I started making a list for the trip about a month in advance in the hope of avoiding a last-minute panic.
The vacation, in which my husband and I would drive two hours north to a lake house in New Hampshire to see his family and then head west to a resort in the Adirondacks for a few days with mine, would be similar to many I had taken before.
The wrinkle? The addition of a 15-pound baby.
Instead of engaging in my favorite pre-vacation ritual of plotting out which library branch held each title on the list of a half-dozen books I had curated throughout the year, I was calculating how many articles of clothing my 4-month-old daughter wears in a day.
No amount of self-awareness prevented me from turning into a cliche, the frazzled mom sweating every detail. But I had hopes that if this trip went smoothly, planning for future adventures would be a breeze.
First I had to figure out the clothes. Of the nine days we would be gone, how many would require two, three, or four clean onesies? How many would end with the realization that Sylvia was wearing the same outfit I had put her in the day before? Flustered with the math, I started shoving clothes into an overnight bag. How many sun hats did she need? All of them, I thought in my packing frenzy. Those cute black booties that looked like sophisticated ballet flats? They went in too. I imagined that 4-month-olds staying at resorts in 80-degree weather needed these. (Surprising no one but myself, I turned out to be wrong.) Maybe she’ll need cute dresses for photos with her grandparents? (Those never left the bottom of the overnight bag.)
But I really had no idea when it came to the one item she couldn’t live without. Though I had compulsively kept a log of every feeding since the day she was born, I had no idea how many diapers she went through in a day. Six? Twelve? Would we need to rent another car just to transport them?
I asked Judy Roy, a nurse who lives in Plymouth and teaches infant care classes, for advice. She said most babies go through six to eight diapers a day, but to plan for 10 a day to be on the safe side. I decide on enough to change her 13 times a day, mostly because that turned out to be the number in two pre-wrapped packages. Unsurprisingly, it was a gross overestimate. By the end of the trip, we had enough to stay for at least another five days.
The packing happened in fits and starts, and the list would grow whenever I used something else to take care of the baby. The noise machine that we swore we would never need when we had kids — can’t live without that! The Wi-Fi-enabled video monitor would have to come, too. Staring into our phones at the live feed of her sweetly sleeping face in the next room had become our evening entertainment. Her activity mat with hanging toys, upon which she spent many happy waking minutes, seemed essential. So did the collapsible cradle that we rocked her in when she was fussy and the portable crib where she would sleep.
I gathered an assortment of books with enough variety to not drive us to boredom reading them over and over, keeping in mind that cargo space was limited. Any edition I would have been upset to lose stayed behind. Infant Tylenol, a thermometer we hadn’t used yet — hey, you never know! — baby nail clippers and the night light I used to navigate her nursery during every overnight feeding got packed, too.
In my haste I packed every swimsuit Sylvia owned. Any lake in New Hampshire in June would be too cold for her, so we waited until we reached the resort on Lake George, which was similarly chilly, but had an indoor pool that was warmer than the baths we usually draw for her. Armed with two swim diapers, one disposable covered by a reusable one, a combination recommended to me by a more experienced mom, we were ready for the water. She seemed content if unimpressed by the whole thing, while I became annoyed at the kids who forsook the rest of the pool to crowd us into a corner, splashing wildly, as their oblivious father occupied a chaise lounge and stared into his phone. I prayed silently this wasn’t a vision of our lives five years from now.
I spent a lot of the vacation inside, worried about the sun and heat. But if we were going to brave the beach, Roy recommended a three-sided tent with vents and ultraviolet protection and a water-repellent mat for the floor.
Curious about the recommendation that babies not wear sunscreen before they’re 6 months old, I contacted the Society for Pediatric Dermatology, which connected me with Dr. Brandi M. Kenner-Bell, who practices at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Kenner-Bell said staying out of the sun and keeping babies covered under an umbrella or UV-blocking clothing is best, but that infants can wear sunscreen, even those marketed to adults. She recommended products with zinc or titanium, which are less irritating.
“We’re trying to avoid burns, that’s the bottom line, and burns happen very, very quickly,’’ she said.
Sylvia can be inconsolable on car trips, so I asked Dr. Mary E. Brown, a pediatrician at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, for tips. Keeping the car cool is important for keeping babies comfortable, traveling at nap times is ideal, and in some cases, she recommends that parents talk to their pediatricians about using Benadryl.
Stopping along the way is also important.
“The frequent breaks are also for the parents, to make sure they’re not losing their mind,’’ Brown said.
I couldn’t agree more.
Other than a glut of unworn clothes and diapers, we ended up using a lot of what we packed. I used the night light regularly, and the noise machine drowned out the conversations of 10 other people staying in the house.
With the first vacation with the baby behind me, I’m almost ready for our next adventure: her first airplane ride. If only a list could prevent a fussy baby from prompting dirty looks from the traveling public.
Jill Terreri Ramos can be reached at jill.ramos@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @jillterreri.
