As I’ve been writing about on my Instagram account, my husband and I just took our first trip away together without our little one. We went for a quick 5 day trip. My little one stayed with my parents. I was very worried about the trip leading up to our leaving. Would my daughter be upset we left her for so long? Would she act out with my parents? Would my parents be able to bathe her (she’s hated the bath recently)? Would she get sick? Would she start waking up in the middle of the night, ruining both my parents and her own sleep schedule? Would she remember me when she came back? Would I be able to stop worrying enough to have fun? Would my parents be calling me every hour to ask questions? And so on.

I felt lucky though that my daughter had slept at my parents before by herself, we go there all the time and she is obsessed with my parents and brother - so I knew deep down that everything would be fine. But I can only imagine how stressful it would be for parents to leave their children with family or friends that they are not as comfortable with. 

We decided to leave after putting our little one to bed and happy we did, one less bedtime to miss and one less bedtime my parents had to attempt on their own. The next morning, I had wanted to sleep in but I woke up at the same time I do every morning with my little one. Which turned out to be good because I got to FaceTime with her and my parents before she went to daycare. Everyone was beaming and having fun and they were all well rested- success! After that, I stopped worrying (mostly) and looked forward to FaceTiming every morning and night. 

All in all, everyone did well. My parents were exhausted by the time we got back but couldn’t stop saying how much fun they had. My daughter had caught a little cold but was no worse for the wear and had been amazing. She woke up a bit earlier than normal but otherwise had been great.

The first day back, she cried when I dropped her off at daycare which made me sad that she maybe thought I was abandoning her again, but I was told that she settled well and was happy as a clam when I picked her up that evening. And the next drop off went smoothly as usual and we all fell back into our schedules. 

I am so happy I got that time to relax and spend with my husband and my daughter was definitely well taken care of and my parents had a blast (and are now catching up on their rest).

As the holidays are coming and you may be leaving your little one with family I thought I’d share my packing list that I composed for my little one. My parents have a lot of stuff for our little one at their house (highchair, toys, crib, sheets, books, cutlery, milk, sippy cups, bottles...) so I didn’t need to pack everything but this was my packing list:

1. Clothes for daycare and weekend

2. Shoes, boots

3. Jackets, hat, mittens

4. Diapers and wipes

5. Sound machine

6. Bedtime books

7. Pacifier 

8. Moisturizer, diaper creams, eczema cream, shampoo/body wash 

9. Nail clipper

10. Baby tylenol

11. Health card

12. Doctor and after hours numbers 

13. List of reminders and schedule 

Anything else you pack up for your little ones when they stay overnight?