I haven’t blogged many personal posts since having Payton because it is hard to find the time! However, I wanted to blog our family trip to Rehoboth Beach because there were too many cute pics to share. And I thought it could be helpful to share what worked or us as far as taking Payton to the beach!

We stayed in Rehoboth at an awesome 1-bedroom Airbnb. It was half the cost of a hotel AND we were able to have a kitchen, family room, washer/dryer, and access to a pool down the street. I am sold on Airbnb’s and can’t get enough of them! One day we realized we were out of a few household things so I emailed the host and he dropped off two bags of what we needed a few hours later. Yay to the superhosts out there! If you are a family traveling to the beach and enjoy cooking while you are away, an Airbnb is the perfect option.

While we were there we went to both Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach. Our family normally always goes to Bethany because the beaches are a little less crowded and feel more family friendly! It was nice to have a different place to go, and Payton napped in the car on the way to Bethany. We did like staying in Rehoboth because it is a short walk to downtown with the shops and restaurants and the outlets are close by! One night we walked to get ice cream after dinner and it was wonderful. We also walked to the beach at golden hour to take pictures one night. Gotta love self-timer with the camera sitting on the lifeguard chair!

I knew I wanted to take a few cute pictures at the beach with my camera, but I didn’t want to have it with me during the entire trip. It felt like the perfect balance of iPhone pictures in the moment and a few cute ones with the nice camera! It is tough to not want to take nice pictures of everything, but part of vacation for me needed to be taking a break from the camera.

It was wonderful to be together just the three of us. Taking off work and spending quality time as a family is very important to us. Making sweet memories together!!

Here are a few tips about taking a baby to the beach!

• Get a small tent. This was the best thing we bought to have at the beach. We got this beach tent from amazon and it was a lifesaver. It was very easy to set up, it twists and folds up so you don’t have a bunch of pieces. Payton wouldn’t have been able to nap without it! It was the perfect amount of shady space for her to play in and sleep.

• Speaking of naps, these fans were AMAZING! They are cheap and battery operated so you can take them anywhere. It was nice that the tent had an opening, but it was still warm because it was summertime. We pointed the fans at her while she was napping and it worked out perfectly.

• A beach hat. Payton wore her little hat the entire time we were at the beach. It is very bright so it helped to have a little shade on her face from the hat. Get the kind that has a Velcro so that it doesn’t fly off in the wind!

• Baby sunglasses. I bought two pairs of sunglasses for Pay Pay but honestly they were just for pics! But then on the last day I put them on her because it was so bright and it helped her see a little better. It was a great purchase! I got the pineapple pair from Carters and the pink pair from H&M.

• Baby sunscreen. Our pediatrician told us that even though the sunscreen bottles say not to use sunscreen on a baby younger than 6 months, you should. The reason the bottle says that is because they aren’t able to do testing on babies under 6 months. We slathered the sunscreen on her every few hours, especially because she has such fair skin! We used this Aveeno baby sunscreen and it worked great. She didn’t get burned the whole week.

• Toys/Something for your baby to sit in depending on their age. We brought the Bumbo to the beach and it was great! She didn’t like laying down all the time so it was nice to have something for her to sit in that was easy to carry. I also brought toys that could get wet for her to play with.

• Payton was 6 months old on this trip and a little too small to play with beach toys. However, I did buy these collapsable buckets that she liked to splash water in. It definitely cooled her off! We normally went to the beach in the afternoon so she could have a good morning nap and we could eat lunch at home. It is also much cooler in the late afternoon and less crowded!

• Extra onesie/clothes. We changed her around 3 times each day that we were at the beach! The bathing suit can be hard to get on and off so we started Payton off in a normal outfit, then after we changed her diaper a few hours later we would put her in a swim diaper and her bathing suit. Then before we went home we put her in a onesie so that her wet bathing suit wouldn’t get the carseat all wet/sandy.

Hopefully this was helpful! Now onto the adorable pics!