Exploring Indianapolis with a Baby

When planning trips in the past, typical Google searches would be, "closest restaurants" or "closest bars". But now, traveling with a 9 month old, the first thing I Google are "kid-friendly activities". Going anywhere with a 9 month old is different in a lot of ways; places we visit, types of restaurants we go to and most importantly, what we pack. 

This trip to Indiana was a first for our small family. It was our first vacation. Up until now our biggest trips were visiting Princess C's grandparents and when we got there they had copycat items of what we had at home; pack and play, highchair, and toys. For this trip however, we would have to bring everything we'd think we need (and then some) plus we would be exploring a city we've never been to, with a 9 month old. 

Packing List

For this trip we opted to drive. This allowed us (me) the comfort to pack (and overpack). Our carload consisted of the following:

Pack and Play. 
High chair. 
Bath tub. 
Cruiser. 
Bottles.
Sippy cups.
Jars of baby food.
Containers of formula.
Containers of rice cereal & oatmeal.
Finger-food snacks.
Under-onesies.
Long-sleeved onesies.
Short-sleved onesies.
Pants.
Sweatshirts/jackets.

Socks.
​Bows.
Hats.
Bibs.
Towels.
Washcloths.
Diapers!!!!
Wipes.
Diaper rash cream.
Thermometer.
Baby Tylenol. 
Nasal bulb.
​

This was all just for the baby! Never mind the suitcases the hubby and I would have with our own clothes and toiletries. 

​Some may look at this list and think there were items we didn't really need, but I can tell you aside from the thermometer, baby Tylenol and nasal bulb, we used everything else.

Kid-Friendly Places in Indianapolis

Our first day of exploring took us to Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Indianapolis Colts play. While it is the off-season for football, the stadium offers behind the scenes tours every day, multiple times a day!

This tour is extremely informative about the building and iner-workings of football Sundays. We were brought to all levels of the stadium, including the locker room! We experienced what it would be like having suite tickets and we walked across the field! Our tour had other families with children ranging from 6-10 and our Princess may have fallen asleep in her carrier half-way though but this stadium tour is definitely kid-friendly and I highly recommend it!

Our second day of exploring brought us to The Indianapolis Zoo. Now, I know what you're thinking, it's March in Indiana isn't it too cold for the zoo? NOPE! This zoo is part outdoor zoo and part aquarium which means there are plenty of indoor animals to look at. C loved watching all of the fish swim around and then we saw penguins and an indoor dolphin show! They also have orangoutangs who have an indoor home, it was fun to watch them swing around and they were not shy about coming up to the glass to say hi!

Our next stop has the word "children" in their name! The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. This place is HUGE! With five floors there is much to see for all ages at this place. We hung out in the Playscape area which has a water table, sand table, a room to make your own music and plenty of things for little ones to touch and feel. They also provide sanitizer wipes, and we used them, A LOT. Other fun areas for our 9 month old included the room of mirrors and the Carousel. 

This trip was a great start for many, many more family vacations to come. It was awesome to see our Princess get excited as she watched the fish swim around at the zoo and she seemed interested in the different activities at the Children's Museum, mainly banging on the drums in the music room AND she got to enjoy her first french fry. So all in all, I'd say this trip was a success and if you are traveling with a baby there are plenty of things to do across the country. An added bonus with traveling with our 9 month old, everywhere we went, she was FREE!