The Honest Guide to Baby Vans

It was a Tuesday at precisely 10:14 AM. I was wearing leggings that definitely had dried sweet potato puree encrusted on the left thigh, clutching my third iced oat milk latte of the week. Leo was about eight months old, sitting in his stroller looking like a tiny, extremely judgmental old man. And in the span of twenty minutes, I received three entirely different, wildly contradictory pieces of unsolicited advice about his existence.

My mother-in-law texted me out of nowhere to say that he needed "proper, hard-soled shoes" immediately because his ankles were going to be permanently weak if I didn't strap them into tiny leather prisons. Then the barista—who was wearing a heavy wool beanie in the middle of July—leaned over the espresso machine and told me I should really consider taking Leo on the road in a converted camper van because "the early years are for wild, unrestricted freedom, man." And finally, my doctor called back about a weird rash I was panicking over, and casually mentioned to keep him barefoot as much as humanly possible and, oh god, definitely don't keep him in a car seat for more than two hours a day.

Hard shoes. No shoes. Live in a van. Don't sit in a car.

My brain, already running on four hours of broken sleep and pure caffeine, just short-circuited entirely. Anyway, the point is, researching "baby vans" as a tired parent brings up two entirely different, equally exhausting rabbit holes: the miniature skateboard shoes, and the literal vehicle lifestyle. Let's talk about the shoes first.

The Great Footwear Wrestling Match

I bought the tiny checkerboard slip-ons. I totally bought a pair of baby vans shoes because I wanted Leo to look like a tiny, edgy skateboarder instead of a drooly potato. They looked SO cute in the box.

But I vividly remember sitting on the living room rug, sweating through my t-shirt, wrestling with his left foot. Have you ever actually looked closely at an infant's foot? It's not a foot. It's a dinner roll. It's a completely spherical, squishy lump of fat with tiny, razor-sharp toenails attached to it. Trying to shove a spherical dinner roll into a flat, rigid canvas shoe is an absolute exercise in futility.

It's like trying to stuff a grapefruit into a mail slot. He was thrashing like an angry salmon, I was swearing under my breath. My husband Tom was sitting on the couch just staring at me like I was a maniac. Tom has huge hands, so when he tried to help, it looked like a bear trying to thread a needle. After five minutes of screaming, Tom just threw the shoe across the room.

I dragged those incredibly cool shoes to Dr. Miller at our next checkup to ask if Leo’s feet were just abnormally fat. She literally laughed out loud at me. She explained that babies are supposed to be barefoot basically all the time. Something about how they need to physically grip the floor with their bare toes to build up the muscles in their arches? I honestly don't remember the exact anatomical terms she used, but my main takeaway was that wrapping a developing, squishy foot in a heavy, flat rubber sole is basically a terrible idea for their natural gait. She said if I really wanted him in shoes, I just needed to try to crumple the shoe in half with one hand, and if it felt like a brick, it was too stiff.

Comfort Over Aesthetics, Always

So we completely ditched the shoes. I mean, we kept them for exactly one photo shoot where he wasn't allowed to move, and then tossed them in the back of the closet. Honestly, when they're that little, you just want them to be comfortable, and I practically lived in fear of restricting his movement with stiff fabrics or heavy rubber.

That's why I ended up totally obsessing over what he wore on his actual body instead of his feet. It’s just so much easier to focus on soft, stretchy basics than trying to make a nine-month-old look like they're heading to a punk rock concert. We basically lived in the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit Sleeveless Infant Onesie from Kianao. It’s 95% organic cotton and undyed, and it actually stretches over the dinner-roll body without me having to perform a wrestling move just to get his arms through the holes. Leo had this weird eczema patch on his back that flared up when he got sweaty, and this was the only thing that didn't make him angry.

And when Maya was a baby, I dressed her in the Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit for basically every "nice" family event we had to attend. It has these adorable ruffled sleeves that make it look like a real outfit, but it's still just that same stretchy organic cotton, so she could crawl around like a maniac without being restricted.

If you want clothes that actually make sense for a baby's life without causing a meltdown, just browse Kianao's organic baby clothes—it'll save you so much hassle in the morning.

Wait, You Want Me To Live In A Car?

But back to the barista's advice. Van life. Taking a baby on the road in a converted Sprinter.

I'll admit, I went down a 3 AM Instagram rabbit hole that night. You know exactly the accounts I'm talking about. The perfectly beige families living in a converted Mercedes van. The baby is always sleeping peacefully in a tiny macrame hammock (is that even legal? It feels highly illegal) while the parents drink pour-over coffee overlooking a misty mountain in Yosemite. It looks like absolute heaven. It looks like an escape from the relentless, towering laundry pile in my living room.

I came home from the coffee shop and dumped my latte on the counter and told Tom we needed to sell the house and buy a van. Tom, who was currently attempting to extract a piece of dried macaroni from Maya's left nostril, just sighed. He loves spreadsheets and predictability.

