If you are lucky to live in the great state of North Carolina, you can hit the ocean in a quick few hour road-trip. We are beach lovers, what can I say. We go a few times a year and love getting our toes in the water and a** in the sand – as Zac Brown would say 😉 If you do not live near the ocean, these can still apply to you! Bummer you don’t live in NC, though 🙂 You should probably do something about that.
Adding a baby to your tribe makes for some extra thought when planning a beach trip. I now know why people drive Suburbans and Tahoes!!! The STUFF, people, the stuff!!!! We are the type of people that like to head out to the beach and camp out all day. With a kid in tow you need to come prepared!
Here are my TOP PICKS that will make your life a bazillion times easier for beach with a baby:
SHADE – the #1, MUST HAVE, absolute, best thing to get is a tent canopy. They have good coverage and everyone, not just the baby, like to hang under them. Ours had a solid three-year run until it kicked the bucket on the last day of our 4th of July Trip to Rodanthe, OBX. We are going back to the beach over Labor Day and you can bet-your-bottom-dollar that we won’t leave the house without a new one. This one is currently sitting in my Amazon cart.
Beach Wagon – this serves two purposes – #1 Hauling all (actually some) of the crap and #2 also acts a make-shift crib and place to hang. You need the kind with the big beach wheels. Don’t buy a regular kind with the street wheels, or you’ll be SORRY when you are dying dragging the heaviness up the sand dune. Been-there-done-that.
We have this one and love it:
testing it out when it got delivered at home HAHA
Baby Pool – I know that you are at the beach and you’d think that the big beautiful ocean is all you need, but it’s not. Sometimes your kid doesn’t like the water temperature, or you are sick of them trying to eat the sand. Well – SHAZAAAAM!!!! This is the fix to that. You can fill it up with water or not. You pick. We have an inflatable one to save space, but a regular plastic one would do the trick too. Ours was this cheapo on Amazon.
Buy some cheap beach toys and put them in a dollar store mesh bag so you don’t take home extra sand as a souvenir after the trip. See beach toys in above pic and ‘cheap beach toys’ is hyperlinked.
Baby Powder – they make a nice kind now – that probably won’t cause cancer – and is made from cornstarch. It helps 1) get the sand off your kid 2) dry things up. It’s important on the list too!!!
Extras of stuff – my baby doesn’t like to sit in his wet clothes so bring extra changes of dry clothes, diapers, swimmy diapers. Pack them in a little baby bag so you aren’t digging around for them in a pinch. Extra garbage bag or grocery bags are helpful for wet changes of clothes or dirty diapers. While you are at it, be sure to bring a hat for your baby, even if it’s like mine and takes it off all the time! sunscreen of COURSE – I like this brand from Target.
Baby foldout chair – This isn’t really a must-have, but it’s cool and we like it, obviously!!!
Baby carrier is nice so your hands are free when dragging the stuff out to the beach! I put baby carrier also on my Must-Haves for having a baby in general. (I’ll get a post to you eventually around that topic) I love my Ergo.
Don’t forget good chairs for mama and daddy. You know you’ll have to hold them at some point and I don’t know about you, but I don’t sit in the sand haha! I have these and got them at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Get a good beach bag that you can put the towels and baby clothing type items in. I like one that is deep. Fill it with all the towels first because they take up room and aren’t too heavy. Then put the other stuff on top. I have this one in a different print.
Something on my wish list is this sweet beach wagon that you can put your cooler in. Doesn’t really have to do with babies, but hey sippy cups go in the cooler next to the adult bevs!
Two other items for consideration:
We stayed beach-front for this last vacay and it was REALLLLL nice for less distance to drag stuff. Less distance to carry baby in, if you need to come in for that long, very necessary afternoon nap. A pool is nice because if one of us had to come in for said long, very necessary afternoon nap, we were not stuck inside because the monitor didn’t reach to the beach.
What are your fav must-haves for beach with a baby?!
xoxo,
Mallory
