I was preparing for yet another trip recently, packing approximately 20 suitcases for a 2-night trip, when a friend asked me if it gets easier each time.

Short answer: no.

The main problem is, even if we travel twice a month, A changes every time, so the packing needs and traveling needs change as well. Not to mention, he used to barely crawl, and now he basically runs.

It is hard to explain why traveling with a baby/toddler is difficult, but I’m going to attempt to break it down here.

PACKING:

The obstacles begin before you leave the house, and to be honest, this might be the most complicated piece. I’ve talked a little about the difficulty of packing before, but this part certainly doesn’t seem to get easier. I have a permanent packing list on my phone in Microsoft To Do, just the same way I do for myself. However, since his needs are constantly changing, so is the packing list.

Example: We used to only need bottles (and a bottle brush and bottle soap), now we need a bottle and sippy cup.

We used to need the pack and play, now we also need a crib sheet because maybe (HOPEFULLY) the hotel will have a full-size crib so Chris and I can actually get some sleep. We used to need a glass container to make formula, now we need to figure out how to transport milk, or we need to plan ahead to buy milk wherever we are going.

There’s the sleep sack, the sound machine, the monitor, the monitor charger, the wipes, the aquafor, the DIAPERS. Basically, he needs his own 25-pound trunk of stuff, and he’s just over 25 pounds himself.

Also, I glazed over the fact that I now work from two separate packing lists. So, I am working off of his and mine, flipping back and forth. And it’s not like he can just use my stuff if I forget… he has his own SPECIAL toothpaste. And don’t get me started on his hair care routine.

For me, if I forget my pajamas, it doesn’t really matter because I can sleep in workout clothes, or frankly, in nothing at all. For A if I forget his particular zippie pajamas or his sleep sack, he just won’t sleep. Which means none of us sleep. Every item is gravely important.

WAITING/TRAVEL:

The travel itself is usually a nightmare, even in the best-case scenario. There’s the uber to the train/airport/venue, which usually includes a meltdown because we aren’t in cars that often. I have mostly learned how to avoid this by giving him an endless stream of his favorite snacks as a distraction, but it is still hit or miss.

Then there’s the waiting. For the train. For the security line. For the plane. To take off.  These days, there are usually delays. Waiting is not easy for adults, and it certainly isn’t easy for babies. No matter how many toys, snacks, spinners, sticky men, painter’s tape or any other number of tricks I tried to learn from TikTok, it’s still hard.

On our most recent trip to Atlanta, it took two hours from returning the rental car to the multiple airtrains to security etc. until we were at the gate, and then another FOUR HOURS after we boarded until we took off. A is actually very good on planes, since they have all of his favorite things: people, lights, screens, and of course pockets on the back of seats where he can pull out papers and throw them on the floor. He did relatively well during the 4-hour delay, and made friends with everyone in the surrounding rows. But gone are the days of just watching a movie or closing my eyes for a nap.

BEING IN A DIFFERENT PLACE:

This seems easy, right? 1-year olds don’t do much, why is it any different to “not do much” somewhere else? WRONG. In hotels, there are millions of death traps including uncovered outlets, corners of tables and counters that are exactly baby-head-height, there are bathrooms with no actual closing doors, slippery bathroom floors with showers that flood the floor and make it even more slippery, cords for many floor lamps, etc. You cannot leave a 1-year-old to their own devices in a hotel room, so you need to constantly be 3 steps behind them, and even that is sometimes too far.

I have found a short-term solution for this: the lobby.

Recently when we were at a wedding in New Jersey, I took A to the lobby every day for at least an hour. He ran around, greeting and smiling at everyone, he LOVED the people coming and going, he also loved the open space, the couches, and the lights and chandeliers. He loved the automatic doors more than anything, but again that required a bit of supervision so he didn’t walk right out. Shoutout to the staff at the Hyatt Regency in Morristown, who were all so sweet and lovely to him, smiling, waving, blowing kisses, and even giving him a mini teddy bear. Extra perk of spending hours in the lobby: all of the running helps tire the kids out. Which brings me to the next travel nightmare:

NAPPING

I don’t even know what to say here. Let’s just leave it at… naps while traveling are a challenge. The people whose kids “nap anywhere” or “just put them in the stroller for a nap”… they’re lying to you. Or they don’t have a SUPER curious kid like mine who keeps his eyes open as long as there is literally anything to look at.

The only good part is that hotels tend to have pretty good blackout shades. But with everything else completely different than home? Sleep is hard to come by. We sometimes will resort to having him sleep on the bed so long as one of us is next to him to make sure he doesn’t roll off. We have also Macgyvered all sorts of strange arrangements. In NJ, he wouldn’t sleep in the crib but he would sleep NEXT to it, on the couch, so we pulled the crib up to the couch as the third wall and then used a cushion near his feet to enclose the full rectangle. I’d include a photo, but as aforementioned, it was completely 100% pitch black in there. It worked though! He slept for a full 90 minutes while I crept around in the dark and slithered into the bathroom to do my makeup and hair for the wedding.

THE MEMS

You might say, “wow Emily that sounds horrific, why would you ever go anywhere ever?” To which I would say, “you’re right, I don’t know why.” Actually, I do know why. As my Gen Z sister-in-law would say, we do it for the mems. Not his mems, of course, he doesn’t mem anything.

The pictures are great. The family we get to see loves to see him, and of course the main thing: if I didn’t leave the house WITH him, I just plain wouldn’t leave the house at all.

So, does it get better/easier? Moms, let me know in the comments.