Staying at a Hotel with a Baby: 16 Tips for a Stress-Free Trip

Staying at a hotel with a baby is one of those things that sounds straightforward until you’re actually doing it. You arrive with a mountain of gear, possibly jet-lagged, in a room with thin walls and none of the setup you’ve carefully built at home. It’s a lot.

We took our children on several trips during their first year, all in hotels, and we learned a lot along the way. A trip with a baby will usually go just fine. Not always perfectly, because kids are unpredictable and some nights are just hard. But here’s what we’ve learned:

1. Book a suite if possible

I know it’s often not in your budget to upgrade your room to a suite.  However, if you can swing it, a suite makes life a lot easier.

If nothing else, it provides much-needed space.  It never seems to matter how we pack or set up the room, it always looks like a bomb went off within 15 minutes of arriving, and never gets better.  A suite at least gives you the extra space to spread out. 

Another benefit of a suite is providing your baby with a sleeping location further away from others in the room. 

Especially if your baby is used to sleeping in their own room, sharing a small hotel room can make it difficult for anyone to get a good night’s sleep as you keep waking each other up. 

Having a suite with a door dividing the two parts is the golden lottery ticket.  However, just having the room broken up into two areas helps a lot too. 

When you’re staying in a hotel with a baby and traveling, you likely have full days planned, so it’s important for everyone to sleep well when you have the chance.

Depending on where you are traveling to, it may be difficult to get a larger room. If you are heading to Disney, check out these options for large families which can also be used to give you more space with a baby.

2. Request a crib ahead of time

Do hotels have cribs? If you ever found yourself wondering, the resounding answer is YES! Hotels have cribs or pack n plays that you can request for your room.

It’s smart to do so because it’s one less thing you need to bring with you. But you can still bring out our own sheets though, if that’s what you prefer.

However, don’t wait until you get there to book it! Julie learned the hard way during her first trip that you have to call ahead and have them add a note to your reservation that you need a pack-n-play.

The first time we traveled with our son, we got to the hotel really late because of flight delays. I knew that the hotel had pack-n-plays, so we didn’t bring one with us.

However, I hadn’t actually requested it prior to check-in. Because we checked in so late, the only people there didn’t have access to the room where the pack-n-plays were stored. Therefore, our son ended up sleeping on a blanket on the floor.

This was horribly stressful for me and I didn’t sleep a whole lot. I have called ahead of time since and never had a problem.

Sometimes the pack-n-play is already in the room when we arrive, and other times I have to remind them at check-in, but they always have someone that can bring it right up.

– Julie from My Favorite Job Title is Mom

When you’re sharing your hotel room with your baby, some babies might be more comfortable in a sleeping place they already know. In this case, bringing your own travel crib or portable bassinet is a good idea.

There are some compact and lightweight models on the market that even make taking them on a plane possible.

Another option is bed-sharing with your baby in the hotel room (make sure to follow the steps for safe bedsharing though!!). We also do this at home, so it’s a no-brainer that the baby will sleep in our bed on vacation. But I don’t want them falling out of the bed, so that brings me to the next point:

3. Rearrange the furniture

The first thing you should do when you get to your hotel room is to rearrange the furniture. Hotel rooms are definitely not set up to be compatible with kids. The furniture is also arranged in a way to take up about as much floor space as possible.

Start by condensing as much of the furniture as possible. Push tables together put chairs under tables and squish the furniture in whatever way gives you the most space.

Plan out your “stations” in the room. You will want a play area, food station, changing station, sleeping station, and storage area.

By thinking about these as you are organizing the room, you can maximize the flow of the space to make things a little easier.

Something to consider is where to put the pack-n-play, if your little one is going to be sleeping in that. Ideally, you want the area that is the darkest and furthest from the rest of the family’s stuff.

If you can find a nice corner to tuck the pack n play into, that usually works best. Ideally, you want to be able to move around a little without waking up the baby.

If you are bed-sharers like we are, push the bed against a wall. This way, Baby can sleep safely on the side of the wall – meaning they can’t fall out, nor do they need to sleep in between you and your partner (which is less safe).

