Reasons to NOT Travel with a Baby

I write all the time about how much I love to travel and how I love to include our kids with us. I don’t really plan to change my ways even as crazy as traveling this summer has made me. I’ve decided a person that decides to travel the country frequently with their children, particularly as babies must be a really special person. Like the special kind that is not in their right mind. However, I am very dedicated to my values of traveling and making the time and effort to see family so I braved this crazy trip across country with our three month old, and I can now tell you why maybe you should NOT travel with a baby. I’ve put my sanity to the test to test this theory so I’m an expert by all means so please heed my warning.

First of all a baby cries A LOT. And when you’re all stuck in a car or a small living space like a hotel room there is no escape from the ear piercing siren horn that is your beloved baby that you definitely love but suddenly completely understand the phrase, “I love you but I really don’t like you right now.”

Second, because your baby cries A LOT rather than strangling your child because at one in the morning it almost seems like a good solution you and your spouse instead attack and insult each other. Which let me tell you solves everything. NOT. But again, not in your right mind in the first place when you decide to travel across country with a baby.

Third because your baby cries A LOT,  when it occurs in those trapped in the car going 70+ miles down the highway moments your options are either drive everyone off a cliff and end everyone’s misery or trust the two younger children in the back to “take care” of the baby by feeding him. When they basically dump a whole bottle of precious breastmilk all over the baby try really hard not to lose your shit. They’re only four and seven. What did you expect? It’s just breastmilk. Breastmilk! You know that stuff they call liquid gold!

Fourth, when the baby is actually not crying and testing your last nerve there’s the crazy amount of extra stuff you have to pack to haul a baby around the country. It has to have its own special bed, the playpen. However, it will make sure you know it does not appreciate you hauling a special bed across the country as it lays there night after night and screams at you to get it out of that damn foreign contraption.

Fifth, it pees and poos a lot. But I will say is better than traveling with a potty training traveler which I have done as well and don’t recommend either but that’s a post on peeing on the side of the road for later. At some point you’re going to get peed and pooped on maybe to the point where you’re not even sure if the wet circles on your clothes are pee, liquid poo, or a combination of both, and your only hope because everything is packed away is that the car AC will dry it quickly.

I still have about 7-8 hours left in this drive across the country at this point so I’m sure I could come up with about five more reasons why to NOT travel across country with a baby but I think you get the idea at this point that I would NOT recommend this particular experience.