"Sarah, you got claustrophobic in our walk-in closet last week," he reminded me gently. "You want to live in a car?"

It's not a car, it's a lifestyle, I told him.

But then I remembered Dr. Miller's warning about the car seat. When Maya was little, she drilled the "two-hour rule" into our heads. I guess it has to do with the angle of the seat and their heavy little heads flopping forward, which can restrict their airway or drop their oxygen levels if they sit in there too long. It's terrifying to even think about. So if you're driving a camper van with an infant, you can literally only drive for two hours a day, which means getting from New York to Florida would take fourteen years of your life.

The Reality of Four Wheels and Zero Plumbed Toilets

Before you sell your house and buy a van to live out your nomadic baby dreams, you really have to consider a few deeply unglamorous things:

Where exactly are you going to wash breast pump parts and milky bottles, because you'll burn through your tiny fresh water tank in like two days.
How on earth are you keeping the van at a safe 68-72 degrees for a sleeping baby when it's 95 degrees outside in the sun?
Where does the dirty diaper pail live? Because let me tell you, a hot enclosed metal tube with a day-old diaper smells like actual death.
And the sleep situation! The AAP says they need a flat, independent sleep space, so you can't just toss a newborn on the converted bench seat and hope they don't roll off when you brake for a squirrel.

I guess the AAP says co-sleeping in a tiny van bed is a huge risk because the mattresses aren't firm enough, or maybe it's the wild temperature fluctuations? Honestly, maintaining a safe 68 degrees in a metal box parked in the desert sounds like a physics problem I'm absolutely not equipped to solve.

And as for how these Instagram van families handle potty training on the road, I literally don't want to know, so we're just going to skip right past that.

Surviving The Road Trips You DO Take

If I were trapped in a van with a teething baby full-time, I'd probably walk into the woods and never return. But if you're doing normal road trips, you desperately need things that don't require WiFi or electricity or running water to sanitize. When Leo was cutting his molars, we took a regular old road trip in our Honda CRV, and he drooled so much he looked like a teething St. Bernard.

The only thing that kept him from screaming the entire way was the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy. It’s food-grade silicone, completely non-toxic, and it has this flat, wide shape that he could really hold himself without dropping it every five seconds. I loved it because I could just wipe it down with a baby wipe in the car, or aggressively rinse it with a water bottle when we stopped for gas. Absolute lifesaver.

We also brought the Gentle Baby Building Block Set for the hotel. They’re fine. They’re soft rubber blocks, which is great because Maya threw one directly at my forehead from the backseat and it didn't leave a bruise. They squeak when you squeeze them, which is cute for the first ten minutes and then mildly annoying by hour three of driving, but hey, they float in water so you can use them in the bath later. They kept the kids entertained enough to stop crying, so whatever works.

Honestly, if you really want to stimulate your baby without driving across the country in a van, just put them on the floor in your own living room under the Wooden Baby Gym | Rainbow Play Gym Set. It’s wooden, it’s not plastic, it doesn’t blink or sing annoying electronic songs that will get stuck in your head for three weeks straight. Leo used to just lay under those little hanging animals and aggressively bat at the wooden elephant, and it bought me exactly enough time to drink my coffee while it was still lukewarm. A major, major victory.

Before you buy the stiff shoes or put a down payment on a camper van, maybe just stock up on the things that honestly keep them comfortable and happy. Check out Kianao’s full collection of sustainable baby essentials right here and make your life a tiny bit easier.

Questions I Really Get About This Stuff

Are stiff baby shoes bad for my kid?
Look, I’m not a doctor, but my doctor basically told me that putting heavy rubber soles on a new walker is like tying weights to their ankles. They need to feel the floor to learn how to balance and build up their arches, I guess. So if you can't easily fold the shoe completely in half with your hand, it's probably way too stiff for a baby learning to walk.

How long can my baby stay in a car seat on a road trip?
Our doctor drilled the "two-hour rule" into my head. Basically, you shouldn't leave them in there for more than two hours at a time in a 24-hour period because their little heavy heads can flop forward and block their airway, which is terrifying. It makes long van trips or cross-country drives a logistical nightmare of constant stops.

Where do babies sleep in camper vans?
From what I've seen of people who genuinely survive this lifestyle, they use extremely compact travel cribs that fit exactly on the floor between the front seats. You can't just put them on the main van bed because co-sleeping in a cramped space with weird temperature swings is apparently a massive safe sleep risk according to the AAP.

What should a baby honestly wear when they start walking?
Bare feet! Inside the house, at least, that's what we did. Outside, just find something with an ultra-thin, flexible leather or soft rubber sole that bends completely in half without fighting you. And honestly, pair it with stretchy organic cotton clothes so they can squat, crawl, and fall over comfortably without stiff fabrics digging into their bellies.