How to Take a Baby on a Road Trip
- The Involved Dad
- Aug 26, 2018
- 4 min read
Adventure: Rose’s First Trip
The Mrs. and I LOVE to travel. And since trimester 3 started, we really haven't been able to travel at all. I mean, just a few months ago we were celebrating being able to go to the grocery store. My how much we've learned and grown since then. Nowadays, a grocery store run aint even a thing. After gaining control and an understanding of Rose's eat, sleep, and wake patterns, our confidence slowly began to build. So, we did what every travel-loving parents would do, plan our first trip! Originally we were going to take Rose on a quick flight to Colorado to visit her aunt. However, after more careful thought, we decided it'd be best to try out a road trip first. Now a road trip to Colorado would be a 12 hour drive and an absolute disaster, so that was out. But where would we go? L.A.? Nah that's still 4+ hours. How about one of our favorite places to hike!? BINGO. Zion here we come.
Zion National park in Utah, is a quick 2-2.5 hour drive for us, and its one of our most favorite places to get away. We thought it would be the perfect place for our little Rose's first trip. So we began to plan. Since we had no idea how any of this would go or how Rose would do, we decided to just stay over night. We already knew the area, and route by heart, so all there really was to do was find a place to stay. The Mrs. took care of that and found us a gorgeous new hotel with free breakfast, toddler friendly pool, and that was dog-friendly too. The original plan was for Finneas and Ferb to come along with us. But lucky for us, Papa Chris was visiting for a couple of weeks and agreed to watch our fur-babies while we ventured. Prior to our trip, The Mrs. and I had one crazy schedule in order to get days off together. Basically, besides the hand off in the morning and at night, we hadn't seen each other in a week (we work opposite schedules). Because of that, this little trip was going to be just that much sweeter. Finally the morning had come, and we had NOTHING packed. The Mrs. had worked the night before, and I had my hands full with Rose as she was just getting over her first cold. But we had a plan, and we were determined to stick with it. We new that every day after about 2 hours awake, Rose would go down for a nice long nap. Our goal was to take advantage of this nap for the drive over. So, as soon as I got her washed up and fed, I began to gather everything on our list. In hind sight, I'll be the first to admit that we seriously over packed. We brought 12 bottles, 4 jars of baby food, 2 liters of formula, 4 outfits, her dock-a-tot, noise machine, light/lullaby thing, toys, stroller, two baby carriers, breastmilk, breast pump, 2 towels, toiletries, bath tub, bumbo, and 4Moms. Well, the bumbo, and the 4moms ended up getting left behind. One by accident and the 4moms because we simply ran out of room. Don't forget, The Mrs. and I still hadn't packed any of our own stuff yet. Once The Mrs. got home she helped me finish getting everything loaded. Our car was packed to the gills! But we were filled with excitement. So we hit the road and our plan worked liked magic. In fact, we originally planned to stop halfway, but with The Mrs. and Rose both fast asleep in the back seat, I just kept on going. We made a short stop in Hurricane, Utah (just before heading up to Zion) to have some lunch. Then we were back on the road for our final half hour stretch. We got there without any fuss, and checked into the hotel. This is when I knew, we seriously over packed. Now I'm a master at the art of one-tripping it (getting everything from the car to the house/room in one trip), but even I needed to make two trips. But that all didn't matter. It was our first adventure as a family, and The Mrs. and I were beyond excited! Read all about what we did in: Part 2: Taking a Baby to Zion National Park Tips & Lessons Learned - For your first trip, try an overnighter just to be safe. - Don't over pack. Try not to bring a lot of the extras if possible. - Plan driving time around your baby's normal schedule/pattern - Have a plan, know your route, and know where you can stop along the way. - Avoid times when there will be a lot of traffic. Traffic can quickly turn a 2 hour drive into a 4 hour drive on the open road.
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