TRAVEL WITH A BABY – 65 TIPS

I’ve realised from the relative ease with which we took our sixth trip last month, that with a bit of research, learning and practice, stress-free travel with a baby is possible! A new type of travel for sure – less spontaneity, different requirements and far more luggage! But a far more exciting and rewarding type of travel! It’s also dawned on me that the next trip we take will be with a fully mobile toddler…

Travel with a baby is daunting and I did a lot of research before we went anywhere – from mum friends, mum blogs, random bits of googling and of course learning by doing. Hopefully these tips I have pulled together are handy for a few more new mums anxious about their first trip! 

PLANNING AHEAD

1      Plan, plan and plan some more. The whimful trips away are behind us. Trips anywhere (let’s be honest, even to the park) take planning these days. And proper preparation prevents p*** poor performance!

2      Go away as early as possible, there’s no right time so the best time to travel is early on to make it normal rather than a major shake up months or years later. We stayed in London, then visited friends in Vienna and then stayed near Mr P’s parents in the Peak District all when baby was about 3 months old and it made us realise that travel was in his blood and we still could!

3      I write a good list for everything. For packing and key bits of routine and other important specifics. I tweak the lists after each trip for things forgotten or learnt. And tweak it as baby grows and needs different things. My lists also include stuff for us as otherwise it gets entirely forgotten! Tedious yes, but it works – for our Easter trip to Dorset, everything was packed and ready in an hour and without concern!

4      I intricately inspect details of the destination and ask all the questions of the place we are planning to stay at. From my experience, the helpfulness of the response normally tells you whether you want to stay or not. When we were in Abu Dhabi another mum asked so many questions before arriving that the hotel went and bought lots of new things for babies that they wouldn’t have otherwise had!

5      Use Instagram photos to ask other guests with families what they really think, I’ve received and given recommendations this way, almost like a live version of Trip Advisor and more trustworthy than blogs as guests will be paying their own way!

6      If planning to fly long haul then book plenty of time in advance to ensure a sky cot (bassinette) is allocated. There are only so many available on a plane. And even when you have booked, be sure to reconfirm with the airline too.

7      We have always picked somewhere to stay with space to swing a cat. But this is even more important now – babies come with so much stuff. Whether it’s a self-catering cottage with an extra room or a hotel room that’s larger than usual? Being able to spread out and give everything a home so it can be found in the dark (and not tripped over) is important.

8      I spend a lot of time checking what facilities you can use with a baby. Many hotels (rightly) reserve lots of space for adults only, we used to love this. But just because baby is travelling too doesn’t mean the facilities (beach, pool, restaurants etc) need to be second rate. Some places you don’t think will be family friendly will surprise you too – I didn’t expect it of The Pig and was very impressed!

9      I thought through what equipment I normally use at home as part of the feeding and cleaning routine and made sure either I could pack it or it was available at the destination? Some hotels give you all of it as they are baby-ready. Some don’t. Not every self-catering cottage has a microwave. Not all hotel rooms have fridges or kettles! 

10  If baby is on powder formula then research which of the local mineral waters is low enough in sodium to use if the tap water isn’t suitable. Also bear in mind that bottled water isn’t sterile so needs boiling. Does the aforementioned kettle exist? It might be easier to use pre-mixed milk, which is what I have favoured when we’ve been abroad so far.

11  After an all-inclusive holiday in my early 20’s I never thought I would find myself on another. But my goodness it made life so easy with a baby, and it doesn’t get much better for weaning than an all day buffet! There’s a new breed of family friend all-inclusive resort springing up which are worth investigating.

12  It’s best to avoid rooms with a full wall of mirrors. Of course they look great in the pictures, but as soon as baby has discovered his reflection, believe me, wall to wall mirrors make bedtime and naptimes hard! Skylight windows without blinds are equally as unhelpful!

13  Whilst it’s amazing to show baby the world, staycations and self-catering breaks are as relaxing, if not more so, than an overseas trip.

14  We all have E111 health cards for travelling in Europe. I’ve no idea if it would help if we ended up in hospital and I would probably call my insurance company anyway. I also have no idea if they’ll be any use after Brexit… But I wouldn’t travel without, just in case.

THE TRAVEL BIT

15  We have found it easiest to travel at typical sleep times. Whether that’s his nap time (although they tend to shift once plans are made) in the car or for night and evening flights. Even for train travel it’s worth thinking about.

