Parenting

My wife and I have done this with my kiddo, he is 2 years old now, but we traveled with him when he was 1 several times. So our kid is accustomed to sleeping with white noise on in his room, we bring along a travel white noise machine with us to keep that going. We have that going a little louder than we do at home, it helps muffle our sounds/ hallway noise after he goes to sleep. We usually don’t hold him until he is asleep at night, but on vacations we do. Our kid is usually so worn out each night from a day of so much new stuff he sleeps hard to start the night.

If you plan on watching TV, I would suggest turning that on before your baby goes to sleep so that sound is “baked in” to the white noise for them. If the TV has a music channel or a things to do at this hotel/city channel that usually works for us. We also usually turn off any overhead lights and just go with necessary lamps to try and keep the room a little darker.

If your room has a huge bathroom or closet that would be another option of where to setup the pack n’ play so they have a darker/quieter space- that tends to be pretty uncommon though.

I hope something I wrote helps! Have a great trip!

Will he be in a pack n play?

A Slumberpod has been the best purchase we've made for travel. It is a pop-up blackout tent that can go over a pack-n-play or travel crib and provides a consistent sleep space no matter where you are. We've done probably 45 nights away from home in almost 3 years and the only time kiddo woke up in the middle of the night was the one night we didn't use the Slumberpod. Highly recommend.

There is always the cellphone as a monitor trick. Have one of you leave your cellphone in the room and call it. Leave the other one on speaker and muted. That way you guys can go a little bit away but still be able to hear if he cries.

It depends on the room you get, but we tend to stay in hotel rooms that are set up a bit like a suite. There will be a separate room that has two beds and the rooms A/C. Then the other side of that room will have the bathroom, the kitchenette if there is one, and a TV and small couch that is often a fold out sleeper sofa. I admit, we often end up with these rooms because there are 6 of us, so smaller rooms are just not an option.

If you can get one of these suites, you can setup the pack and play in "the bedroom" and shut the door, and stay up watching TV, playing cards, chatting quietly, etc in the other room where the kiddo can't see you. This works especially well if you bring something to serve as white noise in the bedroom area. We use a small floor fan and just have it running in the room where everyone sleeps. That helps mask any noise from the other room as well as any noise of people moving around in bed during the night.

So it might at least be a consideration if you look around the various room options!