Packing

I have planned to post about this for over a year, and I especially planned to post about it at the beginning of a summer, not the end.  Well, summer is ending, but I'm going to post about it now anyway.  Here goes...

Packing for three (Jonathan, Grace, and myself) was a learning experience for me.  (I don't pack for my hubby.  He is a seasoned traveler and, thankfully, is great at packing for himself.)  Our family took our first airplane trip with Grace when she was seven weeks old.  I was still quite sleep deprived, but this tip from my friend, Jennie (it was you, right, Jennie?) helped me so much!  I used it again last October and in June on our family vacations.

Jennie suggested packing each day's clothing in its own Ziploc bag.  Outfit, undies, socks, and everything (for both kids) goes in a bag labeled with the day.  When everything is in the bag, I can squish the extra air out with my hands or use a straw.  It makes the kids' clothes take up so much less space, and I can put a whole week's worth of clothing in the suitcase like a little filing system.  I also include an extra bag for PJs, one for toiletries, and sometimes one for replacements, like a pair of jeans or a spare shirt for each kid.  I took a picture after packing the kids' stuff and before packing mine on our last trip:

Packing this way allowed me to pack all of their clothes, a week's worth of disposable diapers for Grace, and all my stuff, too...all in one suitcase!  And it helped me stay organized during the trip, which is not a natural tendency for me.

I bought and labeled Ziplocs just once, on our first trip as a family of four, and now I just keep the bags in the suitcase so that I can use them each time we travel.  I keep thinking that Jonathan's clothes are going to get too big to fit into Ziplocs, but so far they have fit.  It has helped that we have traveled during warm, shorts-weather months, and not when he would need jeans.  I'm sure I'll have to modify the system for jeans and for a third baby, but for now it's working great, and I appreciate the tip from Jennie.  Hope it helps you, too!