3 babes in an elevator. Clockwise from top: LilMiss, GirlieBlue, LadyP
Round em up and count em folks. One toddler (LadyP, 22 months). One baby (LilMiss, 5 months). And ANOTHER baby! WHAT?!? No, I did not pop out another one. For the purpose of this post, allow me to introduce our darling cousin GirlieBlue (4 months). My sister, parents and I ventured to the beach with ALL 3 babies. Even though husbands had to stay at home and work, we had a fabulous time. Yes, you can take a family trip to the beach/pool/boardwalk/restaurants with 3 babies and stay happy.
OUR SECRET FAB TIP? (My own mom says I should charge for this advice, but I’m gonna give it away for free because I love you.)
Strolling together on the pier. Post-breakfast.
Napping poolside. Yes, that’s a chaise lounge converted into a crib.
We even sometimes cried together.
LadyP did her best when duty called.
GET THE YOUNGER BABIES ON THE SAME DAILY SCHEDULE so that they eat together, have awake-time together and nap/sleep together. Sometimes they may even poop together. You’ve got to be a taskmaster about it. Once you get them running like little timeclock machines (eating together every 3 hours, napping together, etc) you can then manage your day AND your toddler’s needs around the babies’ schedules (I’m lucky/happy to say that I’ve brainwashed trained encouraged LadyP to go with the flow practically since she was born. One of my fave bloggers Jill Cordes recently mentioned the philosophy of ‘benign neglect’… LadyP and I are living proof that it works, minus the mini-meltdown when it was time to get out of the pool and she didn’t want to, but I digress.)
Back to the babies: My sister and I have done this ‘schedule-sync’ thing TWICE now when we’ve spent multiple days together. The first time (when we spent 3 days together with the babies at my house) we thought we got lucky. The second time (on this recent family beach trip to Santa Cruz, CA), we realized it wasn’t luck. It’s just organization. We found that if we fed them at the same time in the morning, then they’d remain on the same schedule the entire day. (Granted, my sister and I both implement the strategy of patterned repetition with our babies: eat, awake/play, sleep, eat, awake/play, sleep… and on and on… and both babies sleep the night so it works for us.) Schedule-syncing managed our time so that we could actually have FUN together… no one had to deal with feeding a baby while the other one’s baby slept. We fed them by the pool. We fed them in the room. They took naps by the pool. They took naps in their strollers while we walked on the pier. Whatever we did, we did together. Maybe this works right now because LilMiss and GirlieBlue are close in age? Maybe it works because LadyP is still between the baby-stage and toddler-stage? I’m not questioning it. All I know is that this clever little trick of ours allotted just enough time for my mom, my sis and me to have fleeting moments like this:
But where’s LadyP? In the pool with Grandpa.
WHAT ARE YOUR TRICKS FOR HAPPY TRAVELING WITH BABIES?
This seems so pretty that you are having babies together. It is a great amusement and the time when you pick the baby girls name when you have not even indexed the name.
I need you to come and get my babies in sync. You got it down mama! On the weekends my daughter will only nap for one hour, maybe 90 minutes. I can get Emmett down for that window too, but that’s about it.
That’s good! You got it down too!