traveling with baby: Cape Cod

In June 2008, we went to Cape Cod with our baby. She was  seven months old at the time and we wanted to vacation in a place where we could drive to. We live near NYC, so Cape Cod was perfect. It took us about six hours of driving and breaks to the very tip of the Cape, Provincetown. With a lot of luck and organization, our vacation was really wonderful. This is how we did it.

The car trip: 

We knew that our baby couldn't possibly be asleep for the whole time (she was sleeping two naps a day at the time) so we brought lots of toys, books, and kid's CDs. We took turns driving and entertaining the baby (it takes a lot of enthusiasm from us as she obviously couldn't get out of her seat). For when she was awake we tried to vary the type of entertainment. We had a toy session, reading session, and singing session, making faces session, and of course a session when we took breaks and went to a shop and a restaurant. Luckily I was still nursing her so we had no milk / food issue. We did bring some baby jar food with us for lunch at the restaurant, but otherwise I nursed her in the car before her naps.

We woke her up at the normal time, had breakfast,nursed her and left. After one and a half hours (when I've used up all our entertainment tricks) we stopped for a rest at a motor-side shop. Then I drove and my husband took a turn at entertaining her for another 45 minutes before we stopped for lunch. We lunched for about an hour, I nursed her in the car and soon she was asleep for two and a half hours. That was when we tried to do most of our fast driving. If you've been to the Cape you'll know that it's impossible to drive very fast in the Cape with one lane roads and low speed limits. It was like a race against time but we got lucky and she woke up just half an hour before we arrived.

The accommodation:

We booked an apartment rental for a week. It was our first time not staying in a hotel, but we thought we'd save money by having a kitchen and also we'd be able to make her the pureed food. Of course by the time we went we found out that she preferred the supermarket jar variety to my home-made purees but we're glad we booked the apartment as it was really beneficial to our baby. When we first got there she didn't like the place, she wanted to go home. This changed as soon as we started to do routine things like taking a shower and cooking. She then understood that it was a home from home. 

The area:

We stayed in the middle of Provincetown ... very busy, but it was great. It was a little loud at night but we put the A/C on fan only and that drowned out the noise and we could all sleep through the night every night. Provincetown has an active gay community so there aren't many locals with kids. Having said that it's a really child-friendly town and there were a lot of families about. Everyone was friendly to us and sweet to our baby. There were an incredible amount of dogs, much to our baby's joy and fascination. It was a relaxing place to be. We strolled the streets, look at art galleries (all are baby-friendly), ate out (certainly baby-friendly but I'm not sure if they have kids' food), and of course went to the beaches! We drove to a nearly vineyard and had a tasting (also baby-friendly). We had a day trip to plymouth and visited the Plimoth plantation. 

All in all it was a fantastic trip, we would recommend it to anyone with a baby!