Packing in a Carry On

I'm not sure if I have mentioned it, but last week, we went to the Club Med in Punta Cana (all expenses paid by David's family!). This was an amazing gift but the airline we went with didn't give us a checked bag for free. We aren't frequent flyers and we would be travelling with a baby so this was a big deal to us. To ease our minds, David's parents split a checked bag with us so we could travel with bigger liquids (like sunscreen!). On the way there, we did have everything in 3 carry ons but travelling through the airport with 3  carry ons, a stroller, a diaper bag, a backpack (personal item. My personal item was the diaper bag since Baby didn't get one), and an infant was a bit much. On the way back, we miraculously fit everything in two carry ons (plus all the other stuff) and put one of the carry ons in another one so we were down to two bags. I can't really explain how this happened since we were actually coming back with more stuff (our souvenirs and the amount of diapers used were more than even).

Here is a list of everything we took. The key is rolling your clothes and using all possible space (like inside shoes or even pockets). Some people go the extra step and put outfits in bags so they can easily find stuff and they claim it fits even more stuff this way. I wasn't about to drop 50 dollars on packing cubes (although I did hear good things about them) so we did without the bags. Our carry ons were also slightly smaller than the allowed size. I will leave out the things we put in the checked bag since that doesn't really count. I will also mention we were only gone 8 days but way overpacked, especially the Baby because you just never know how many outfit changes they'll require in a day. When we came home, we actually had a full suitcase of dirty clothes and a full suitcase of clean clothes. That's crazy (but made for easy unpacking when we got home)!

3 sets of pajamas for all 3 of us (so 9 total)
7 swim suits
4 pairs of sandals
1 pair of tennis shoes
1 pair of heels
16 pairs of underwear
60 diapers
4 pairs of socks
6 pairs of shorts
10 outfits for Baby
1 dress
1 pair of pants
18 t shirts
1 long sleeved shirt
14 nursing pads
1 gallon size bag packed to the gills of pads and tampons
3 bras
2 tank tops
2 books (each about 300 pages)
baby sun hat
2 swim diapers
1 pack of wipes (72 per pack)
7 burp cloths
baby sun shirt (with a floaty thing in it so it doesn't bend at all)
beach umbrella

So if you swap out 40 of the diapers and a few of the pads and tampons, but add in a beach towel, a coffee mug, a box with a jar of alcohol and two shot glasses, and a few other souvenirs, it becomes what we brought home. Maybe this isn't that impressive to you and I'm sorry I don't have pictures to show you just how much stuff this really is but I think it's amazing. If anything seems to be missing from the list, it was either in the diaper bag, backpack, or checked bag. I know it seems to sort of be cheating with the checked bag but even that bag was really small).

The only thing we did was roll all our clothes (individually, not in stacks like some people do), utilize ALL space, and squish everything down as we went.