Six Months Old at a Richmond Airbnb
Major drama upon arrival to our first Airbnb with baby. Part 3 in an ongoing series.
Welcome to Carry On! Today, part 3 in an ongoing series of reviews for every hotel and Airbnb we stayed in during my daughter’s first year of life. Curious how lodging is set up to accommodate a baby and how we travel to new places with an infant?
For past editions, check out the links below. Today we take a six month old to her first Airbnb stay in Richmond, Virginia.
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The Basics
Who Went: Mom, dad, baby
Timing: Nov 2022
Child’s Age: Six months
Trip Location: Richmond, Virginia
Reason for Trip: For Mila to meet her great-grandmother and my high school friends. I lived in Virginia from ages 12-18.
Trip Length: Two nights.
Transportation: 1.5 hour flight from Nashville to Richmond on Allegiant Airlines (lap infant)
Lodging: this Airbnb. $163 / night, including all taxes.
Layout: Guesthouse with 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom. Open concept living room / kitchenette.
Food Status: Pumping, nursing & formula.
Bathroom Status: Diapers
Sleep Status: 3 naps per day. Overnight sleep 12 hours, including a dream feed
See the 0-6 month old packing list for links to everything we traveled with.
The Drama
You know the horror stories you hear about traveling with kids that make you think, “I could never subject myself to that”? Unfortunately, this is one of those.
In the photo above, my daughter is seen napping in her carrier upon arrival to our Airbnb in Richmond. Not entirely out of the ordinary.
What is unusual, however, is that she was napping in the carrier because she had no other place to sleep.
Allegiant Airlines lost our checked bag. We physically watched it go down the Oversized Luggage chute at the airport back in Nashville and yet, somehow, it did not arrive.
Making the situation more tragic, the bag in question was a car seat travel bag stuffed to hold our travel crib and SlumberPod, in addition to our car seat. We had gone under the radar and checked all of these items for free, which seemed like a win at the time.
As it turns out, the joke was on us. We arrived in Richmond but our car seat, travel crib and Slumberpod did not.
How does one leave an airport with a baby, without a car seat?
How will we put the baby to bed when there is no crib?
How will she stay asleep in the same room as us with no Slumberpod?!
Some thoughts that ran through my mind in the two hours spent crisis-managing at Richmond International Airport following our flight’s arrival.
I tend to maintain an open mind about traveling and rarely write off an airline, hotel conglomerate or city from one bad experience. But, I can promise you I will never again fly Allegiant Airlines with a small child.
After a long while trying to find someone to talk to (Allegiant doesn’t staff their check-in counters), we were given a car seat that the desk agent had handy (for lost luggage purposes? we’ll never know) and we were told to call a phone line to figure out the location of our items.
With this as the extent of the help we would receive, we departed the airport for our Airbnb.
This is where luck comes in. I was extremely fortunate to have a high school friend in town who saved the weekend - hi Madison!
By borrowing a travel crib and (phew!) a Slumberpod from a fellow mom who understood our plight, we miraculously recreated our standard sleep setup at the Airbnb just in time for bedtime.
For those who don’t have the luxury of a helpful friend in town and need last-minute gear in a new place, other options I considered were to:
Purchase an inexpensive version of the item at a local Walmart or Target and donate it afterwards. We did this for a pack & play in Miami when the crib provided by our Airbnb was not suitable.
Rent from a site like Babyquip.
Post on a travel-with-kids or local parent Facebook group and hope that someone in the ether would lend gear.
*This experience got me thinking. I have an idea to one day build a community of parent travelers around the world who can provide this kind of help to one another. When we all show up in new places and inevitably need help, gear, local advice - there would be a trusted resource to tap into. I imagine it allowing travel-loving parents to plug into a community of like-valued people at home and while on the road.
Stay tuned for the wild conclusion of the lost bag saga, below.
Now on to the Airbnb.
The Airbnb Setup
After staying in tiny hotel rooms with the baby in Nashville and Seattle, being in an Airbnb guesthouse felt extravagantly spacious.
The first choice we had to make: where to put the baby’s bed?
Originally, the living room seemed like the obvious choice. But if we put her there, it meant that after bedtime we would be confined to the bedroom to avoid waking her.
Instead, we chose to put the baby in the bedroom.
Though it meant we’d all sleep in the same room and it was admittedly a tight squeeze for the Slumberpod next to the bed, this gave us the freedom to enjoy the larger living room space and kitchenette after bedtime.
In most one-bedroom situations with a baby, I’d advocate for this setup.
While this Airbnb lacked the oven and stove of a proper kitchen, having a sink and counter space outside of the bathroom made bottle washing a significantly more manageable process.
Our many luggages were stored in the large, open living space which also provided a lovely setting for us to relax after the baby fell asleep.
With a busy two days to visit family and friends, and with this destination sandwiched between trips to Nashville and Maine, we valued the bit of quiet time in a well-designed environment.
As with every travel-with-baby experience I’ve had to date, the stress, the complications and the work to make it happen were well worth it for my daughter to spend time with the important people in our lives.
And, for me to share a piece of my pre-mom life with her.
If you’re wondering what happened to the missing bag…
After hours waiting on the phone that first night, I had given Allegiant my parents’ address in Maine (our next destination after Richmond) with absolutely zero expectation that our belongings would ever make it there.
Lo and behold, we went out for a walk after arriving in Maine the following week and there it was, sitting on a random boulder like a mirage.
Our overstuffed bag from Nashville, intended to arrive in Richmond, all items still inside, was ultimately left for us to find on the side of the dirt road leading to my parents’ home on a remote island in Maine.
Travel-with-kids miracles do happen.
New to Carry On? Check out the archive where most recently I wrote about Travel Gear for the First Year.
Thanks for reading!
p.s. you can always see all posts on the website