We hope you’ve enjoyed the last couple weeks of posts featuring Prague and the Czech Republic. We are taking a bit of a break the rest of this week to share a couple one-time posts and then will jump back in next week talking about Český Krumlov.
While we have yet to take Eva (who is now almost 6 months) on an international trip, we have taken her a couple different places overnight. Since everything seems to change with a baby/kids as they grow and develop, I wanted to try to catalog at each stage what things have been helpful for us as we travel with her. Before diving in, let me first apologize to readers who don’t have a child(ren) as this post is rather focused on travel with a kiddo.
From other parents we’ve talked to, traveling from 0-6 months really seems to be easy! I was slightly intimidated at first, but honestly, they need very little entertainment, and your main concerns are their basic needs. We’ve only taken a short (3-4 day) trip so far, but here’s what we learned:
Enjoying the Carseat
Packing: Lists are super helpful for me, so the week before we went on our trip I started a list of things we would need to pack. I did a couple different inventories of diapers, food, etc., and planned to run errands the day before (or earlier if for a longer trip) for anything we might need. It was helpful for me to do this ahead of time so that 1) I felt confident we had the things we would need, 2) I had time to pick up anything last minute, and 3) I had time to really think about if I would actually need all that was on the list originally. Most of the packing was done the evening before or the day of.
Travel: Carseat. We’ve only done road trips with Eva thus far, so the essential for us is the carseat. She gets sick of it after awhile, but I also get sick of sitting in the car after a couple hours too. I brought several of her favorite little toys and switched them out when she became bored or slightly fussy which was helpful to distract her. We learned that it does not work for me to sit in the back seat with her–the fussiness becomes exacerbated because she can see me. Stroller. I originally thought we might bring her small stroller–this ended up being one of those things that we decided to punt. We knew we weren’t going to be doing a ton of walking or sightseeing, and we knew we would be with people who would want to hold her, so it didn’t really make sense to bring it. Carrier/Sling/Wrap. We have an Ergo, and I knew I would want it; when we were with a lot of people, it was perfect to be able to put her in the carrier so she could feel secure enough to sleep.
Feeding: Eva is formula fed, so we had to plan how that would all work out. Essentially we ended up portioning into baggies the amount of formula we would need for the number of bottles she would take during the trip. This was so nice because we didn’t have to worry about pre-mixing or keeping the pre-made bottles chilled. It was also great because it meant we weren’t lugging around the container of formula, we would just load up 4 baggies and 4 clean bottles into the diaper bag and go. This plan did require us to take dish soap and a drying rack to clean used bottles, but we easily devised a system to wash the bottles at night. This is a category that will obviously change as Eva just started cereal and baby food. Another thing to note, when we took our trip, Eva wasn’t quite able to fit into a highchair, so most of the time we ended up holding her while we ate. It was slightly inconvenient, but by the next trip we take, she should be able to hold herself up better to be able to use them.
At a restaurant in Austin
Sleeping: We have a pack n’ play which is super easy to set up and tear down. We used this in our hotel room and put her in a dark corner of the room. It worked out really well; partly because she is already fairly used to sleeping in a pack n’ play and partly because she was exhausted by the end of every day! For naps, most of the time she slept either in her carseat while driving or in the Ergo. She fell asleep a couple times in our arms, but since we were out and about, she never had the opportunity to take a nap in her pack n’ play.
I say all these things with a couple caveats: 1) you know yourself best 2) you know your kid best. What worked for me, may not work for you. What worked at this stage, probably won’t work at the next. And what worked for a 3 or 4 day trip probably won’t work for a 7 or 8 day trip.
When traveling with an infant, what helpful tips would you share?
I know your post did not talk about flying, but we have done a lot of domestic flying with young children. My number one tip for all parents is always bring MORE formula than you think you will need and always have two spare diapers! We have had one or two instances with tarmac or in air delays and were nursing the smallest amounts of formula hoping to help those baby ears finally get on the ground with as little screaming as possible. It only takes running out of formula once for you to overreact and pack double next time! We also will ALWAYS bring a bottle of water on the plane with us so we can mix a bottle, if needed, right away and not have to depend on the cabin crew service to finally get to us. Like the Boy Scouts say: “Be Prepared”!
GREAT call Justin! I asked a couple friends before packing their “need-to-know” pieces of advice and this was one of them. I think we also learned that bringing water everywhere you go is so important. We may have had a little meltdown in a restaurant because the only water on the table all had lemon in it, so that wait to get water from our server was a little tough especially for the other patrons! Thanks for your reply and your insights!