One for the Road

We're going to be spending a couple of weeks on the beach this summer -- one at the Jersey shore with my family and one in SoCal with Mr. Stewgler's family. So we're packing up the surfboards and the sunscreen and heading for the sand. Sometimes the best thing about living in New York is seeing the skyline in your rear-view mirror.

These will be our first vacations with the bambina so there are a few things we need to work out. Sleeping arrangements have proven a cinch -- for Jersey we borrowed a pack-n-play & the Cali rental can provide a crib. We'll make room for the fancy stroller when we pack the car for NJ & we're hoping that one of the west coast relatives can loan us a stroller since we don't want to bring ours on the plane (we borrowed an umbrella stroller just in case). The biggest issue is proving to be all of the food paraphernalia.

In the grand pro/con list of bottle vs. breast feeding, the big con is bottle prep. Sure, "breast is best" but the real reason you should breast feed is because preparing bottles is a huge pain in the ass. You have to wash them and boil them and prepare boiled water to fill them with. Oh, and breast milk... it's free, whereas formula costs $25-30 a can (which lasts a week).

So far, we've had two scenarios when we've left town. 1. We've gone to visit my parents where there's this amazing thing called the dishwasher (and a grandmother) that does the washing and sterilizing for you. 2. We've gone to a wedding in the Catskills where we didn't have access to anything but a bed and a bathroom. For the former, we just took all of our bottle stuff along. For the latter, we bought pre-filled, no-refrigeration-needed bottles and the lousy nipples that fit on them.

I'm feeling like these beach vacations will test my bottle skills. In NYC, we own seven glass bottles (Dr. Brown's and Born Free) -- and we're constantly juggling the nipples, rings & vent parts that go with them. Yes we'll have a dishwasher in our beach rentals, but do I really want to cart all of this crap to California?

So here are my questions for all of the moms out there. How do you handle bottle feeding on the road? Any thoughts about Playtex nursers as a possible work-around?

Help!