But also, sometimes, things just don’t work out the way you want them to. As you can see in the pics below, this hotel room (well, it was a 2-bedroom bungalow technically) was tiiiiny with just a double bed and built-in closets around. That was a problem for us, because we couldn’t push the bed against the wall. And with a 6-month-old, we really didn’t want to risk them falling out of the bed!

So we ended up putting our suitcases at the side of the bed; added pillows from the couch and slept in the wrong direction. That way, we had 2 meter to share with the three of us and Baby could sleep on the closet side or in the middle.

It’s wasn’t the best sleep in the world, but we made it work.

4. Bring a white noise machine

Staying in a hotel with a baby almost always comes with more noise than at home. Whatever you can do to block out the noise of other people in your room and in the hallway is a plus. 

I love the Yogasleep Rohm Portable White Noise Machine that we take with us on every trip. You can hang it on the side of the pack-n-play, which helps to keep your baby in their own little world. 

Don’t forget to also bring the Iron Forge Cable extension cord in case your baby’s sleeping spot isn’t right by an outlet. 

Alternatively, if you’re worried about adding extra weight, you can download a white noise app on your phone.

5. Consider what needs childproofing

If you have a young baby that isn’t mobile, this isn’t a big deal.  However, for an older baby, a hotel room is a giant playroom with all kinds of new toys. 

Consider hiding cords, pushing things to the back of end tables, and putting trash cans and table lamps on top of tables so they are out of reach. 

If your child happens to be into playing with outlets, it may not be a bad idea to travel with a bag of Mommy’s Helper Outlet Plugs to use in the hotel room (make sure to order the right one for the country you’ll be visiting!).

6. Choose a room with a fridge

With a baby, there is almost always a reason why a fridge is useful.  Maybe you are pumping and need to store breast milk, maybe you have an older baby that’s drinking milk, or you just need to keep some snacks cold. 

Most nice hotel rooms are going to have a fridge. However, this isn’t absolute.  If you are breastfeeding and need a place to store pumped milk, definitely call ahead and request that they put a fridge into the room if there isn’t already one. 

Most hotels have at least a couple they can put in if a guest specifically needs it for health (or breastfeeding) reasons.

7. Feeding your baby at the hotel

Here’s something that worries a lot of first-time travelling parents more than it needs to: feeding the baby.

The reality is that hotels and restaurants are well practiced at this. Staff are almost always happy to mash something up, warm a pouch, or put together a simple plate. People everywhere have babies, and most will go above and beyond without you even having to ask twice.

That said, a hotel with a continental breakfast makes things noticeably easier, especially in the mornings. Bananas, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs: these are all common breakfast staples that work well for babies over six months, whether you’re doing purees or baby-led weaning.

And if you have the chance to book a hotel that has an in-house restaurant, go for it. It’s heavenly not to get everyone ready again for a trip in search of food; you simply walk down and get seated. And in the worst-case scenario, if your little one is having a really hard time and you’re not on this trip as a single parent, you and your partner can take turns to grab something to eat (yes, I’m definitely speaking from experience — our daughter wasn’t necessarily having a hard time, but at age 3 she was asleep by 17:30h each night).

8. Request a first-floor room

We don’t always do this, but it can be helpful. Having a first-floor room means you don’t have to drag baby and all the stuff that comes with said baby up and down the stairs or elevator. 

This little detail can be helpful when you are tired after a long day.

On the other hand, I’m a total sucker for nice views and you typically find them high up. So you do you.

9. Consider a king-sized bed

If you don’t have a reason you specifically need two beds, opt for a King room.  The single king bed gives you a little more floor space, and when traveling with a baby, every little bit counts.

Also, cuddling and playing on a large bed is much easier and safer than on a single one.

And if you’re co-sleeping, you’ll always want a double bed rather than 2 singles, just to have a bit more moving space.

10. Bring swimming stuff

When traveling, it’s really easy to go an entire day with very little time where your baby actually gets a chance to regulate all the stimulations they’ve been getting all day. This can make for a cranky child that doesn’t want to sleep. 

If the hotel has a pool, this can be a great way to spend some 1-on-1 time with your baby.  Bring a swimsuit and a reusable swimming diaper (or Disposable Swim Diapers) as well as swimming stuff for you. 

The water in the pool is a great way to help your baby decompress after a long and tiring day.