16  It really pays to think about when and where you might need to stop on a car journey. Some motorway service stations have had the life sucked out of them and are not where you want to spend 90 minutes. Others are better. We plan for one or two in advance (big fans of the M6 Toll), and also know where the nearest National Trust is too. We stopped in to see my boss en route to Sussex and baby had his biggest ever poomagedon on his kitchen table! 

17  We always leave the middle seat of the car empty and I’ve climbed in the back on a number of occassions. If you get stuck in a traffic jam or things are taking too long, then it’s a good place to sit and entertain the baby or give them a bottle in their car seat and get you out of a sticky spot. More recently I have sat there as chief entertainer when we’ve been travelling at around 5pm and I haven’t wanted baby to nap! 

18  Give yourself more time at the airport. Getting through check in and security takes longer. Getting to the gate takes longer. In fact it all takes longer and you might just want to relax and have a little glass of fizz and toast the holiday rather than just rush manically from A to B!

19  For self-catering we always place an order from Sainsbury’s. I use Sainsbury’s because they email you sufficiently in advance of the delivery time to let you know of anything that wasn’t available. This means you will never get a nasty surprise when the key item doesn’t arrive of an evening and you’re staying deep in the countryside!

20  The safety of my Bugaboo caused me the most worry on our first trip abroad. Packing up a £1500 essential item to go in the plane hold is stressful. The best approach we found was to check the pram in at the gate just before take off. That way it has less distance to travel and be damaged. You can also request it to be returned the aircraft door when you arrive at the destination, which again reduces the risk of damage. We put our Bugaboo in a heavy duty pram bag and insisted on having a tag put onto the bag and both parts of the pushchair. Be sure to construct the pram in the airport before you leave to make sure there is no damage.

21  I also always have the baby carrier with us in the airport. It’s somewhere he likes to sleep in and leaves my hands free. It also means that if the pram did get taken away earlier than hoped then we wouldn’t have an issue. We haven’t yet had a screaming episode on a plane but the carrier reportedly comes into its own for these and you can do laps of the plane while baby snoozes on you happily!

22  If checking in the pram doesn’t sound fun then invest in a travel pushchair. I bought the GB Pockit+ and it was a good move. OK, it’s not the best out there but for 20 days use a year it is just the ticket! Baby naps in it well, it’s light as a feather and I wheeled it right onto the plane with baby asleep, then folded it up into the overhead locker.

23  I haven’t taken the car seat on any overseas trips and don’t intend to. We book airport transfers with Blacklane for our trips and they provide the appropriate size seat on request free of charge. On future trips when we will need a hire car I think we’ll just have to bite the bullet and pay the hire charge, or book through a specialist family travel company who also hire such items.

24  Our little boy has a British Airways logbook where the captain on each plane records all flight details. I love this concept and I’m sure the other big carriers have similar. It’s a great record of his flights. Be sure to ask the cabin crew for one as not all are aware of it especially on a busy flights.

25  Assume baby is going to be more hungry than usual when travelling. I guess it’s a bit of boredom as they’ve got less to do but I was astounded by how much milk and food was put away by my 6 month old on a 7 hour day time flight and was glad I had catered for extra.

26  And with more milk, and some cabin pressure… Comes more poo! Be prepared with extra nappies, wipes and a change of clothes! Those little plane toilets looked small just using them yourself, imagine changing a nappy!!

27  The advice everyone passes on is to try to feed baby on take off and landing rather than waiting for the normal feeding time. This is to stop any pressure building up and popping in his ears. I think on all our flights so far baby has been asleep before take off (I had to start the feed early as he was bored) and slept through landings! But even so I was prepared with milk!

28  Priority flight boarding is, I think, always offered for families. This makes life so much easier if you aren’t already supposed to board early as you can get set on the plane and settle the baby in before it gets noisy and busy. It also means you can put your cabin baggage over your head rather than half a mile up the aisle like often happens if you board late!

29  We always have a good chat to the crew on a flight, they tend to look after you better if you are friendly. It’s even more important with a baby because they have seen it all before and will definitely have some good tips and advice!

30  Pack all the toys in your hand luggage! We filled a rucksack with all his favourites and on one flight made a den. It’s definitely worth having options for a bored youngster to explore!

31  The 70ml pre mixed milk bottles that come with single use teats are now a bit small for my baby, but up until recently they have been perfect for milk emergencies. I always had one in the change bag ready to deploy quickly!

