Where to sleep while traveling if 1-yo won't sleep in PNP?

[Momof3Labs]

Thanks for the ideas, everyone! I never would have thought of pool noodles! And good point about the noise...it seemed like every time he was about to drift off, someone would go by with a suitcase or cleaning cart. I like the idea of ending the trip well rested.

A white noise machine is an absolute must when staying at a hotel. We all slept better with it!

ITA that it probably wasn't the pnp but the strange surroundings. The first night in a new place is always the worst. But a white noise machine will help a lot.

[Katigre]

We cosleep with the kids whike traveling and it works really well. For naps just lay with them on the bed until they're asleep and then get up. Seconding the pool noodle as a bed rail too .

[army_mom]

We bring sleepy sheep (noise machine) and also her fisher price aquarium for her to use. I think that aquarium was used over and over and over again on our last trip (SO glad we thought to bring it for the 2 week vacation!). Also, was your DS in your room or another room (suite hotel?)? Part of it could be the PnP and part of it could be he woke up in an unfamiliar place. DD never sleeps in the pack n play except on trips but we stay sitting next to the PnP for a little while after she falls asleep. And if she wakes up, she will not put herself back to sleep like she does at home due to the place being unfamiliar.

[Smillow]

Put them underneath the fitted sheet, near the edge of the bed.

Yup, that's it. I like to put it in a couple of inches from the edge, otherwise it might roll off the edge of the bed if you have a kid that moves a lot. My son moved into a bed at 23 months old and never fell out with the pool noodles there.

Cool! Thanks, great tip...

[FieryOne1231]

I'm going to suggest the same...to try and get him used to the PnP and put pillows and blankets in there that he usually sleeps with. Personally, I don't recommend co-sleeping on trips if he normally sleeps in a crib because we did that with our DS for just 2 nights on a weekend trip and after that, it was the end of his crib sleeping days Once we got home, he refused to sleep in his crib. DH and I have not slept together in the same bed since. I suppose I could have did the whole CIO method again, but honestly, I did not think/want to put myself through it again. Baby could've probably handled a few nights of crying, but mommy's heart couldn't.

[sailor]

OP here--we are back from our trip and it was great! We borrowed a PNP from my cousin for the first part of our trip. DS was so jetlagged the first night that he fussed a little bit at first but went to sleep in it pretty easily. The PNP was a different color from ours so that may have helped. After that first night, we tried to recreate our usual bath and bedtime routine and put him down in the PNP to go to bed (or the scary rickety hotel crib, in our second location). He fussed for a few minutes the first few nights, but my husband and I would just lay on our bed and not move until he settled himself down. Then we would read for an hour and go to bed ourselves. After a few nights, he didn't even fuss any more and just went to sleep right away. He often woke up around 4 or 5, and we would bring him to bed and all sleep in until about 8. I'm guessing it was because he would wake up a little and not recognize his surroundings.

One thing in our favor was the time difference: we basically kept him on a Pacific Time schedule even though we were in the Eastern Time zone, so he slept from about 10 PM to 8 AM. For naps, he would have one big nap (2 hrs), either in the hotel or at my mom's house on a floor cushion, and then usually a shorter one, typically in the car as we were driving around. At home we try to have him nap on a schedule, but for the trip we just put him down when it was clear he was getting tired, usually around noon. So I think overall the best tricks for us were (1) to not try to put him to bed or nap until he was clearly getting tired and (2) to let him fuss on his own for a couple of minutes instead of jumping up right away the second he made any noise. The hotels we stayed at seemed to have pretty thick walls, so we didn't need any noise machines and didn't worry that we were annoying people if the baby cried for a couple of minutes. Thanks again to everyone who replied!