Long Weekend with Baby?

[Nik Pal]

J and I have birthdays 4 days apart, so we took off those 4 days. For the past several years we've done this and had a little getaway to celebrate, but now we have M, who is 8.5 months old now. I'm not ready to leave her for a weekend yet, since she's BF and doesn't do great with bottles. I'm trying to figure out what we can do with her, but the combination of cold weather and her being so small rules a lot of things out. Any ideas for getaways/activities that are fun with a little one? We are considering visiting family nearby so we can get a couple dates in, but visiting family doesn't really feel like a getaway, particularly so close to the holidays. In the past we went to the movies a lot because Oscar nominees would be announced around that time. This is starting to feel a little rambly, but ideas would be appreciated.

[mooncharm]

We spent a night in a hotel for our anniversary in a not-so-expensive city where we could get a suite with a door that closed, so we'd have space for LO. We spent some time in the hotel at the pool, and went into town to coffee shops, restaurants, etc. Bundled up it's not so bad, but definitely tougher to go out.

[ellebeedub]

I hate this term, but could you do a little "staycation?" Play tourist in your own city, walk around downtown, find the best bakery, then get a baby sitter for a night or two out? If you use a carrier or wrap, it's not too difficult to keep her warm while you walk around.

[awful]

What's your budget like? How far are you willing to go? We took DS to the gulf around that age and had an awesome time (it was within driving distance of us). I think that age is perfect to do pretty much anything vacation-wise as long as it doesn't require you to be quiet.

[Nik Pal]

Sadly, I don't think our budget will allow us to get anywhere warm. M doesn't do well in the car past 4 hours. I just talked to my SMIL, who we had contacted about visiting them, so now it looks like it's going to become a big tour of visiting family... Ah well, maybe we'll get a date night or two out of it.

[Nik Pal]

Also, now that it seems like we're just visiting a bunch of family, staycation sounds better and better... Probably not going to happen though.

[blondie]

Ask now about date nights.

[Nik Pal]

So just figured I'd update (probing this thread to the top?). J actually rented a house in the mountains that had an indoor pool just for us! We had a great time, and we didn't end up just visiting family the entire vacation. We were 25 minutes from my mom, so we were supposed to get a date night last night, but snow kept everyone inside, so we just had a chill night in. We did manage to meet up with my mom and stepfather this morning for breakfast. Overall, it was a great birthday trip for us. Traveling with a baby is definitely not the same, but we still had fun.

[TJ]

Indoor pool sounds awesome! Glad you had a good time. And yeah, traveling with babies is never the same.

[mooncharm]

glad you had fun!

[MapleMomma]

Sounds beautiful! Glad you had fun!