Summer and Beach Must-Haves for Toddlers

After heading to Mayflower Beach in Dennis, MA (Mid-Cape) this past weekend for a little mini stay-cation with our 2 year old we realized three things:

1) Mayflower Beach is gorgeous. It is probably the most beautiful beach we've ever been to in Massachusetts. It reminds me of Caribbean beaches because of its soft white sand, shallow clear blue waters, and what seems like miles of beach frontage during low tide. It felt otherworldly! Parking however is a steep $25 a day, but for the quality of the beach and how clean they keep it - and the fact that it keeps riff-raff out (an essential when you have young kids) I'd say it's worth it.

2) We're newbies when it comes to going to the beach with toddlers.

3) We need to find a more efficient way to haul our gear to the beach.

We had too many bags and our bags were too heavy, our cooler was too heavy, and we didn't have a caddy or a wagon. Sand also constantly got in our food and drinks. We had no chairs and we had to constantly move our gear in (my poor husband!) as the tide moved in in the later part of the afternoon. Needless to say towards the end of the day we were pretty tired from lugging our gear from one spot to another! But we had a good time nonetheless. We can back home exhausted and refreshed.

This led us to make an active effort to come up with a more efficient solution.

1) For carrying all of our gear - towels, sunscreen, books, etc: Thirty-One Large Utility Bags. Awesome. They're lighter than our canvas LL Bean bags and they are also collapsible, which means that they can store flat. My LL Bean canvas bag began to dig into my shoulder and left some unsightly purple bruises. I ordered these in the Navy Wave and Paradise Punch prints. I honestly cannot wait to get them.

photo courtesy of the idea room!

2) For all of Kasen's sand toys - a cheap mesh laundry bag will do. Kudos to the Idea Room for coming up with something both ingenious and budget friendly. I'm itching to get to a Target to pick this up.

3) To lug all of our stuff - my husband really loves the Little Tikes one because it can be used outside of the beach, too: little tikes relax wagon with umbrella. This could probably work okay too: farm & ranch wagon. We just need something to be able to move smoothly in the sand and also do the dirty work of bringing our cooler.  Otherwise the Rio Beach Wonder Wheeler caddy is the most popular one we've seen thus far, with nearly almost everyone on the beach having one in their possession. What I like about it is its ability to hook the beach chairs on the front. We haven't gotten any chairs yet so we aren't quite sure if we'll need this feature right away.

4) For wet bathing suits - Itzy Ritzy Travel Happens wet bags. I have this in both the owl and whale prints. Love them.
5) To stay organized - Extra gallon sized plastic baggies. And one for all of the sunscreens, sorted between adult and baby specific. And an extra roll of paper towels! Never know when you're going to need some of those.

6) For getting the pesky sunscreen on squirmy toddlers' faces - Honest Brand Sunscreen Stick  I swear by it.

7) To Get the Sand Off - use Baby Powder or Cornstarch. It really works!

8) In lieu of beach towels as blankets, we love our JJ Cole Beach Blanket! I got this a while back for picnics and it's always in the trunk of our SUV just in case. It is fantastic - sand doesn't stick to it and it's waterproof so you never had a wet bottom:) Plus it folds up beautifully. Love love love this. Quite proud of my foresight on this actually! We got the grey and red. I'm a sucker for non gender specific, bright happy prints.

9) What's better than a shirt and a towel? Something that does both - The Mini Boden Towelling Poncho! They've made these up to 3 years, so I got the biggest size I could get my hands on to last for at least another year. Yes, they're a little baggy on Kasen and they make him look a little like a Jedi-in-Training-I-Mean Padawon, but who cares? He's warm, I'm less worried, and it's cute to boot! Love the prints.

10) To keep those hands clean, after using some baby powder or cornstarch to get the sand off, I'm a big fan of the Babyganics Hand sanitizing wipes. We got this big bag of individual ones last year for Kasen's first birthday, so we've been using them since so as to not waste them. These are pretty easy to find.

Lastly, on packing the coolers for toddlers - I actually freeze alot of items the night before so they double as cooler packs. I freeze applesauce cups, pear cups, mandarin orange cups, justin's organic milk chocolate peanut butter cups (Kasen loves chocolate, and he loves peanut butter, so the best combo ever for him), girl scout peanut butter chocolate cookies, organic valley whole milk single servings, water, etc. When it's really hot the fruit cups for example are actually a really nice little icy treat as it's only slightly defrosted. I'm also a huge fan of New Zealand-made Sistema lunch and snack boxes. They're BPA-free and just the perfect size for everything. I got a bunch of them from Container store and we've been using these nonstop for storing Kasen's fruit, veggies, and lunches. We brought some of the coveted, too-short-a-season rainier cherries (seriously his favorite fruit right now) and blueberries this time around and they were a big hit with the little man.