How to Pack for Mom
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How do you pack for mom?
By Guest Writer Darlene Perry
Updated: September 19, 2022
Packing for Mom
When we are in the tumult of packing for a family trip either for camping or on the road staying in hotels, it seems like Mom gets the short end of the stick for space and time. As a mother, you worry more about whether you remembered to pack the children’s swimsuit or children’s Tylenol than your own needed apparel. You may even be extremely limited on space for your own clothing. So, let’s take the time and talk about how to pack for mom!
Before you stress, there are several solutions that will enable you to pack more efficiently and get the most use out of what you bring on your trip. For the purpose of this article, let’s assume you have packed for the rest of the family.
Things to consider when packing clothing for mom:
1. What to pack.
– Destination/weather/activities
– Color Coordination
– Multi Purpose Items
2. How to pack it.
What to Pack for Mom
Sometimes it’s difficult to focus on yourself when your a mom! When getting ready for a family vacation, make sure to take the time to thoughtfully pack clothes that you are excited about! By using the methods discussed below, you can stretch your travel wardrobe for the duration of your trip and feel great while doing it!
Quick Tips
- Make a list for all non-standard items needed
- Break down your list into two parts: To Buy and To Pack
- Designate a room in your house for packing the entire week before your trip
- Layering while Traveling with Kids
- Scarves for Travel with a Baby
- You can always do laundry on your trip! Try not to stress fitting everything for the entire trip.
- These tips can be used while packing for dad or any other family member!
Destination
So, you’ve picked out the perfect destination for your family trip! The first step when packing for mom is to determine what your needs are based on your destination. For example, are you camping in the desert or in the Rocky Mountains? Are you going on a cruise to the Caribbean or Alaska? Maybe you are visiting seven European cities in seven days? Where you are going plays a huge roll in what to pack for mom!
When travelling to primarily outdoor destinations, like the mountains, you will want to pack warm layers and generally casual clothing. If travelling on a cruise, you will want to pack a combination of casual and dressier clothing in addition to swimwear. When packing for mom, consider where you are going first and foremost.
Weather
Knowing what season and the general temperatures/precipitation for the area you are travelling to helps. We use Weather Spark for general weather information when travelling domestic or abroad. Weather can be tricky to plan for when packing for mom or anyone in your family! In order to combat the stress of trying to predict the weather, it’s best to pack clothing that can be layered and worn separately.
An example of a layered outfit fit for any weather:
– Jeans
– T-Shirt
– Fleece
– Packable Rain Coat
– Travel Scarf
– Waterproof light hikers
These items can be worn all together for cooler weather or the jeans and t-shirt can be worn alone for warmer weather. We carry packable rain jackets (like these) on every trip we take. If you are heading to a particularly rainy place, you can add rain pants (like this) to your daypack.
The Kid Packer motto for packing is efficiency, pack no more or no less than you need. What time of year you are going and what will weather conditions be during your visit? Even then, you will need to pack with weather changeability in mind. As we learned in Girl Scouts, “always be prepared.”
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Activities
So, how do activities planned apply to how to pack for mom?
Once you have your destination and weather in mind, you need to make a note of all the activities you will be doing during your trip so that you can pack the clothing, shoes, and accessories that you will require. For example, if you are going to a resort that has tennis courts and you plan to play a set, do you need specific clothing for the game or can you substitute something that you can wear for another outing? Think efficiency; think using an item for more than one activity. In the example of playing tennis, can you use your light hikers and hiking clothes?
Color Coordination
One of the best ways to make the most of your packing space is to color coordinate your wardrobe. Narrow down the color choices of your apparel and accessories to no more than four colors. You can choose any colors you wish if they go together. For our purposes let’s choose navy, light blue, black, and white as your wardrobe color scheme. That means that you would not choose any other colors from your home wardrobe to pack for your trip. Why would you want to limit yourself to packing only four colors you may ask? Well, for efficiency.
