When our daughter was five months old took a cross-country trip to San Francisco. While traveling with baby seems like a big undertaking, it is easier than traveling with a toddler especially when you have the right baby travel accessories. The key to success is to make sure you have all of the baby travel items to make your trip easy.
This post is sponsored by Graco.
Top Baby Travel Items
I am all about making life easier, especially when traveling with three kids. Everything on this list of baby travel items made our trip easier and more efficient. I hope it helps you too.
Kimono Style – Although I have gotten used to breastfeeding my babies any time, any place, I still prefer to use a cover. While I have a nursing cover I love, when traveling it was just one more thing to bring on the plane. So I bought a trendy kimono on Amazon. Not only was I cute, but it made covering up to feed the baby super easy without an extra thing to carry. Even if you aren’t breastfeeding, I covered her head on the plane to block the light so she could sleep. It was perfection.
Pacifier Wipes – Germs on a plane skeeve me out, especially when traveling with a baby. I made sure to pack pacifier wipes to not only clean pacifiers and toys that found their way to the floor, but also tray tables, arm rests and windows that P was sure to grab and/or try to lick.
Baby Travel Car Seat – The trouble with most car seats is that they are a royal pain to install. While that’s not a huge deal when the car seat lives in your car, it makes life more complicated when traveling. The Graco SnugRide SnugLock 35 DLX Infant Car Seat takes away the car seat installation hassle with easy installation.
The Graco SnugRide is the easiest car seat I have ever installed. Since we installed this in the middle seat, we used the seat belt to install it (LATCH system is also available). It was as simple as buckling the seat belt, and closing the lever. The easy-to-read level indicator and audible click gave us the confidence that we installed it easily and correctly, without tugging and pulling straps tight. The one-hand adjustable handle makes it easy to adjust handle with one hand, even P’s big sisters can adjust the handle bar.
The SnugRide SnugLock 35 DLX is a comfortable ride for rear-facing infants from 4 – 35 pounds and up to 32 inches, and it is a great seat for traveling and on-the-go.
Travel Car Seat Bag – If you plan to check your car seat on the airplane, you’ll need a car seat bag to protect it. Since we travel with a small umbrella stroller, see below, we couldn’t use the stroller to carry the car seat. So a car seat back with backpack straps, allows the seat to be easily carried like a backpack through the airport.
Baby Travel Bed – While we love our Graco Pack ‘N Play for road trips and sleeping in our room at home, it is quite big and bulky. And I can’t bring myself to use one at a hotel. The Graco Travel Lite Crib is considerably smaller than the Pack ‘N Play, which makes it perfect for travel.
Plastic Baggies – Everyone knows you need to bring a change of clothes for baby in your diaper bag. I take that a step further by always packing my change of clothes in a plastic baggie. The whole reason you need a change of clothes is in case baby makes a mess, and you will be happy to have a plastic bag to seal up that mess until you can things cleaned up. I always travel with a couple of extra plastic baggies too.
Baby Travel Stroller – My favorite stroller of all time is the City Mini, but in the interest of saving space we took our umbrella stroller on the trip and it worked great. The Graco TraveLite Umbrella Stroller is the smallest in the Graco fleet and perfect for travel.
Baby Wearing – While nothing can replace needing a stroller, there are times when a stroller just isn’t convenient. At the Monterey Bay Aquarium we found that strollers are frowned upon, luckily I had my baby wrap and we were good to go. I am a big fan of baby wearing and bring my Moby Wrap everywhere I go.
Baby Travel Sound Machine – My daughters love their sound machines at home, but they are even more important when traveling. Not only do they make a strange place feel more like home, they also drown out hotel noises. For travel we use a portable sound machine that works on batteries since we never know what the outlet situation will be.
Swaddle Blankets – I don’t go anywhere without a muslim blanket or several. Not just to swaddle my baby to sleep, they fill several needs on the go. Muslin swaddles are large enough to be used as a stroller cover, ground cover, a blanket to keep baby warm if it suddenly gets chilly, a burp cloth, peek a boo, the list goes on and on.
(Notice the muslin blanket tied to the car seat? It was very windy and chilly on that hill.)
Traveling with baby is not as hard as it seems, you just have to be ready for the whatifs. These top baby travel items will help you be prepared so the whole family can enjoy the journey.
For more about our trip to California check out 10 Things To Do With Kids In San Francisco.
The baby backpack/sling/whatever is so underrated… you really don’t know how amazing having one of those is until you try it! So much better than actually having to carry your baby everywhere.