Packing driving me mad - who does it in your house?

[Rookiemum]

We are off for our first foreign holiday tomorrow, hurrah, but I have to say that the getting ready for it is not fun.

I think I have remembered most of rookiebabies vast requirements in terms of suitable weaning foods, bottles, sterilizer bags, appropriate number of nappies until we get to a shop, plus all the relevant documents.

I wouldn't mind but I know that I won't get a word of thanks for remembering everything, I will just be accused of making the bags too heavy, and then if I forget something I'll be getting the heavy stare thing. Oh and also I was nagging DH about getting his packing done, and he started moaning about having to pair his socks which is the only piece of laundry he has to do grrrrr.

Anyway I am sure it will be fine when we get there and I am maybe just guilty of having too much time on my hands to think about it. Who does the packing in your house and if it is your DH/DP do you really trust them to remember everything ?

I pack for myself, the kids, all paperwork, toiletries and medicines etc.
DP is responsible for his own clothes, after I did it once and got moaned at for not packing the right stuff.

There is no way I would trust him to do it all.
This year I got the dds to do their own (6 & 7) but I checked it and added the stuff they had forgotten.

I write a list (actually I have a list which I amend to suit where we are going). I hand said list to dp and insist that he checks to make sure I havent forgotten anything (cos that way its his fault if we have) and then we both pack together. He fetchs and carries and I pack into the bags making sure he gets all the heavy stuff

The important thing about packing is to spread everyone's stuff across all bags so then if one bag goes to the other side of the world you don't have someone with no clothes for the week!!!

DH fetches everything on the lists and I pack them

All spread over all the bags

When we went to South Pacific in summer, Air NZ forgot to put my bag on the plane in Auckland and it had my SWIMMING COSSIE in it so they agreed we could each have $500 to buy stuff to replace

But then an overnight flight arrived and then in reception 1st thing in the morning was the bag

It was a huge relief as I was going snorkelling and wanted my fav cossie

So label the bags very well on the outside and inside

I do all the packing for all of us because dh would forget something essential. I have lists saved on the pc for the different holidays, camping/weekend etc.

We always have standard holiday argument no 1 and standard holiday argument no 2 before we go away, be it a weekend or fortnight.

Argument no 1 is "that lot'll never fit in the car".

Argument no 2 is "oh so you're going to leave the house clean and tidy for the burglars, come on we need to be on the road"

We generally spend the first half hour of the journey in silence .

I spoke to my friend at the weekend about this.

DH and I generally aren't speaking by the time we hit the road or reach the airport as I am an obsessive compulsive must have everything or my holiday will be spoiled type of person and DH is so laid back he is horizontal.Apparently her and her DH are just the same, and seriously considered not going on holiday again because of the arguments it caused.

To try and share the responsibility this time I asked DH to double check I had remembered all of rookiebabies stuff. He said that he couldn't be bothered to unpack the bag, but had I got milk powder and nappies, when I said yes, he said oh well we've got everything we need then. Yes indeed the two seconds he spend saying that turned it into a "we" effort.

When I calmed down I realised that he is acgtually right and you can buy things abroad but its still an excuse for him to be lazy, humph.

Ok this is sad and completely out of character as I am not desperately organised but I have a master packing list in excel on the PC. Each holiday I save a new version of it and update it.

It is organised into sections like 'feeding', 'playing', sleeping etc.

I print it off and tick everything off as it goes in the bag.

There is one page for ds and one page for my stuff (I was finding that on each trip I was so fixated with not forgetting stuff for ds I'd take a load of mismatched cr*p for me to wear!)

In the really early days, when ds was very little, I'd put different groups of stuff in different coloured carrier bags in the big bag so things would be easy to find. So all the changing nappies stuff would be in a red carrier.

I did warn you that I was sad didn't I!!