Travelling with POPPY
TRAVELLING WITH POPPY
our tips for travelling with a baby from our first year as parents!
Just to be clear, I am no guru on anything baby related! I have one singular child who I have had only one year’s experience of making things up as I go along with! I do, however, get asked a lot of questions and the internet is full of people pretending to be experts on things they aren't so I thought why not join them!
Travelling is definitely, like everything in life, different with a baby! But all the new challenges that arise are so worth the amazing positives that come from seeing the world with your little one/ones.
My main tip would be to try not to overthink things!! I know that’s easier said than done. But travel is supposed to be spontaneous, you are always going to have forgotten something (buy it there), things are never going to go 100% to plan (deal with it then)! If you worry too much, you will never take the leap to go!
General tips while planning your trip!
Don’t try and do too much!!
- Everything takes longer with a baby so don’t try and jam too much into a day, or too many places into a trip!!
- You will miss out on seeing somethings and that’s okay!
Try and break up travel
- If there’s large flights with stop overs considering staying a night or a couple of days to break up the travel
- Pay extra to book as direct flight as possible
DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
- As I said above, try not to overthink things too much!!
- Things are bound to go against your plan while travelling and just embrace that and see where it takes you!
What to pack:
Baby carrier:
- An absolute must (when it comes to having a baby full stop but especially when travelling)!! Poppy spent about 90% of our Japan trip in the carrier! It is good for when you are exploring cities (as you don't have to battle with stairs and easier in crowds), great for when you are at the snow (due to the uneven terrain), great to keep baby warm and for us personally Poppy sleeps longer in the carrier than in the pram.
- We have an Ergo Baby 360 and love it!
Travel pram:
- We highly recommend the Baby Yoyo Zen. It is super sturdy, lightweight easy to carry around.
- We always check on the pram at the airport rather than putting it in overhead as we find it easier to put Poppy in the carrier and have our hands free.
- If you are going somewhere cold I would recommend getting the footmuff that attaches to the Baby Yoyo zen pram.
- We didn’t use the pram much in Japan as the cities were too busy with lots of stairs, and the snow.. well its the snow… but we have found it very useful on other trips.
Travel cot:
- With the travel cot weigh up before you leave whether you think the child is actually going to use it while away, as they are an inconvenience to lug around if they go unused!
- More info on travel cot and sleep below!
- We have the Baby Bjorn travel cot which is easy to pack down/assemble and relatively light weight.
Clothes ++:
- Washing can be a pain while travelling so would definitely recommend packing more clothes for your little ones even if it means you have to get rid of some of your own items!!
- Try to pack clothes that wash well and easily, as the washing machines and dryers at the hotels can be pretty tough on clothing
- Also only pack items of clothing that are easy to style with lots of other pieces (i.e. don’t pack a bright pair of pants that are only going to be able to be worn with one other jumper).
- The things we pack the most of are onesies to go under clothing and leggings
- But don’t pack the whole wardrobe! Every hotel we have been to has a coin laundry! i.e. you don’t need more than 2 pairs of pyjamas or sleep suits, if 1 pair are dirty just wash the other pair…
Nappies and wipes:
- Pack enough nappies and wipes for travel and the first couple of days at the destination
- This will give you enough time to find your feet, work out where sells the nappies you are after etc. but without having to pack weeks upon weeks of nappies into your suitcase
Formula:
- Obviously this is very baby dependent!
- If your bub is breastfed and you are only planning a couple of instances where you will be away from your child (i.e. with a babysitter), don’t pack the whole tin, just decant a few feeds worth into a smaller jar or into a zip lock bag.
Hand pump:
- If a pump is something you need then I would recommend packing a small hand pump. They are usually much smaller than electric pumps and then you don’t have to worry about adaptors etc.
Bottles:
- If your baby is generally breastfed and may only need formula here and there just take one bottle! There is no need for the entire bottle range of Baby Bunting to come on your trip with you.
Infant panadol:
- Hopefully something you won’t need while away but something would be a pain to search for especially in a foreign country
Solids:
- This totally depends on where your child is at with food and how picky they are with food.
- We are lucky that Poppy will literally eat anything.
- But pack a few pouches of food so that you can find your feet at the destination, work out where to buy food etc.
- One tip with food overseas, try not to put your preconceived ideas of food onto your baby. For example: Poppy loved eating things like mackerel for breakfast, a fish that I would never eat because the flavour is way too intense for me but she absolutely loved it!!
- Some places would be easier to get baby food in than others (for example: in Japan baby food was hard to come by but luckily we didn’t need it) so just have a look where its sold based on your destination if you need it before heading off
Don’t bother packing…
Toys:
- To be honest we didn't pack any toys for Poppy. It was just extra things to lug around.
- You will be amazed at the things that babies will find fascinating- safety card on the plane, water bottles, purses etc.
CAR SEATS:
- This is a personal opinion, but we have never taken a car seat with us when travelling
- When we have hired cars, we have asked the rental companies to hire a car seat with the car - I have heard other people have issues with this, but we have never had any problems
TRAVEL COT if…
… you realistically don’t think you are going to use it! i.e. your bub sleeps in your bed at home anyway
TRAVEL PRAM if…
… you are only going to bustling cities with +++ stairs!
