Baby's First Vacation

Ah, finally! I'm officially all caught up after being on vacation. You know how that goes...it takes some time to get back into the swing of all things life (bills/laundry/clean house/back to normal baby schedule, etc) again!

In just a weeks time we created countless new memories with Camden that I will never ever forget! The whole week and our time in Florida just completely exceeded my expectations. If I'm being honest, I had my doubts about what vacation/traveling would look like with a baby. Would it even feel like vacation? Would we get a chance to relax at all? How would he adjust to a new sleeping environment? Will he go crazy on the plane or have a huge blowout? (the second one did happen on the way home, ha) Well, I can tell you it was so much more than any other vacation we've taken. More meaning better...more meaning more rewarding...more meaning more fun and fuller hearts.

Was it more work than traveling just us two? Of course, but the extra effort (and things!) was so worth it because it meant that he got to be there with us and we got to love on him all week and see him experience new firsts with us! I can't describe how nice it was to all be together with only one focus, which was to enjoy ourselves. Yes please.  

We lucked out on the flight on the way to Florida because we were able to bring his car seat on with us (if the flight isn't full they will let you-I highly recommend doing this if your baby does well in a car seat! you can also buy a ticket for your baby to be able to do this), so we had the whole row to ourselves and he napped for a lot of the flight and was pretty content playing with toys for the second half. We never even had to take him out once-easy peasy! 

We had great weather for most of our trip, except it did rain one day but we decided to escape to the outlets at that point so it definitely wasn't awful by any means! Camden adapted way better we than expected - he went down for naps & bedtime very easily (no help from us!) and slept until 7:30ish every morning. He did have his own room which I'm sure really helped because he's so used to that. I think the age he is now is a great time to travel because he's old enough where he can handle a shorter nap here and there (and going a little longer between eating), and at the same time he's not walking yet so he's not completely all over the place. Does that make sense?! I did a lot of researching about traveling with a baby before going, so while I'm certainly not an expert myself yet we did learn a lot and got some great tips along the way so I might do a whole post about it! Anyone interested?

Anyway, I could probably talk all day about our trip but to sum it up our days were mainly spent by the beach or at the pool...pretty low-key and exactly how we intended to spend them! Camden LOVED the beach...he would crack up and smile so big when the waves would hit him! And we bought him this little airplane float from Publix for the pool that he really seemed to enjoy. We loved to walk the beach in the mornings with Cam in our Ergo wrap (saw lots of dolphins in the mornings!) and we went out to eat almost every night because calories do.not. count on vacation? 

 

 

Somehow we still managed to stick to his normal schedule - for the most part. For the times we went out to dinner, we would just eat early and make sure we would be back by 7ish for bedtime. If we were enjoying ourselves though and he was content, we didn't rush back by any means though! It was worth it for us to call it a night early for many reasons...it gave me and Billy time in the evenings to relax together, we were normally pretty tired anyways from being out in the sun all day, and the most important being that it ensured we had a happy baby who was not overtired from lack of sleep! 

I also managed to sneak away to treat myself to a relaxing mani/pedi, to go shopping, and to lay out at the pool! There were a few times that Billy wanted to get some work done on his computer while Cam was napping, so he stayed back and I was able to get soak up some vitamin D at the pool. I wasn't about to complain about that...nope! 

I can't forget to mention along with seeing dolphins for the first time, Camden got to see a black bear. A FREAKING HUGE BLACK BEAR. AS IN, NOT STUFFED. AS IN REAL. Yup. Happened. One morning we decided to go to this sanctuary to go on a 2 mile nature walk and as we got out of our car in the parking lot there was the bear eating out of trash cans about 100 ft away. 

There were workers around that warned us right away and mentioned how the bear hangs out around there often. It was really cool and slightly terrifying all in the same moment! ;)

Our flight on the way home they were expecting to be close to full so we couldn't bring our car seat on (we just checked it at the gate with our stroller-we bought a big bag to protect it off Amazon), but Cam still did pretty good thanks to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes I downloaded on my iPad and toys to keep him entertained. We did get the whole row to ourselves again so that was a plus. Cam isn't a lap baby in the sense that he will just sit there quietly and not want to move around...no, he wants to crawl up and down the aisles and try to fly the plane. Not kidding. So, yes, it was a little bit more challenging trying to keep him entertained, but he did great for the most part! We could've done without the dirty diaper at the end though! I couldn't even get up to change him since it was during the landing so you can imagine how that was. :)

I actually have a few more pictures from this trip that I haven't shared here for the sake of complete overkill (some family ones on my good camera) that I'm really excited to frame in Cam's room, and I plan to make a Shutterfly book with all of these ones! 

We're already looking forward to our next trip with our little man...Boston! And in a few short weeks! 

How was your first vacation with a little one? Was it easier or harder than you expected?! Share with me!