Traveling With Baby

Recently, Chris and I took an almost 4 week long trip to Europe with our 7 month old daughter, and my mother. If you are traveling with a baby on an 8 hour plus airplane flight – I highly recommend a third set of hands. Chris always jokes that I fall asleep in the car before we even get to the edge of the driveway; well…he falls asleep before we even get off the tarmac. Yes, he did pull some of the weight of entertaining her on the plane, and even worked miracles by maneuvering the diaper changes in the tiny lavoratory on the rocking plane.  However, in my defense – it was nice to be able to hand off the sleeping baby after 5 straight hours of having her on my lap, and not feel guilty about waking Chris.

Although she prefers her newly introduced front-facing, big girl stroller – we opted for the universal stroller which easily totes around her car seat (since we needed that anyway) – and offers an extra-large storage bin beneath (which came in handy more times than I can count!) while still being slim enough to not take up too much space in the rental car.

Katelyn did an amazing job traveling. She adjusted well to the time change, but seems to be having a bit harder time adjusting back now that we are home. It’s only been a day, but she was slightly more fussy than normal, and she woke up twice in the middle of the night which is unusual for her. Unfortunately, on this trip she learned that if she wail-scream-cries she gets something new until she gets what she wants. So, that fun has begun – but she seems to be much, much, much  happier now that she is back at the stability of home! (Can’t say I blame her. I feel better too.)

I packed her suitcase with not only clothes, but a few of her favorite sitting toys. Her diaper bags had some smaller hand toys and balls in them – all of which proved to be essential items to keeping Katelyn entertained for the weeks we were gone.

From this trip I learned a few seemingly non-important things. Here they are in no particular order:

1.       Pack the toys or be prepared to buy some.

2.       If you like a certain diaper (we prefer the Pampers Swaddlers with wetness indicator when we have to use disposables) – Bring plenty with you. The ones you prefer may not be available in other countries.

3.       YOU may travel light, but don’t pack baby lightly. Extra clothes are a must.

4.       If needed, it is possible to hand wash clothes in the hotel bathroom, hang dry inside, and still feel clean in them.

5.       Plastic grocery bags. I like to think we’re pretty green conscious – but these would have proved handy if I would have packed them.

6.       When you don’t speak the language – start with the age of the baby*smile*nod*Uh-huh* and then tell them the name*smile*nod*Uh-huh*

And in completely unrelated baby news – the first lesson I learned is that toilet seats are just as nasty in England, but most were beautifully maintained by an attendant and cost 1 euro to use in most of the German places we stopped at.