Travel Tips: Addendum for Avoiding Failure

So when I wrote about how successful we'd been with get Pippi to sleep in hotel cribs, evidently I missed one critical step. Pay close attention now, because it seems there was a fatal flaw in my plan.

When you reserve your hotel room and request the crib, you have to specify that by "crib" you mean an actual crib. Not a pack-n-play. 

Because apparently, if you don't clarify that seemingly obvious but critically important detail, you might get a pack-n-play.

And when you get to your hotel room with two tired kids and your exhausted selves and the hotel desk clerk brings you a pack-n-play, your husband will have to politely but very firmly explain to the bewildered clerk why that pack-n-play is completely unacceptable.

Then said clerk will desperately call other hotels in the area asking to borrow an actual crib and your husband will have to drive to a nearby hotel to pick up the crib because the clerk is the only person working at the hotel and can't leave.

And you'll be disappointed all over again when your husband calls from the car to say that the other hotel thought they had a crib, but turns out they only have pack-n-plays, too.

So you'll cram your almost-three-year-old into the pack-n-play, where she can't stretch out all the way because she's longer than the available space. You'll explain to her that it's not a good idea to keep climbing out and then jumping back in from the bed. And you'll cross your fingers that maybe you'll all get two or three hours of sleep before she climbs out and refuses to sleep any more.

If you know anyone at Marriott, please teach them the difference between a crib and a pack-n-play.

And say a prayer, y'all. It's going to be a long night.

Image borrowed from Traveling Baby Company, which seems like a great idea if they're where you are.
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