Our baby is just over 24 weeks old, and Chris thought that Memorial Day weekend would be a good long weekend to take a short trip with her away for the first time. He suggested Philadelphia, which I wasn’t initially that excited about, but this destination made sense for a couple reasons: 1) it’s a 2-hour driving distance away, so not too far but not too close, 2) Philly has a great food scene, so it would be fun for us to eat our way through it, plus they have an expanding beer and wine scene, as well. Two nights away in a new environment and new crib would be a good initial test to see how well our baby does with travel and adaptability.

Travel itself with the baby doesn’t really stress me out as it likely does with a lot of first time parents. What stresses me out more is pumping milk while traveling: knowing when to pump, when I can do it with my regular pump vs. portable pump, milk storage and transport — those are the things that make me a little tense when I’m thinking about being mobile and not at home. I ended up just skipping one pump per day during this trip to ensure we’d be more mobile and get from place to place, even though my breasts felt uncomfortable because of it. I made sure to take extra sunflower lecithin pills to prevent any clogs that could happen from doing this. Once your body is on a pumping schedule, it doesn’t really like it when you go off schedule unless you gradually wean.

The baby slept almost the whole drive to Philly, and throughout the trip, she has been in good spirits, smiling and babbling away. She’s only had one little fussy moment while at the winery today, and she has been sleeping well in the big pack-n-play crib that the hotel provided. She’s not used to sleeping with this much space: when we laid her down in it, she spread her arms and legs out wide as though she was an oversized starfish. She can’t really do this in her bassinet that she’s soon to outgrow now. It was cute to see her in new environments and her reactions to different places and things. She’s at this really cute and fun age where she’s responsive to everything but because she can’t speak yet, she can’t give attitude or talk back. I love this current development phase and how cute and sweet she is. I hope she continues to be an easy baby to travel with, especially since a friend of mine keeps warning me that the older she gets, the less adaptable she will be and the more difficult she will be in new surroundings or a new crib/bed.