When every item of your packing list matches you can make many more outfits and make more use of your wears. For instance, pack one short sleeve and one 3/4th sleeved white cotton top and you can mix and match them with navy or black bottoms and make several outfits for different activities. Add a navy sweater or light navy jacket that you can mix, and match and truly see how versatile a limited scheme travel wardrobe is. Every item you pack needs to go with everything else to stretch your available space to the max. A navy or black hiking skort is a good choice because you can also wear it as a tennis skirt or dress it up with a casual top and wear it to a restaurant. Bring a pair of black jeans or black ponte knit pants and you can dress them up with a nice blouse or sweater to wear out in the city or dress them down with a hiking shirt to walk the dusty streets of a small village. The idea is to make as many outfits as you can with the smallest amount of clothing.
Before choosing your color scheme, consider taking a look at Pretty Your World to determine what colors look best on you. This site uses color systems to determine which season your personal coloring pairs with. This will then help you determine which colors to wear and not to wear either while on vacation or at home! Once you’ve figured out what colors to wear, take a look at The Vivian Files for ideas on what to pack in that color scheme and how to pair them.
Multi-Purpose Items
There are some specific items you can pack for mom for the most efficient travel wardrobe. When purchasing your layering pieces, stick with neutrals that go with most of your wardrobe.
Scarves are an excellent item to include wherever you go. A light woven scarf (like this) packed for a warm weather trip that coordinates with your four-color palette can be used in many ways including as a pareo at the pool, a shawl in a cold restaurant, a headscarf at the beach or in religious setting, a nursing cover, or just as a scarf to protect your neck from the sun. On a cold weather trip, a large scarf or a woolen shawl can be used as a ready blanket as well. The Kid Packer wrote an entire article on travel scarves that you can find here: Scarves for Travel with a Baby.
A packable sun hat (like this one from Wallarroo) can be used in all your activities from hiking to the beach and you can stuff it in your purse when not in use.
Fleece sweaters (like this) are just the right weight for layering or worn alone.
Packable rain coats (like this) are perfect to layer over a fleece or worn as alone.
A fleece, scarf and rain coat can be worn separately or together to make a winter ensemble that protects against high winds and is waterproof.
Terrycloth beach coverups (like this) can do double duty as a bathrobe.
Thermal underwear (like this) can also be used as pajamas.
Now that you have your clothing items picked out, what are the perfect shoes to pack for mom? For a cool weather trip, the perfect combination is a waterproof light hiker (like these) and a neutral ballet flat (like these). For warm weather travel, waterproof light hikers, inexpensive flip flops (like these) and neutral ballet flats should cover most scenarios.
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How to Pack for Mom
Once you have put together your perfect color coordinated wardrobe for your specific destination, how do you organize it and fit it into your luggage?
The secret is utilizing packing cubes. Packing cubes are fabric zippered pouches in different sizes used to organize your suite case. That sounds simple, but they are magic. Now if you prefer to just toss everything in and hope you can find what you are looking for, go for it–packing cubes are not for you. However, if you are like me and you must have everything organized neatly and you know where every item is–then packing cubes are exactly what you need. There are a myriad of packing cubes on the market in every price point, but they basically serve the same purpose. You can purchase packing cubes here.
Summary - How to Pack for Mom
Once you incorporate these methods; color coordination, multi-purpose items, cube organization and have considered the destination, weather and activities for your trip, you are ready to pack for mom! You will also wonder why you haven’t packed this way your entire life once you get the hang out it!
Reducing the stress of family travel by having a packing system for mom helps everyone (especially mom!) enjoy their trip so much more! Being organized and knowing that everything you have packed goes together reduces the amount of time spent in the hotel putting outfits together and looking for things.
So, once you are all packed up, get out there and explore our world as a family!
Guest Writer Darlene Perry
Darlene Perry is a family member of The Kid Packer team and is an excellent resource for understanding color palettes and utilizing them to their fullest while home or on the road. Keep an eye out for future articles from Darlene!
About The Kid Packer
Here at The Kid Packer, we want to help you live your best life. A great baby backpack child carrier can help you do just that. After having used a child carrier backpack for over 1,500 miles of adventuring and exploring, we have a passion for them and know what makes a great pack that both you and your child will love. We hope our comprehensive research allows you to confidently find the right backpack for your needs!