“What happens in Vegas…? No really, I’m actually asking. I’m traveling with a baby, and I have no idea what to expect.”
If this sounds like you, read on!
Ten months into my first ecstatic and terrifying year as a parent, breast pumps in hand, I found myself tucked away in a Las Vegas casino restroom. Reflected in the long row of mirrors in front of me, a cluster of pink-feathered showgirls touched up their makeup and fixed their costumes, unaware or unconcerned as I stood off to the side, catching snippets of conversation. With only their gossip to distract me, I did my best to keep my nursing cover in place and watched the minutes tick by. I had pumped in a lot of strange places, but the casino was (fittingly) a new winner.
Fast forward several months, and you’ll find me here at my keyboard, equipped with a wealth of information about making do when family-friendly amenities and breastfeeding accommodations are hard to find. Throughout my first year of motherhood, I pumped at casinos, airports, parks, and restaurants in Nevada, Missouri, Nebraska, Florida, Minnesota, and across my home state of Iowa. I deeply immersed myself in the pros and cons of traveling while breastfeeding, traveling while pumping, and, eventually, traveling while keeping a toddler safe and fed.
Before my daughter was born, I also racked up several years’ experience navigating safe travel during infertility treatment — and a global pandemic. Moving forward, the learning will only continue. My husband and I are busy planning new trips, even as we dive back into IVF and care for our energetic toddler.
Now, I’m ready to share the mistakes I’ve made, the strategies I’ve learned so far, and even a few things I’ve gotten right. I’m hoping others can benefit from the philosophy my husband and I developed over the years: Go anyway. Take the trip you’re on the fence about, even if you aren’t sure yet how you’ll breastfeed at the airport or pump on the road.
Go anyway, even if there’s another IVF cycle on the horizon. For me, it’s almost always worth it. With some careful balancing and planning, I’ve always found the solutions I need to successfully combine travel, parenting, and infertility treatment, even if those solutions weren’t obvious at the outset. While I certainly don’t mean to imply that travel is easy or accessible for everyone, I do hope this blog can chip away at a few, small barriers and help families become more confident and informed.
And Las Vegas feels like the best place to start. This trip put our “go anyway” outlook to the test. I found myself repeatedly vexed as I searched for public lactation spaces, family restrooms, diaper changing stations, and stroller routes that wouldn’t require half a dozen elevators. So. Many. Elevators.
Then, when I returned, I was vexed to learn how many amenities we actually missed as we ventured down the Las Vegas Strip. Although I spent weeks planning and checking maps beforehand, there were still several family restrooms and changing stations that eluded us along the way. This trip challenged my stubborn belief that enough advanced planning can quell the unexpected. But it also affirmed the notion that having a plan is worth it, as long as you’re able to adapt.
In the end, I was able to identify three, key elements that helped us along the way: choosing the right hotel, planning an itinerary with relatively family-friendly stops, and exploring destinations beyond the Las Vegas Strip. What would I do differently? I would do much more thinking on my feet and ask for help more often.
So, if you’re looking for the TL;DR on Vegas with a baby, the takeaways are as follows:
- Choose the right hotel. One with a family-friendly vibe and a refrigerator-freezer combo for storing breastmilk and re-freezing your icepack (which you’ll need in the heat).
- Think ahead about where you’ll pause to breastfeed and/or pump, and create a flexible plan that involves at least one pit stop back at home base.
- Venture off the Strip to see the mountains and desert. For us, these stops were the most family-friendly and enjoyable.
- Think on your feet. Don’t assume an amenity isn’t there just because it’s hard to find, or it didn’t pop up in your research. It isn’t always easy to find someone who can help, but asking might be worth it.
When it comes to locating amenities, it’s also worth noting that Nevada passed a law in 2017 requiring most new buildings to be equipped with one or more diaper-changing stations in restrooms for men and women. I’m not sure how much this impacts the casinos along the Strip, since it focuses on new construction and has some exceptions. But it’s an encouraging sign. Overall, I would love to see Las Vegas and Nevada embracing more changes like this: More public lactation spaces, more family restrooms, and more guidance to help traveling parents find both.
As things stand now, this post covers the basics, as I see them. But if you’re looking for more details, I’ve got you covered! Below, you’ll find my ranked list of attractions, including our favorites, like Hoover Dam, Red Rock Canyon State Park, and Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart.
In these posts, I’ve done my best to review the highs and lows when it comes to baby-friendliness, taking into account the missing amenities we discovered after the fact. I cover pumping, breastfeeding, changing diapers, getting around with a stroller, and, of course, having fun together as a family. I was exclusively pumping for my daughter during this trip, so my research leans in that direction, but I’ve done my best to provide a broad range of helpful information. So, here we go: