Howdy ya’ll! You’ll never hear those words out of my mouth but we recently returned from Oklahoma and I felt it appropriate. 😉 We took our 9mo baby girl with us on a road trip to visit our family in Tulsa two weeks ago. Now that things have settled down, I thought it would be helpful, to other brave souls who may try road tripping with their lil ones, to put together a little post on what things worked and didn’t work on our trip.
The most important thing we learned while vacationing with our little bean is to not worry. Don’t be afraid to go places. If things don’t work out you can always go back to the car or hotel for food or a nap. We made sure to max out this vacation with ‘firsts’ for Sophie. We drove on a Saturday thinking it would take 8 hours…it took 12. Of those 12 hours, only two were bad though so I think it was extremely successful! We had a few spots mapped out to stop in case she was awake. She was awake for the safari but missed out on the fire breathing dragon so Mommy and Daddy ran out to take a quick pic. It’s ok though, giraffes and dragons are pretty much the same. 😉
Another thing we learned fairly quickly is to take it easy at rest spots. When we let Sophie out of the car to look around in the gas station, watch the kids play on the swing set or pretend to drive, she did a much better job of eating and going back to sleep when we got back on the road. When we rushed her stops, she couldn’t be consoled and we’d just end up stopping again soon. Sometimes she was happy pretending to be George Washington by playing with random stuff in the car (does she not look like GW with the diaper on her head?!) other times she’d need to be thrown really high outside with Daddy. She LOVED captaining her ship with her cape too (we were listening to The Princess Bride and she thought she was Dread Pirate Sophie.) I wish we would have taken a blanket to lay on the grass so she could crawl around a bit at rest stops. Next time!
One thing that we did very successfully was her diaper bag. We packed a ridiculous amount of crap stuff for her when we should have just bought all of her diapers, wipes and food once we got there. The diaper bag was clutch though. It had a gallon ziplock bag for ‘wardrobe change accidents’, wipes, two extra pairs of comfy driving clothes, tons of toys, (book, teethers, rattles, stuffed animals etc.) ready-made Enfamils, baby food jars, and TONS of diapers and bibs. We were extremely thankful we laid a towel down on the back seat next to her car seat in case she had a bad accident and we weren’t near an exit (we’ve learned from experience.)
We also made sure she got enough sleep but we didn’t plan our vacation around her naps. She got good naps in the morning and at night but we tried to keep her awake a bit longer during the middle of the day to do something fun and she was completely fine. Did not cry once from hunger or being tired. She LOVED watching every person, animal and dinosaur we saw! We took her to the Driller’s baseball game, Tulsa Zoo, Oklahoma Aquarium, City Museum in St. Louis and the 4th of July Festival to see the fireworks. She seriously loved every single thing and we loved watching her. We were only about 15 min. from home/hotel from all of these places so we knew if she was too tired or scared we could easily take her back.
I was worried before we left that our ‘quiet, relaxing, peaceful trip to visit our family’ would end up being a ‘cryfest, headache filled, sleep deprived’ trip. I was very wrong. We couldn’t have had a better time and I’m so thankful our family let us come visit them and showed us a wonderful time in OK! We won’t be afraid to travel with her again until she’s in her terrible two’s. 😉 Have any of you taken a road trip with a little one? What did you learn that you want passed on to other parents to keep their vacations a happy memory? Mmmm that funnel cake was amazing by the way.