Beach Trips with Kids
I never appreciated heading to the beach with nothing but a towel and a book like I should have. Going to the beach with kids can be absolutely exhausting, long gone are the days you simply lay on your towel or go for a surf together. Now it's a morning of preparing snacks and packing the car, wrangling the kids and chasing them to apply sunscreen, getting there and tag teaming like a dodgeball team, then hoping to god that you've tired them out enough to earn a decent nap out of them, so you can recuperate to take on the afternoon. Now with 100+ trips to the beach with kids in tow, I think Clay and I have got it down pat (although it still absolutely goes pear shaped some days!) so I've put together this blog post as we approach summer!
If you'd like a play by play of exactly what we take to the beach and how we do it, I created a vlog last year about our beach trips and what we pack with 2 kids in tow. It's still relevant today, even though both girls are nearly 12 months older. It shows how I would get Lola to have her morning nap in the cart, which was so incredibly helpful for us.
What we pack:
- Beach mat
- Towels
- Beach umbrella
- Toys
- Water bottles
- Food – fruit & muesli bars
- Sunscreen
- GoPro
Where is your beach cart from?" started to become an ongoing joke between me and my community. No matter how many times I answered this question, I was asked relentlessly to the point people started taunting me with it. Real funny guys haha! A beach cart is a must in our eyes, it allows you to get from the car to the beach without carrying 7234 loose items. Clay found ours online while looking for one that was suitable for us; it folds down, is light weight and has nice thick sand proof wheels.
Our cart is by a brand called Sandusky Lee, and it’s their Heavy Duty Folding Wagon – link here. Doing a quick search online, it looks like you can still find it in various stores online.
What we love about our cart:
- It easily folds up small to fit in our boot
- When Lola was 6-10 months old, it could double as a cot for her to nap in at the beach
- The large tyres that glide over the sand rather than sinking in
- Simple design, although the handles and wheels came bright orange and Clay just coated it white
- How little space it takes up in our boot and garage
- Low maintenance - the sand falls right out of the holes along the edges of the material
Over 3 years of having our cart, we’re grateful for it and have used it endlessly.
Being in the ocean and playing on the sand, is our family's happy place. You'll find us building sandcastles and jumping in the water most weekends of the warmer months and we are so grateful to live on the beautiful Gold Coast. I hope this blog was helpful to you, if so, please let me know by leaving a comment here or on my instagram (@reviejane) and if you think your fellow mama mates could learn some tips from it, please share it with them!
Love,
Revie xx
