Traveling with the variable of naps is what made travel so different for us when traveling with a baby, versus all travel we did before.

With planning around a baby’s naps, it depends on the temperament and tendencies of your child. All babies will be different, so please keep that in mind when reading our suggestions here on how to manage travel with baby naps.

Plan driving during naps

From infanthood to toddlerhood, parents are always trying to plan car trips around nap time. It’s killing two birds with one stone!

Fist off, this is easier with a 3-nap or 2-nap schedule with children under 12, 13 or 14 months, in general (we found it more difficult on the 1-nap schedule, unless we dragged out the one nap of the day to the later side). If your child is attached to a stuffie or lovey for nap time, bring it, or a duplicate, for easing into sleep in the car seat. We’ve learned this the hard way, if we forget our child’s favorite bedtime buddy.

For newborns, there is not very much schedule, so it can help to keep them stimulated before the car trip or other transport, and then get them to sleep when you start moving.

Bring a travel sound machine (and check out this list of the best travel sound machines if you don’t have one yet!), or play radio music as ambient noise.

Planning flights around naps

This may be easier said than done, because flights can get delayed and because flight prices often dictate when families fly.

In a perfect world, planning to book a flight during your child’s nap of the day (or one of his/her naps) is ideal, especially if you’ll have a child in their own seat. If your child can nap on you and you’ve booked a lap infant “seat,” then that works, too.

Two ways to get a baby to nap during a flight if it’s nap time are:

  • Bring a baby carrier and walk in the aisles to ease into sleep, before sitting down with your child still in the carrier. Then, loosen the straps while they sleep.
  • Or, create your child’s nap environment at their seat in their car seat, with a sound machine, stuffed animal and some shade from the light. We recommend having a light muslin blanket in your diaper bag for this purpose.

Plan activities around naps

When we traveled with our 7-month-old, we broke our day into naps and non-nap time: we planned to drive or be hiking with our baby carrier at nap time, and planned activities for awake time, to maximize how we could enjoy our destination.

This was on a three-nap schedule, and it worked out well for us mostly without a hitch! This was partially because our baby’s naps were around 30-40 minutes, and we could predict them fairly well.

If your baby has predictable naps, use them to your advantage for vacation schedule planning. Of course, if your baby at their current age can’t be predicted at all, go with the flow.

Plan to be at your accommodation for nap time

This mostly goes for the two-nap and one-nap day. If your child takes one or two naps only, toward 12 months and beyond, you may want those naps to be “good naps,” so that your infant is refreshed and ready for meals and play.

Some quick napping tips about being at your accommodation are:

  • If your infant is napping well in a crib, plan to be back at your accommodation every day for nap time.
  • During this time, parents can relax, or plan the next activity; or, make meals, eat takeout from restaurants or rest!
  • The only thing we felt regret about was if our daughter took a LONG nap, we loved that for her, but we also felt like we were missing out on “vacation” time. :-(
  • If your baby naps independently in your hotel room or Airbnb, one parent can go out and enjoy themself, and then take turns.
  • If the entire family is sharing a single hotel room, consider using your SlumberPod bedtime tent for naps, too.