Baby bath towel:
- Just use the adult bath towels and save the room
THE “MIGHT” NEEDS…
- Don’t pack things that you use once in a blue moon at home. Other than the panadol I don’t think you need to pack any “just in case” items. Unless you are going on a remote trip to the middle of Woop Woop you should be able to buy most things at your destination if needed!
Two bears in NZ
FLYING TIps:
Take as little on the plane as possible:
- Be realistic, its very unlikely you are going to get the chance to read two books, listen to a podcast, watch a movie on your iPad AND respond to emails on your laptop during the flight!
- So just take minimal things on board for you!
Seats:
- Try and book front row seats so that you can have extra legroom, that way you can put bub at your feet to play during the flight and may also luck a bassinet attached to the wall in this row too
- Don’t fret too much if you don’t get the bassinet, in our personal experience, Poppy sleeps way better in the carrier on us than in the plane bassinet. The bassinet is also very small, so I feel is only comfortable for them to sleep in until about 6 or so months.
- Can take the risk in booking a window and aisle seat and aim to get the whole row (then if someone books between you you can pretend it was a mistake and swap seats with them, no one is going to want to sit between two parents and a baby anyway)
- Get to the airport early and ask if there is a free row to get 3 seats and/or ask the crew when you board if there is a free row of 3 seats
TIMING OF FLIGHTS:
- For short flights (i.e. we have flown to and from Melbourne (2 hrs) lots of times), we try to book flights for when Poppy is due for a nap. That way once in the air we can rock Poppy to sleep in the carrier and she then wakes up on descent
- For long haul flights there are advantages to day time flights and night time flights- day time requires more entertaining but less worry about sleeping, night time flight if they sleep well it’s easy/if they don’t its stressful haha! So each to their own! I think (maybe) that I prefer night time…
Take a spare change of clothes
- This goes for the bub and for you!
- The amount of times I have had spare clothes for Poppy on the flight, but not for myself and she has spewed all over me or wiped food all down my front
Take snacks for baby
- If bub is up to solids, pack lots of snacks that are minimal mess (i.e. pouches, crackers, fruit etc) to keep them entertained.
- If its an international flight, you will need to finish or dispose of any fruit or unpackaged food by the time you get to the destination. But if you have packaged food you should be able to just declare it at the destination.
Take a blanket and a jumper for bub
- The planes are often cold, so pack something warm for the little one
Don’t worry about others:
- Don’t stress too much about others if your baby is crying! Most people on flights nowadays wear headphones the whole time so they probably can’t hear bub anyway!
- When you get on the flight- face bub out in the carrier to flirt and smile to all the passengers and flight attendants, then people won’t care as much anyway if they do cry ha!
Ear popping:
- If you feel that your bub is getting sore ears on ascent or descent, give them the boob to nurse if they are still breastfeeding as this encourages them to swallow and unblock their ears, or if this is not an option give them your finger, dummy or some food to suck/swallow.
- To be honest, I haven't found this a huge issue yet, and I think affects toddlers more
Sleep while travelling:
Poppy’s sleep is probably the thing I get asked most about while traveling
- Sleep is not something we have completely mastered while travelling but its not terrible and I feel like we learnt a lot of things from our most recent trip
- I think, when travelling, you have to come to terms with the fact that sleep is inevitably going to be worse than when you’re at home and this is just one of the downsides of travel!
- Go into your holiday with low expectations of sleep and you won’t be disappointed.. haha!
WHERE?
- If your bub is used to sleeping in their own room, try and replicate this when away. This can be done by booking somewhere with two rooms, or because this can be expensive, book a hotel room with a bathroom that the portacot can go in.
- In Japan, we stayed in hotels and all the bathrooms were really small so we couldn’t do this. In future, I will book more Airbnbs to ensure there is a separate space for the portacot.
TRAVEL COT:
- We trained Poppy in the travel cot before we went away. She took lots of day time naps in it and we moved it around the house to get her used to different environments and then did a night time sleep in it here and there.
JET LAG:
- I don’t have any great experience with jet lag as the largest time difference we have dealt with has been two hours.
- With the two hour time difference we just kept Poppy awake until her usual bed time of 7pm (which would've felt like 9pm to her) and she adjusted pretty well.
- Then when we got home I woke her up at her usual wake up time of 7am (even though it felt like 5am to her), then by the time she was due for her morning nap, she was really tired so she slept fine
NAPS/ROUTINE:
- We tried to stay to our routine as much as possible when we were travelling but that didn’t that didn’t interfere too much with what we were able to do
- Poppy sleeps the best out and about when in the carrier, facing towards one of us and is moving… therefore we would make sure we were on the move when she was napping rather than sitting at cafes etc.
- I didn’t know this for ages, but our carrier has a built in hood that clips over the back of the baby’s head when they are facing you, this makes it much darker for bub to have a nap while out and about
- We would then make sure we had food with us or went to a cafe/restaurant when she was due for a feed
- Because I breastfeed still, milk feeds were easy to stick to routines with
- At night time for meals we would plan them either early or late. So early enough that Poppy would be happy to sit through dinner and share food with us, or late enough that she would’ve been tired enough to fall asleep in the carrier before we arrive at dinner. Inevitably she would wake at times throughout the meal but we would then just disappear out the front and rock her back to sleep
Fistfuls of crab… just before we all realised it was laced with wasabi!!
Thanks so much for reading along! And happy travelling with your little ones.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below!