BUYING ALL THE STUFF

32  Pre-ordering milk and food to Boots airside at the airport you leave from is a no-brainer. I thought I was a bit nuts taking an empty cabin suitcase with me to the airport, but as I loaded up in Boots the staff said that all the mums do it! You get all the Boots card points too. You can be certain that everything you ordered is there too as Boots send a confirmation email as well.

33  We always take our Gro blackout blind with us. Stick it on a window, jam it in the window, fill a doorway with it, use it as a shroud round the cot… Whatever approach, it means darkness for naps and bedtime and we all know how much easier that makes life!

34  Speaking of, a snooze shade is another essential if you want baby to nap in the pram on a warm day and still have air moving around, or indeed if you want to put them to bed in the pram and ensure they are in darkness. Don’t use a muslin or a cheap copy as in hot weather you want to be sure the air can circulate.

35  A portable fan is handy if you are going somewhere hot, it is so useful to just to clip onto the pram to keep baby (and you) cool.

36  I bought matching swimming trunks for my boys to twin in from Sunuva. So cute, there’s definitely space for a bit of twining for the holiday album!

37  We spent a lot of our holiday by the hotel pool and our own pool and so getting the swimming kit right was essential. As well as taking his normal swimshorts, I bought a float for him to sit in (and he loved the autonomy and paddling himself around), a wetsuit to cover his torso (as the pool water is cooler than the pools used for swimming lessons), a rash vest to keep the sun off, a reusable Bambino Mio swimming nappy, factor 50 suncream, sunhat sunglasses (super cute but not popular kept on for long)… When we didn’t use the reusable nappy we dried out the Huggies ones overnight if he didn’t’ wee in them and used them again the next day.

38  I bought a little folding travel play mat for our first trip as he spent most of his days on his back. I also have a lovely knitted pram blanket that we take with us as it has good padding for him to sit and play on if the floor isn’t carpeted.

39  I think it is important to remember to buy nice things for yourself too. Not just the baby. Just because we throw our own stuff together in a matter of minutes doesn’t mean we can’t look like yummy mummies in our holiday snaps! I was gifted some lovely bits which were a treat!

MAJOR PACKING EFFORT

40  Packing squares are essential, I can’t pack neatly without them and trying to organise three peoples things needs squares to avoid total chaos!

41  I have accepted that, for now, my travelling hand luggage only days are over! Yes, I will max out the hand luggage allowance, but I also have a massive hold bag too these days!

42  I put washing up liquid and washing powder in little bottles so that they don’t take up much space but I can wash all the bottles and cutlery if we are staying in a hotel and am prepared for any poomagedon situations with his clothes.

43  Sterilising can be a faff when away, it’s like taking chores on holiday. I always take microwaves bags with me just in case. But as a fan of cold water sterilising with a Milton tablet, I just got myself a smaller Tupperware box that could hold two bottles at once. I put it in the hold bag and because it seals that is where all the pots and potions live when we travel so they don’t leak and make a mess in the bag.

44  I have a BT video monitor but recently got a Lollipop (so we can sit at the end of our garden). The Lollipop is great if you have Wifi and means you can actually get a good distance away from the baby. They can sleep in their room and you can sit on your terrace rather than right outside their door… We found our BT one had no range once an outside wall was in play.

45  We always take a few of his favourite books as they are particularly calming if the day has got at all fraught. And the ones that have wheels or different textures on them act as a toy too!

46  A travel sleeping bag is a sound investment. They have little holes between the legs and so we can have him in it and plug him into the car seat, sky cot or his pushchair. Using this on holiday meant we never disturbed his sleep in the evening, we put him down in his pram and let him settle before dinner. At our bedtime, we could move him into his cot without disturbing him. Our little one has slept happily in all the random cots we have used but I do always put our own in the car just in case. Alongside his bedtime teddy and our own base blanket and sheets.

47  Speaking of sleeping bags, I took one of those little temperature cards with guidelines and a thermometer with me so that I could make sure I wasn’t overdressing baby for his sleeps. I took a few different tog options too. Always check how the hotel has made the cot up and that there aren’t loose sheets.

48  We worked hard for months to make bathtime fun for the little man, so his favourite bath toys obviously come with us on any holiday to keep the routine! He was surprised when they turned up in our swimming pool!

