I survived a week at the beach with days lasting 10 hrs to 5hrs

Ok I'm not crazy, hubby just loves the beach and we live 7 hrs from one in Texas. This past week I spent almost a whole week at the beach with hubby and almost 8 month old.

Here's what kept me from going crazy and the baby happy for those who want to give an all day beach trip a try.

First of all get a cooler that has big wheels and fill it with water, lunch and possibly dinner ( sandwiches for lunch and cold pizza or other items for dinner). I froze half the water bottles which kept the cooler cold all day and I didn't have the ice melted puddle to deal with.

A tent... we got a second hand one, but any tent would work... make sure it goes up and down fast if weather gets bad or baby has melt down. We also had an umbrella but it often went inside out with the high winds and was a pain to set up!!

Breastfeed every hour if it's in the 90s like it was in Corpus Cristi Texas... or at least offer milk/ water( no more than 4oz of water or atleast give more milk than water) . If you plan on sipy cups use them the week before so baby can get used to using them... if you put ice cubes in them it becomes a toy too!

UV hat with straps to prevent the loss of hats in the ocean breeze plus sun screen and baby hair don't mix easily... don't forget your hat too!

UV shirts for your baby keep their skin protected all day and save on sun screen too! Try to bring two shirts if you can so one can completely dry out and isn't wet since putting on a wet shirt is a struggle.

Sunscreen is a must but test them out before the trip to make sure your baby's skin isn't going to react to it... I used baby copper tone 50, it says it's good for 80 minutes but I still put on every hr and make sure you put some around the diaper and some under the shirt for baby since clothes do move and getting a tiny back burn in baby will really bother them.

Towels... they are a must to keep sand out of baby's eyes and face especially when starting to crawl. I brought 6 ... two for tent, one for drying each person (3) and one extra for car.

Baby powder... it really does work well to remove sand, but works even better if you fill a sock in advance... learned the hard way when I got powder blown in face from the container!! Put the sock in a zip bag or it will get everywhere.

Beach chairs since breastfeeding baby on sand isn't comfortable! Baby probably will not sit on their own in one but can be used as a photo opportunity!

Sun glasses... baby will either love them or rip them off their face. I had to put them on my baby at least a month before to help her get used to them and they just look so cute in photos!

Almost forgot... water diapers for swimming and regular diapers for not swimming since swim diapers only hold poop not pee!!! Learned the hard way with a warm lap. I usually do cloth diapers but sand and cloth don't mix well so I used disposable water and regular diapers. I did use a cloth reusable water diaper but found it hard to keep sand out of them.

Extras that I loved but could do without if it's going to be less than 3 hrs at beach:

Blow up beach pool and a beach rolling cart... dragging stuff down to beach is some much easier when carrying baby. I also purchased a travel organizer which I stored mainly sunscreen in since I hate when sand gets in the lids of them! You can see I used the cart to hand the organizer so hubby found and helped put sunscreen on baby.

I brought an air pump and should have gotten a pool that was smaller mine was 5ft wide and took the pump 5 minutes to set up plus time to bring sea water to it( so set up near the water I made the mistake of setting it up further away and bringing buckets ( bring a decent size one... I reused a kitty litter box that held the beach sand toys in it to fill the pool).

Beach toys that the baby will probably chew on more than play with!! But getting then did help plus when they are older you have them( I tried to buy mine the year before on sale when Walmart put them on clearance) . Bath toys also work well at the beach if they are plastic ( cloth and sand is a no mix) .

I didn't bring but wished I did: twin fitted sheet... I saw several moms at the beach using them to keep sand out and make a makeshift play pen for crawling babies! Plus the sheet folds up so small for travel.

Plaster and Paris ( powder not premise paste)...I know it sounds strange but look what I made...

Ok this isn't my picture but the feet turned out so good and the hands were impossible since my almost 8 month old tried to grab and eat the sand... I also used a big cup (I threw it away after) and a plastic spoon. I also put shells I found on the back of the foot print.

Beach photo hints:

Bring more than one camera of phones to take photos through out the day... evening and early morning photos turned out the best... here's a few of my favorite:

Mom and dad holding baby at dusk

Sun rise sea turtle release

Beach towel poses

Shadow pictures

Sun rise with daddy

Beach chair photos

First time touching wet sand and water

Ok I didn't take them next few photos but it's because I forgot to:

Didn't do any naked pictures since I was afraid of the baby getting irritated by sand on her bottom, but I love the way those pictures look online.

Hope this helps your beach trip!!