When I was pregnant with my first child, I found out that a dear high school friend, who had moved to Victoria BC, was getting married a few months after my baby was due.
No problem, I thought. The baby will be a few months old, easy to tote around, doesn't take up a plane seat—perfect! We booked our plane tickets and hotel and rsvp-ed for the wedding thinking of how much fun we'd have travelling Victoria with a newborn.
Yes, I spoke about how much FUN we'd have travelling with a newborn.
Then, I had my baby.
My 5-weeks-early, colicky, always-needing-to-be-in-motion baby. Suddenly a 5-hour plane trip (plus a stopover) seemed like climbing Mount Everest. However, it was early days so I pushed the trip out of my mind and focused on trying to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time. I booked a third ticket for my mom (there went the savings!) as I figured we just might need an extra set of hands if my husband and I were going to actually appear at the wedding at the same time.
The flight, actually, went much better than I anticipated. This kid who never slept, actually slept. The stopover and extra up-and-down didn't pop his ears like I'd feared. So I was feeling pretty confident when we arrived at the hotel, got our room with the crib (ha!) and settled in.
Kinda forgot about the time change.
Needless to say, this kid didn't get jet lag or time changes either. He just promptly stayed on a cry-feed-cry-sleep schedule... EST, not PST. Exhausting and overwhelming when at home. On 'vacation'—a total nightmare.
I think the defining moment of the trip for us was when my husband was walking the screaming baby near the beautiful Victoria harbour, and our friends (who didn't have kids yet) could actually hear him cry from their 6th floor hotel window. Good times.
You'll be glad to know, especially if you're travelling with babies this spring break, that it get easier. Kids get less squirmy. Their attention spans lengthen. And we parents get a bit smarter about bringing along games to play, planning travel around naptimes, being realistic about destinations, and embracing the electronic babysitter.
Many trips and another (less screamy) baby later, road trips have become this family's preferred mode of travel. We enjoy the freedom we have to cram the car with as much stuff as we can and hit the road for as long as the kids can stand it.
And the baby who travelled to Victoria and back at 8 weeks old? (Yep, that's him above)
He's not the one who asks "Are we there yet?" Who'da thunk.
This post was written by one of momstown's road-trip loving mamas.
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