannot communicate very well yet. So if we happen to travel with you, to see you, or if you live closer and we just go to visit, please have grace with us. Olivia will probably be cranky and we will be tired and overwhelmed. We will get better as time goes on :)