Navarre beach fl

Our first family vacation we took when Nathan was 7 months old. We went with friends who have a 2 year old. We took a 11 hour drive to navarre beach fl. I really enjoyed this vacation. What I thought might be stressful ended up being a really nice relaxing time. One of those vacations we will always remember. The only reason it worked so well though is because of my crazy obsessive planning. I am a crazy planner. I have to have the whole vacation planned out before we even go. That way we are prepared for anything. Here are some tips for traveling with a infant to the beach.

First for the trip down, make sure you have your car packed with stuff you can reach at hand. Any toys to entertain! I bought a couple new toys so they would be new too him and maybe entertain him. Also a portable dvd player works great if you have a kid who will watch it! Luckily Nathan sleep the whole way down! and home!! Thats because we left at his bedtime. which is my second tip, travel at night!

 pick a condo if you can! that way you will have a a kitchen, and a washer and dryer! That way you dont have to take tons of clothes for your little one, you can always just wash!

 get a uv tent, pool, battery fan, cooler, sand toys. This was our saving grace. Nathan could lounge in his baby pool, or play and he could stay cool and out of the sun. great hideaway for us too when the sun was beating down hard.

Nathan was to big for a bumbo. hes a big boy! So I brought his walker, set it in the uv tent and when he didnt want to be in the water he could be in the walker. He wasnt walking yet, so it was nice for him to have that to run all over the condo with too.

at night I would put water in a sippy cup in the freezer, and then bring it to the beach in the morning, sometimes instead of the cooler, or just something cold for him to have. it thawed out quick

having a pool at our condo was also really nice! bought this floater for 5 dollars the local gas station.

I got this clip on high chair at my shower. best gift. so nice to have to take to restaurants. Specially on vacation when places are packed and out of highchairs.
the other thing that I did was had a list of restaurants, the phone numbers and address so we knew where we were going each night and could call to see how long the wait was. that way we were not wasting good awake hours on driving around or waiting to eat. I looked up online the most liked and recommend places and went from there. I also looked up local things to do so in case we had rain days we would have something to do. but we didnt which was nice!

We has such a nice vacation and I cant wait to take Nathan to the beach again this year. Just remember when traveling with a baby not to expect the same vacations as you use to have. map it out a head of time. Dont plan too much to do. Take turns going out to the beach during nap time to have some alone time in the sand and waves. Make sure you have, sunscreen, hats and those huggies little swimmers are great! take a camera, video camera, toys, toys and toys, try to pack light and buy things at your local grocery store. that saved us alot of space. You dont have to take my advice but trust me on the sunscreen.