road trip!

We conducted a grand experiment this past weekend, in advance of my commencing summer field research. Invited to the wedding of some former grad school friends (friends formerly in grad school, that is, not former friends presently in grad school -- confused yet?), the three of us were off to Chicago for a long weekend. We had no idea what to expect traveling with a six-month-old, as I am sure was the case for the old college friends we stayed with on the trip.

Now that we are officially baby travel pro's (yeah, that's funny), I can look back at our pre-trip naivete with a knowing, fond chuckle. For one thing, when you decide to travel with cloth diapers, there are a few things to consider:

1. Cloth diapers take up a lot of space.
2. Soiled cloth diapers take up even more space.
3. There must be separate containers for each of these.
4. Each of those containers must be large enough to store all the diapers.
5. Did I mention cloth diapers take up A LOT of space?
6. Soiled diapers are much, much heavier than clean ones. Holy crap! That all came from breast milk?
7. Soiled diapers smell bad (but cloth diapering advocates will never admit this -- "like buttermilk" my ass).
8. Soiled diapers left in a car all weekend smell even worse.
9. You don't need as many as you think, because you will invariably forget to change the baby until one of you notices that he hasn't been changed since noon.
10. Because you will forget to change the baby, you need at least three times as many pairs of pants as you packed.

Actually, traveling with Chins went shockingly smoothly. He is one mellow, easy-going baby. He didn't complain about being woken up at one in the morning when we arrived in Chicago. He took a bath in a strange tub with no problem, fell asleep in a strange bed with no problem, and basically had his entire daily schedule upended with no problem. No freak-outs. No melt-downs. He really only started getting upset on our drive home, when he was sitting awake in his car seat with only the same old toys and the same old Iowa landscape for company.

All in all an overwhelming success. Here, then, are a few photographically-illustrated tips for traveling with a baby. Since, you know, I'm presumptuous and arrogant all expert-y and stuff.

Nurse, nurse, nurse. And then nurse some more. Easy for me to say, I know. Here is d.w. several minutes after the end of the wedding ceremony, sitting down on the putting green as the assembled guests amble past. A fed baby is a happy baby. But you knew that already.

 

Protect the routine. So what if it's a hotel? Pre-bath naked tummy time is one of the most important naked times of the day. And with the brilliant Black & White, all the better. Man, that kid loves that book.

 

Stop often. What's more fun that sitting next to a fallow cornfield being very serious while we investigate the grass? Nothing, that's what (except see also "pre-bath naked tummy time", above).

 

Did I mention stopping often? Here we decided to play inside the car, due to the awe-inspiring cloud of ravenous mosquitoes gathering outside.

 

When in doubt, send Mama on back. I really didn't mean that to sound as derogatory and demeaning as it did. Sorry. But really? The cure-all for a bored fussy baby is to stare into his mama's eyes, gnaw on her fingers, and squeal with delight. And sometimes it means Mama having to sit with her knees under her chin in the back seat while Dad rides with the dirty diapers up front. Yummy.

Comments

[Art Nerd]

I have to say, that is one consideration to cloth diapering I never considered. Yeah, that's gross. :)

[Amanda]

That's why we use disposables while on travel, too many logistical manueverings required and too many bad smells in small confined spaces.

Congrats on having a good traveler!

[Jennifer]

Yeah, thats why we used disposables on road trips and cloth just in the house.

That's awesome he travels well. We are dragging the girls camping next month, first time in 5 years. I need to commune.

[dear wife]

Actually I was amazed how little smell there was on the drive home. One airtight container and a box of baking soda made for a clean smelling car. But the amount of space they took up was amazing.

[Laura]

Who's wedding did you guys go too!?

[dear wife]

Bree & Dan's

[Henitsirk]

Looks like Chins is at the perfect traveling age: old enough to be interested in new scenery, young enough to feel OK as long as mama and papa are there.

We always used paper diapers when traveling, too. Seemed like an OK compromise.

[dear wife]

Yeah we choice to stick with cloth on the road because Chins has a sensative bum and we worried about diaper rash. he used to get it in the sposies and even some of our cloth.