49  I take all my own stuff with me for mealtimes – pots, spoons, bibs etc. Disposalle bibs were useful when the highchair table was too high for his silicone one to fit as well as on the plane. A sucker toy to stick to the highchair was helpful. We have a travel chair that straps onto a normal seat and I use this when presented with a communal bio hazard high chair! 

50  Don’t forget nail clippers. The worst task of parenting would be something we’d all like to avoid on holiday, but those talons just don’t stop growing!

51  Our travel first aid kit is growing as baby grows! Calpol (including sachets for the plane), Ibuprofen and cough mixture, all the teething bits as well as plasters and antiseptic wipes. I take it all with us as it’s so much easier than navigating a chemist in a foreign language! Sachets and smaller pots can come hand luggage, bigger bottles are in my sealed sterilising box in the hold.

52  We take our USB nightlight with us wherever we go, as much for baby as us. Unfamiliar surroundings need lighting, sometimes for him but also to avoid stubbed toes.  

55  On our first trip to Vienna I forgot to take a bottle brush so the teats and bottles didn’t get the best clean. I always take one now. 

56  We are British and so are always prepared for rain. As such I’m unlikely to travel far from home without the pram rain cover stashed neatly away somewhere. 

57  Three water bottles, yes three. One for Mummy, especially when nursing as  there’s never enough water given out on a flight. A second one to keep a good amount of boiled water in if you are mixing up power for feeds. A third smaller bottle to take out and about with boiled cooled water ready to use.

WHILE YOU ARE ON HOLIDAY

58  I think it is important to do the stuff you wouldn’t do at home, like putting baby to sleep in his pram and having dinner out, instead of staying in the room with him all evening. None of us have suffered from doing this and the routine wasn’t disrupted whatsoever. It meant we felt like we were adults on our holiday and not just parents looking after a baby on his!

59  We go for the long walks that we always used to do. Initially I would be nervous to stray too far or for too long, but as long as we have milk and food and nappies and stop regularly enough, then baby is happy in the baby carrier. We’ll face him inwards to make sure he has his nap and then face him out when he is awake and wants to walk with us and see the world. 

60  We found that we used the swimming pool a little more each day to acclimatise the baby and to go and see the sea and dip our toes in it each day. This got him used to the new surroundings and experiences. By the end of our beach holiday he was happy playing in the sand and on the waters edge and we even took him to the hotel wave park!

61  Shady spots are king and sometimes that means getting up early to find the right place. I’ve never been more aware of the arc the sun is going to make in the sky to make sure we pick somewhere to sit that will remain shady for the length of the day. It does curb adult tanning somewhat, but we snuck out into the sun whenever he was napping in the shade next to us!

62  It’s really important to take three loungers and put them together as a raft if baby is going to play on them. On one of the first days of our holiday we had just two and of course he topped sideways off the edge and bumped his head on a wall… Baby was fine but there was a lot of parent guilt for us and since then we make sure he’s surrounded by soft surfaces.

63  Getting on local time fast seemed to work for us. Because we landed first thing in the morning in Abu Dhabi we didn’t even have to think about it, it sort of just happened. And when we flew home it was sort of tea time and we just went with it. Baby seemed to sleep well enough overnight, and didn’t miss any of his daytime feeds. When we were in Vienna with the hour difference I worked on local time as well and he wasn’t bothered.

64  Hotels have plenty of air conditioning units dotted around and we found them a really helpful source of white noise at nap times. Not somewhere I’ve chosen to hang out by before, but when we were pushing the pushchair around to assist in starting the nap, we found that pushing it around the air conditioning unit tended to speed things up! Of course Ollie the Owl came with us too, but I didn’t use it at the pool.

65  It’s easier said than done, but relaxing is critical. Just roll with the surprises and relax and laugh about any drama, no one has to go to work the next day! A holiday with a baby is still a holiday for the whole family. It might take more planning and be less relaxing in itself. But it is still a break from the norm and no doubt and investment. So finding the time to all relax is essential. 

And what do we think of this new type of travel? Well it might not be as boutique or as relaxing and peaceful as what went before. But it’s better than all the travel we’ve done before. Showing our little one the world, whether it’s near or far, is full of new experiences. Living our holiday through his sparkling eyes is magical! Spending quality time together and rolling with his surprises is a new normal to love!

And now tell me… What do I need to know about travelling with a toddler…