Traveling

[Riley's mama]

We are getting ready to take our first road trip with our 8 month old DD and we are super nervous. We are taking the pack-n-play for her to sleep in, so we decided to have her sleep in it today and tonight. Naps went pretty well in it during the day and she fell asleep pretty easily at bedtime around 8 but but woke up screaming her head off at 10:30. DH went in to comfort multiple times but she was crying for almost an hour. She just got quiet about 5 minutes ago so who knows what will happen from here.

I am just wondering if she's so upset because she's sleeping in the pack-n-play and if so, why it didn't bother her until now?! And is this how she is going to be the whole time we are gone?!?! I put her usual sleep things in there with her (lovey, etc.).

Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences with traveling that might help?!

[SnuggleBuggles]

We often end up co-sleeping during trips just because it winds up being easier. I hate the idea of his crying potentially keeping someone up in a hotel or if we are staying with friends or family. It's great that she'll nap in there! She may come around on the night time sleep.

Beth

[ahrimie]

My DD did NOT sleep well in her PNP when we went away for a wedding... OMG, the hardest weekend ever. I think it was just so different from her crib. She could only do a few hours at best but from 10pm - 3am, you could pretty much forget about sleep.

Recently, we went away to Charleston and they had a mini-crib for us. WHAT A LIFE SAVER! She slept soooo much better (eons better) than in the PNP. It felt more like her crib with a real mattress (PNPs don't really have a mattress you know?). The only thing was, she hit her head a few times because it's smaller than her crib but I'd take that over the PNP.

Are you staying a hotel? You can call and ask what they have available for infants.

[jtannerchs]

We have done a lot of traveling with dd (who is 12 months now). I agree that the pnp is not the best option. She has never slept through a night in one of those - she always ends up in our bed...immediately. The mini cribs the hotels give you have been better luck for us - but in truth, only 1 time (out of many nights) did she sleep an entire night in one. The other nights she ended up in our bed around 1 or 2am.

If you are open to her sleeping in your bed, then you don't need to stress too much about it. I always worry that we will get home and dd won't want to go back into her crib, but she always does. For the record though, she comes to our bed every morning around 5am (traveling or not). I'm just not ready to be up that early, so I encourage her to snuggle up to me and sleep a little longer :).

Where my daughter will sleep during the day (naps) and where she will sleep at night has always been different. It is very difficult to get her into her crib during the day, but nighttime is fine. So maybe your DD has the same issue? Not sure why she was fine with the pnp for a nap, but not at night, other than the nap is MUCH shorter than a night time sleep.

Good luck and enjoy your travels!

[Riley's mama]

Thank you for all the advice! As it turns out, she ended up sleeping pretty well in the PNP, but definitely did not like it as much as her crib. I think next time we may either try to get a crib or have her sleep in the bed with us. I actually wanted to do that but wasn't sure how she'd react!

I'm just guessing here - but I'm thinking that no matter what we do she's just not going to sleep as well as she does at home?!