Tip: a bath or shower has the same effect if your hotel doesn’t come with a pool.

11. Keep to the bedtime routine

You may want to put Baby to bed before you go to bed, and I bet you have a perfect bedtime routine that you plan to use in the hotel as well. 

However, don’t forget to adapt your bedtime routine to suit your baby. This means getting yourself organized so that you know where everything you need is and don’t need to turn on lights outside the bathroom after you put your baby to bed. 

The last thing you want is to just get your baby to sleep and then realize you can’t find something and end up waking the baby up looking for it.

Babies typically aren’t that picky yet when it comes to sleeping during the day, so I’d say just put them in the baby carrier and go. However, there are some little ones that require more of a routine, especially when they’re slightly older. In that case, plan your outings around Baby’s naps.

If you’re worried about the light in the hotel room for daytime naps, bring a black-out curtain (this is the same one we have. We still bring it on trips because we’re all sensitive to early morning light).

12. Set the air conditioning fan to run constantly

This can provide some background noise to cancel out the noise from other hotel guests (and you). You just need to make sure the temperature is set appropriately (not too cold!).

Most hotels have an option where you can set the temperature but also set the fan to run consistently to cycle room temperature air.

13. Plan for nighttime crying

No one likes to be in a room that’s so loud it’s waking up everyone on the floor, and a crying baby can certainly do that. 

However, there’s a big difference between being loud because your baby is crying and being loud because you are up partying and just generally being obnoxious. 

If your baby wakes up crying during the night, handle it similarly to how you would at home. Remember that being on a trip, is exciting for your baby as well, even though they’re still so small.

And don’t forget that the majority of the people in the hotel are going to have kids, so they know what it’s like when your baby won’t sleep.  Do your best and know that rough nights may be part of travelling, especially if there are major time changes involved.  

This is why you set up your room to make it as easy as possible to find necessary supplies quickly in the dark.

14. Consider renting baby equipment

At home, you probably have a rhythm that works. On the road, the key is figuring out which parts of that rhythm travel well.

For us, a baby carrier and breastfeeding meant we never needed much else. The carrier kept our hands free, settled the baby quickly, and meant we weren’t hauling extra gear through airports.

That said, if your baby relies on a swing or bouncer at home, being without it in a hotel room is genuinely tough.

Renting baby equipment is a real option worth knowing about.

Renting baby equipment can be just the solution to having these items while traveling. Companies like Baby Quip and Travel Mamas let you hire items like swings, bouncers, and play gyms delivered directly to your hotel, which can make a big difference for a longer stay.

We’ve never personally rented baby equipment (as we prefer to move locations frequently) but I’ve heard many positive reviews from mums that have. 

15. Splurge for a kitchenette

When you travel with a baby, you will find yourself washing bottles and sippy cups. If the only place you have to wash these is in the bathroom sink, it gets old real fast.

Having a kitchenette gives you an extra sink and a place to spread out things you’ve washed while they dry.

If your baby is old enough to eat solids, that kitchenette will come in pretty handy too when preparing (pureed) vegetables and fruit. Food, when you travel, can get expensive quickly, especially when you are feeding the whole family.

You can also save a lot of money by preparing some meals in the room, which balances out the cost of getting the room in the first place. Also, meals out with a cranky and tired baby/toddler are draining.

After a long day, it can be nice to just eat in your room. Obviously, you can also order some take-away, but that’s usually not the most healthy option either.

16. Pack everything but don’t freak out if you forgot something

When you are only gone for a couple of days, you can survive the stress of not having something. 

However, for longer trips, it can get rough if you find you didn’t bring something because you weren’t sure if you really needed it. 

But, don’t worry if you realize you did forget something. Unless you’re travelling to Cuba with kids, you’ll be able to buy what you forgot (although you might have to settle for an option you otherwise wouldn’t pick).

Ready to go?

Traveling with a baby is one of those things that feels overwhelming before you do it and surprisingly doable once you’re in it.

Yes, you’ll pack too much, the room will look like chaos within minutes, and there may be a rough night or two. But babies are more adaptable than we give them credit for, and so are we.

With a bit of preparation and the right expectations going in, most trips go just fine. And every trip you take, you’ll feel a little more confident doing it.