My son is four months old now and, while I always knew that I wanted to travel with my children, I really had no clue how this was going to go. No amount of research truly prepared me for how it would feel traveling with my baby. Traveling with a baby is much different from traveling alone or withy our partner or girlfriends. For me, that looked like slower itineraries with a lot less activities and “must-dos”. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to show my son the world and if that means slowing down, I’m more than OK with that. Our son has taken his first plane ride, with many more on the horizon. Below is what I’ve learned so far from our first family trip.

Baby Packing List

I’ve provided a much more detailed packing list on my ultimate guide to traveling with your baby in the first year here, but in summary, babies require just as much stuff at home as they do on the road. The good thing, however, is that almost everything comes in a travel size or version, as you’ll see from that post.

Even though I followed my own advice when it came time to pack for me and my husband, all of that went out the window when it came time to pack for the little one.

Pro-Tip: Lap infants also get a carry-on size bag for anything they might need during the flight.

I recommend and love packing cubes when traveling with just a carry-on. Different sizes allow everyone in my family to have their own cube and we’re able to fit everything into one carry-on each. Even as I’m writing this, I know that can be hard to believe but packing cubes really are a game changer.

The Carrier Was Enough

Our son is a big healthy boy but still not big enough to fit comfortably and safely in a small umbrella stroller. I couldn’t decide on what travel stroller to invest in for the long haul (he’s booked and busy the rest of the year) and in an effort to consolidate our stuff, we decided that we would only bring the carrier.

We have the Omni 360 Ergobaby carriers which allows us to face him forward or towards us. He loved facing out so he could see everything around him and a happy baby makes happy traveling parents 🙂 I’m glad that we decided on this purchase before the trip and we should even be able to use it to carry him safely on our backs as he continues to grow and get heavier.

Even though we did a lot of walking while in New Orleans, we didn’t miss having our stroller at all. We were always on the go and it was great not having to maneuver our huge stroller through busy streets.

It’s Better to Have and Not Need

This was my response to my husband every time he tried to get me to take something out of the luggage that I’d packed for the baby. Do you need three books? He’s only four months old. Do we need to bring the dog that talks and lights up AND the giraffe rattle block?

Anything that we might use to entertain him at home was coming with us on this trip. Although we didn’t use a lot of the toys that we brought for him because we were out and about more than I expected, I’m still glad that I had everything. And luckily, his toys are small so they were not an inconvenience to have in our carry-ons.

Pro-Tip: Bring twice as much formula, diapers, and wipes for the plane ride as you think you’ll need. You never want to be without one of these staples mid-flight.

Your Baby’s Schedule is Your Schedule

We don’t do anything without considering his sleep schedule, temperament, whether or not he’s eaten recently, etc. and the same goes for when we’re away from home. Our routine with getting baby out the door usually means one entertains the baby while the other gets dressed and then we switch.

When deciding what activities to do when, we have to let the baby make the final decision. And that’s OK! Slowing down and doing less showed us another side to travel and exploring. I am grateful for the new version we were ablet o experience with our baby because we never would have slowed down otherwise.

My overall impression is that it wasn’t as hard as I anticipated it would be to travel with my baby and I am really looking forward to the rest of the year’s travels now. Next stop: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico!

What did you learn from traveling with your little on the first time?