RVing with Babies - Practical Solutions

It's a rainy day..... an ideal time to write to you, cozy in the RV.  We're capitalizing on cozy with twinkle lights. It's incredible how such a simple thing changes everyone's mood. 

Last week was sunny, balmy and delicious, which made it hard to finish unpacking and organizing. Rain drove us inside every day this week and I'm happy to announce that today, at 10:34 am, the last basket and bin tucked themselves into place. Every last toy, toothbrush and shoe has a happy home, with room to spare.

This has been the shoe system since Day 1. Shoes off as soon as you walk in the door. I tidy it once a day. Usually it looks like the next photo... (tiny pink sneaks and big gray sneaks being wayward most often ;)

You wipe your feet as you walk through the door and pass the driver's seats. 

I'm going to skip the main living space for now and jump you straight to the rear of the "RV house" to the "girl's bedroom." 

I would not have enjoyed RV life 3 years ago as a first time Mom. I wanted to give my baby the "classic" nursery of children's books and magazines. An entire room dedicated to a crib five times bigger than baby, full size dresser, changing table, nursing chair, book shelf..... and..... last but not least, wooden toy box. I knew babies didn't NEED all of this, but I wanted it. At the time, it was my current expression of love for my baby, mixed with my own desire not to miss out on a beloved tradition from modern day, middle class, America and Europe. I will probably put the same amount of elaborate decor into decorating a similar nursery in our next home later this year. But for now, I've done the big nursery thing, and now I'm ok to do the RV thing. I'm finally at a place in my life where I could be ok to live without anything a big house offers if we ever decided to travel on wheels full time. I might feel different four months from now, so ask me then. I will talk, in a later post, about whether I'm ok with no dishwasher or oven.

As you can see from the photo above, Samantha is equally excited about her RV bunk bed, as she was about her nursery. Samantha's bed arrangement was simple and didn't need any extra effort from us. It's apparent that most people with babies, young enough to roll out of bed, don't typically go RVing. None of the RV's come equipped with an itsy bitsy RV size crib. But if you're 3 or older, the RV designers have got you covered, fish net to catch you if you fall out of your perch. (which Samantha did on Day 3 until we learned to put a mound of blanket between her and the net. However, she never knew any of it. I happened to see her sleeping, cradled in the net, a few inches below her bed as I was responding to Annabelle in the middle of the night. Chris lifted her back into place and all was well.)

Annabelle's bed, on the other hand, took weeks of planning and troubleshooting before we arrived at a reasonable solution. She really doesn't care WHERE we put her to sleep, if we will PLEASE just be consistent and put her in the same place every night with the same soft cushion, with the same smell, under her and two familiar stuffed animals within reach.

We had to return the first bed rail because the hardware would not work with this particular bunk. Our final design included googling what other RVer's have done to solve this, plus our own engineering. The Dex Bed Rail from Amazon or Target is the one with a plate shape that can slide down between the bunk and wall. It wasn't designed with RV bunks in mind, but it works quite well nonetheless. In the end, the adult mattress, turned vertical and wedged across the "room," is a bit unsightly, but overall, this arrangement is cute enough to satisfy me, and practical and out of the way. We were all somewhat irritable dancing around the makeshift solutions of the last two weeks.

Do we need a changing table? Nope! All changing supplies live in this handy basket on the bathroom counter. Folded changing pad tucked behind is a brilliant design I've had in my car since baby number one. It doubles as a diaper bag. Patem brand, given to me by another friend who loves minimalist solutions.

What about mealtime? I, personally, LOVE the old fashioned wood spindle high chair with tray waiting for Annabelle in storage for our next house. It's so pretty. But I don't see an actual need for it. If she feeds herself, she sits in the sink to do it. If I'm feeding her, or if she's just picking up dry rice puffs, the following arrangement is working well for us.

It quickly became clear that Samantha was going to have a terrible struggle sitting still to eat, until we provided a booster seat to raise her to a more comfortable height. I was tempted to push on the budget a little bit more to run out and buy a booster seat. But in the end, I decided to use this cardboard box. 

I'm not going to be one of those bloggers who shows you gorgeous diy Pintrest projects. You've got plenty of that at your fingertips. I WILL show you this slap together solution which made both Samantha and I happy. We picked two old towels, we didn't need, and stuffed them inside the box to make it sturdy. We took cut strips of colored paper from my craft bin and taped them to the box, to make it cute, and wrapped the whole thing in clear packing tape. Easy, small, washable, cute. Took 10 minutes.

(Yes, it's peeling. She's been picking at it. I'll give it a new skin soon and have a chat with her.)

Annabelle's toys are all right here, in this one drawer which slides out from under the dinette seat.

Occasionally, when I need Annabelle up off the floor, I strap her into the seat belt on the couch and hand her toys. This spares us the need to have extra bouncy seats or baby saucers taking up space.

When we are outside, Annabelle is usually in the stroller or playpen.

She even slept in it one afternoon before I set up the monitor.

Our medicine cabinet was the final bit of organization, complete today. Stacking storage containers are a great solution for limited cabinet space...

Stay tuned for more inside photos, plus, RV life from the male perspective.