Carla Mills shares with us the challenges of taking three-month old Gracie on a family holiday to Cornwall.
I actually don’t know where to start. Packing for holidays used to be so easy – filling a suitcase with bikinis, flip flops, sunglasses and books. Now with bambino, the list is endless.
As we’re not brave enough to torment other passengers with a crying baby just yet, we’re staying in the UK and making the trip to Cornwall, to combine a family visit with a short break. However, with a 7-hour drive on the horizon, it’s probably not that well thought through, though we do have a carefully constructed plan to travel through the night with various stops en route. As baby Gracie is guaranteed to sleep the minute the car starts, we don’t want this to be during the day to then suffer the consequences at night. It will make a lovely change for her to experience night time sleeping anyway!
As we’re not brave enough to torment other passengers with a crying baby just yet, we’re staying in the UK.
Once all the sleepsuits – both short sleeve and long sleeved, with legs and with no legs – summer dresses, bibs, hats, sleeping bags, swimming costume, blankets, bottles, steriliser and what looks to be around 500 muslins have been packed, alongside the travel cot, car seat and pram, it is clear there is little room for our clothes. Whilst baby Gracie has her own large travel bag, we end up sharing one, and my half only seems to accommodate roughly two pairs of jeans and a few t-shirts – marvellous…
After much huffing and puffing about the amount of bags lined up in the doorway, The Husband finally finishes loading the car and announces we need to leave. Just as I lift baby Gracie onto my shoulder, she gurgles then vomits, covering my clean jumper and even managing to get my jeans and the carpet. This sets the tone for the journey. A swift clothes change (I’m getting good at this now) and I clamber in, surrounded by bags, and realise I can barely see The Husband, let alone baby Gracie, who is “oohing” and “aahing” somewhere in the back.
Two hours in and we’ve made a feeding pitstop at The Grandparents. Just before leaving, Gracie regurgitates half the feed on my second jumper of the day (and gets my hair this time). Ten minutes after waving goodbye, The Husband is cursing my forgetfulness, and we turn around at high speed as I realise I’ve left the formula in their kitchen.
Some time after midnight, we find ourselves sat stationary in a long queue of traffic just behind a car crash. Baby Gracie wakes and decides she must be hungry again, but despite the handy fact I can now get out of the car on the motorway, the overstuffed backseat means I can barely get to her. We finally arrive at our destination at 3am, and after another quick feed we all fall into bed.
...despite much pleading in the weeks leading up to it, baby Gracie hasn’t yet caught onto the idea of a holiday involving rest and relaxation...
The week passes enjoyably, with surprisingly good weather (it always rains when I commit to a week in Cornwall) and lazy days spent with family and friends. However, despite much pleading in the weeks leading up to it, baby Gracie hasn’t yet caught onto the idea of a holiday involving rest and relaxation, and our holiday week continues to start at 6am – having only settled back to sleep an hour or so previously.
As the journey home looms, the same strategy of the ‘middle of the night’ drive is employed. Four minutes into the journey I hear the familiar liquidy gurgle emanating from the back seat. At least my jumper is clear of the vicinity this time, and after a speedy mop up (thank goodness for those 500 muslins), we’re on track again. The roads are remarkably clear, and as Gracie slumbers we keep checking the back seat each time we near a service station. But she continues to snore and by some miracle we make it home in record time - just under five hours - without so much as a gurgle. Bless that Cornish sea air.
The next morning, now faced with the unpacking, I’m back where I started with it – in that I don’t know where to start – in fact, I seem to have more than we took with us.
However, as I hear the all too familiar bleating for food, the decision on where to start is obvious and I dig for the feeding bag. Where is it!?
The laundry can wait. No doubt there will be another jumper to add to it in a few minutes...
Read other baby diary entries:
Packing the hospital bag
The hospital tour
The waiting game
Labour day
Pram and cot shopping
The first few weeks