Savvy Travel for Rookie Moms

On a recent trip to New York, I spotted a woman traveling alone with her baby. She wore him in a front carrier so that she could pull her luggage along without also maneuvering a stroller. Clever ”“ and necessary.

I noticed that her Snugli was not positioned correctly, and I had to exercise all of my self-control to not accost this woman and give her an unsolicited babywearing lesson. (STOP, LADY! YOU’RE GONNA HURT YOURSELF. CAN I ADJUST YOUR STRAPS, PLEASE? DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I WROTE THE ROOKIE MOM’S HANDBOOK!)

The image of this traveler’s dangling baby stuck with me for days, so I thought I’d share a little DO and DON’T for Snugli wearers. A willing volunteer on Twitter took the photos.

A quick litmus test for the correct position of your baby relative to your body is to kiss the top of her head. A properly fitting carrier allows you to kiss your baby’s head with a gentle tip of your head.

A new kind of adventure travel

Schlepping is such an apt word for what we parents do. A lovely weekend away no longer starts out with a casual stroll through the airport, Starbucks in one hand, boarding pass in the other, tote bag with iPod and magazines slung over the arm. Instead, we are pushing strollers, smashing as many snacks into a backpack as possible, and strapping live human beings to our bodies when necessary.

This kind of travel does not evoke the feelings I imagine when I studied that website of vacation options.

But, despite the planning, gear, and zillions of fishy crackers, we love these little buggers and want to pack them up and take them around the world to show them off, right? Either that, or our parents make us.

We’ve partnered with Evenflo to share travel tips and stories for parents. Have you seen their Savvy Parents Guide website? Designed to promote the e3SideImpact car seat technology, it features several hilarious videos about parental travel challenges. (Make your partner watch this one.)

Stay tuned: over the next few months, you’ll find Savvy Travel tips from me and Heather over there.

Author
Recent Posts

Whitney

RookieMoms.com co-founder Whitney lives with her husband, son, and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she writes about parenting, crafts, and activities that moms can do with babies in tow. She and Heather also publish 510Families.com, a site for East Bay parents.