Maintaining Baby’s Sleep Routine During Summer Travel

Traveling with baby can be difficult, especially when they are usually on such a tight schedule. Disrupting their sleep and eating routines can be risky because it could affect their health and mess up their routine once home. You will have a difficult time trying to get them to bed at their normal hour. That’s not going to be fun for either of you!

Of course you don’t want to cancel your summer plans, but how can you maintain baby’s sleep routine and have an enjoyable vacation? Good news new mommas, there are ways to travel AND maintain sleep schedules. Here are four ways you can maintain baby’s sleep routine during summer travel (created by me, a mom who’s been there!).

1. Travel during sleep times.

The best way for you to maintain baby’s sleep schedule is to plan to travel when baby is normally sleeping. It’s killing two birds with one stone. Schedule car rides and airline flights for usual sleepy times like overnight or during naps. Baby will get their much needed rest and wake up in a fun new place, well rested and happy. If you time your travel to get somewhere when baby is normally sleeping, you are going to have a rough day!

2. Plan activities around their schedules.

If baby normally takes a morning nap around 10am, an afternoon nap at 3pm and goes to bed at 8pm, plan your activities around that. You could get an early breakfast before baby’s morning nap and then plan a late morning activity for after their morning nap, but before their afternoon one. You’ll find your vacation much more pleasure not having baby crying all day, because they are supposed to be sleeping.

3. Don’t overdo it.

I know that you are used to traveling without kids, but now that you have one, it’s time to get used to traveling with them! You no longer have the ability to go-go-go all day, because baby cannot do that. I suggest planning a family friendly vacation, not one where you are out all day. Once baby is a little older you can plan more adventure packed vacations, but for now stick to simple ones.

4. Be a babysitter.

Okay, not literally. But if you are traveling with your significant other and other people, rotate watching baby during nap times. You don’t want to miss out on the fun activities everyone is doing, but you also don’t want baby to miss their nap. The best way to get the best of both worlds is to have your significant other watch baby during one nap shift, and you can watch baby during another. This way everyone has fun, and is well rested!

Written by Stephanie Parker from Sleepingbaby.com, inventor of the Zipadee-Zip

The motto for Sleeping Baby, makers of the Zipadee-Zip, is: "Inspiring Dreams One Night at A time," and that, in a nutshell, is how it all started…with one little dream that has since become the Parker family's reality. When Brett and Stephanie Parker's daughter, Charlotte, was born, the feeling that welled up inside of them was indescribable; they never realized until first looking into those baby blues of hers that they were even capable of that kind of love.

When it was time to transition baby from swaddling, the Parkers tried every sleep sack on the market and every swaddle weaning trick they could find for nearly two weeks and nothing worked to get baby Charlotte to fall and stay asleep.

Stephanie became determined to restore sleep and sanity to their household and set out to find a solution that would soothe Charlotte's startle reflex and provide her the cozy womb-like environment she loved so much but still give her the freedom to roll over and wiggle around in her crib safely. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, the Zipadee-Zip was born. The first Zipadee-Zip(R) Stephanie put together on her little sewing machine worked like magic!

To date tens of thousands of Zipadee-Zips have been sold and all from word-of-mouth marketing. It is so rewarding for the Parkers to see other parents and babies getting the sleep they both need and deserve!

For more information, visit sleepingbaby.com.

Interested in writing a guest blog for Sleeping Baby? Send your topic idea to pr@sleepingbaby.com.

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