How To Vacation With A Baby
Have you ever wondered how to vacation with a baby? If yes, this blog is for you. By the end of reading your question will be answer. Everyone needs a vacation, and sometimes that includes the whole family. While you may be able to take a week off, your baby can’t. Here are some tips on how you can vacation with a baby who is too young for daycare or babysitters.
Vacations are a great way to revive and re-energize yourself. Letting the stresses of life float away while relaxing on the beach or exploring a new city. But there is one big challenge — how do you vacation with a baby? Not to worry though, I’m here to support your endeavor. You’ve probably seen those Facebook ads or Instagram posts with the mom traveling alone with a baby. It can look pretty idyllic, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. I’ve learned a lot about traveling with a baby over the past four years and would like to share with you some of what I’ve learned. These tips are based on my experience traveling as a family of three (the kids are now five and six).
Are you a new parent that would like to plan a vacation? As you know, this is not an easy task. There are a few important things to consider that will make it easier for you. First and foremost, where are you going? When are you traveling? How are you getting there? Just how long of a trip is it going to be? Let’s go over some of the basics so that your vacation doesn’t turn into a disaster. Okay, let’s get started:
Fear. Apprehension. Uncertainty. These were some of the feelings surging through me on my first post-vaccination trip. Not because I hadn’t taken a true vacation in nearly a year, but because it was my first time traveling since giving birth to my son. I knew from the get-go that having a baby would change everything I knew and loved about traveling—spontaneous flights, packing lightly, days that could change on a whim.
In the haze of new motherhood, I thought of our first trip as a family of three as a bandage to be ripped off. So I came up with some parameters: We wanted a family-friendly destination within a short drive of New York City, where we live. We also wanted to stay at a full-service resort where we would be taken care of—not just a comfortable bed, great food, and some pampering, but also a place where the staff would be well-attuned to the needs of families and babies. We settled on the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Connecticut, a storied 100-year-young resort that had recently been taken over by Auberge Resorts.
How To Vacation With A Baby
I learned a lot on this first trip. Not just about the flexibility required when traveling with a baby, but also the necessity of leaving your comfort zone in order to expand it—especially in order to introduce my child to the things I love most. And the things that I was worried most about, from potentially outlandish requests to those that might be completely welcoming of tiny crying humans, washed away as soon as we were actually interacting with others. Here are a few other tips I picked up along the way.
Overpacking can provide a sense of relief
In our child-free days, my husband and I prided ourselves on being able to fit two weeks worth of clothing into a carry-on. No more: For a three-day trip, we still had my trusty carry-on, but also a stroller, car seat, backpack, tote bag, diaper bag, breastfeeding pillow, pump, and cooler bag. (And there were still things that during the trip I realized I should have brought with me.) The hotel staff didn’t blink an eye when we showed up looking like we were moving in, and the bags were brought up to our room before we had even finished checking in. This was one of the things I was most worried about, but starting with a road trip made all the difference because we didn’t have to deal with any baggage limitations. By the time we took our first flight, we were much more aware of what we truly needed—and what we could do without.
Let the experts do what they’re best at
I’d forgotten how much I missed the little details of staying at a hotel: smiling faces at the check-in desk, a freshly made king-sized bed, turndown chocolates. As soon as we stepped through the front doors of the Mayflower, the tension slid out of my muscles with the first sip of the welcome drink. The front desk team wasn’t fazed by a single one of our requests; ones I admittedly would have found somewhat outlandish pre-parenthood—from asking for the password to the protected Wi-Fi network for our baby monitor to shifting our dinner reservation back by two hours so we wouldn’t have to wake a napping baby. And the service was absolutely impeccable, from the tiny details like a set of baby bath products left in our room to a guest services team that let us know that the indoor spa pool had child-friendly hours in case it was an overcast day. These were small things, but it made a world of difference to know we had a team looking after us. And it was a good reminder that people—especially anyone who has every dealt with a baby before—are more likely to be understanding and friendly than not.
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It’s okay to break away from routine once in a while
There’s never a great time to test out if your baby can sleep in an unfamiliar space. In the days leading up to our trip, I attempted to mentally prepare myself for the fact that we might be thrown off our schedule, or that we might have a few sleepless nights in exchange for venturing outside of the four walls we had stayed within for many, many months. There’s no point in telling a new parent not to worry, but we were surprised at how smoothly things went. The Mayflower had provided a Pack ‘n’ Play in our room, for example, and our son slept like a champion in it.
On the drive itself, our son got used to the car seat eventually, managing to take a nap in it as we wound our way into Connecticut. As for us? We got used to changing a diaper in the back seat of a car—something we’ve done many, many more times since then.
Traveling is a chance to try something new
The hospitality at the Mayflower gave us permission to relax. I made time for a massage at the new spa, which was incredibly blissful, in part because I knew that there were plenty of ways for my husband to keep the baby entertained. Being in great hands also gave us the confidence to try new things. We took our baby for his first dip in the pool, surrounded by comfortable loungers, a kid-friendly shallow end, and nearby bathrooms for diaper emergencies. I was nervous that other guests wouldn’t want to share the pool with a baby, but there were plenty of families with little ones there—and everyone was happy to see our son get his sea legs.
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Whether we were at the pool or at the restaurant, it was an unexpected joy to be surrounded by others—big families spending time together, couples with their pups. There were so many other young parents with babies that we relaxed throughout dinner in a way I haven’t been able to at home, even when our son cried out or needed attention. Seeing other families showed us a road map for the future: that after the first trip, there would be a second, and a third, and eventually, traveling with a little human might start to feel somewhat normal.
As dinner turned into dessert—s’mores by the bonfire can be a messy, smoky, daunting event even without a sleeping baby—I exhaled deeply and attempted to pinpoint this unfamiliar feeling. It was one of relaxation, yes, but it was also a sense of comfort. Things would be okay, our son would grow used to unfamiliar situations and learn to love traveling the way we do.
It was also the feeling of slowly gaining back a sense of my identity, one that had been tossed aside amid the anxiety of the pandemic and impending parenthood. That of a carefree traveler, one who moves without the fear, apprehension, and uncertainty that have been so prevalent for 18 months. This reminder of who we once were, and who we might be once again, is hard to come by in the best of circumstances, but requires the type of reset that only travel can provide. Our first trip as a family of three was always going to be a memorable one. But the Mayflower did more than give us unforgettable memories—it reminded us of our love of travel, and that plenty more adventures await as the world opens up and we introduce our son to all it has to offer. And if that means traveling with twice as much luggage, well, there will always be friendly faces who are happy to help.
