I'm currently sitting by the pool at a villa in Provence, France. It's lovely and warm and actually quiet! Adrian has taken Lewis off somewhere and all the other babies are out for the afternoon. This is the final week of our three week Europe adventure with a 8/9 month old baby. We thought it would be a walk in the park. How wrong we were!
We thought he would sleep on the plane. Unfortunately the bassinett was too small for him (the maximum weight is 11kg, and he is 10kg, but he was too long for it) and he would only sleep for short bursts while lying on us. We reckon he slept for about 6 hours of the 30 hour journey to London. Not fun.
Then the jet lag hit. When Lewis wanted to get up at 4am and play, there was nothing we could do to stop him! So up we got too. This lasted for about 3 -4 days. Lewis also got a pretty bad cold and cough on the journey, which made our week in London pretty hard work. He was very clingy and whingey. Poor love (and poor us)!
Luckily we had a great apartment we could hang out in. We had the London flat for a week, then a hotel for one night, then a Paris apartment for 5 days, then a hotel for 2 nights, then the Provence villa for a week. It's really nice having somewhere to relax at the end of a day, as well as somewhere for Lewis to crawl around. And we could cook his food and wash his bottles.
By Paris Lewis' cold had gotten better and we had all gotten used to the routine of daily site-seeing. We would generally leave the apartment after Lewis' breakfast, and he would have his morning and afternoon sleeps in the pram. We would take his lunch and 2 bottles with us to get us through the day. He would get cranky being in the pram for too long, so we would put him in the sling (Ergo) when he needed it, and would also stop in parks etc. to let him have a crawl.
Here are a few tips for travelling overseas, particularly in Europe:
TIP: Stay in places for as long as possible, and rent an apartment with cooking facilities if possible. You won't be able to go out as much and having somewhere to spend your evenings and cook dinner is great. It also makes it a lot easier to prepare baby food and bottles (if you are not breastfeeding).
TIP: If you are bottle feeding, you really need to consider your accommodation. Bottles need to be sterilised until babies are about 6 months old, so if your baby is younger than this you'll need accommodation with a microwave or stove for sterilising. Remember to take your bottle brush too. Even if you are not sterilising bottles, it helps to have a kitchen sink to wash the bottles in.
TIP: If you are breast feeding, don't assume that other countries are as pro-breast as Australia. Australia has one of the highest breast feeding rates in the world. In other countries (even the UK and France) you may have trouble finding places to feed and may be made to feel uncomfortable feeding in public. My sister-in-law was told by staff at the Ritz in London that she would be more comfortable feeding in the room upstairs, which turned out to be a disabled toilet! Disgraceful.
TIP: Don't assume you'll be able to get the same baby products that you use at home. I found that the range of baby food and formuala products is much more extensive (and better) in Australia than the UK and France, so be prepared to substitute. The squeezy pack foods are hard to find in the UK, and virtually non-existent in France. Lactose-free formula was only stocked in big pharmacies in the UK, and in France there was only a soy-based lactose-free formula that you had to get from a pharmacist!
TIP: Good travel food for babies includes bananas, avocado, bread, any cut up soft fruit. Rice cereal or porridge are easy to mix with water and/or pureed baby fruit.
TIP: Don't take a big pram. In Europe small strollers are used by most people. My friends took their massive Baby Jogger pram and got strange looks. This is because the footpaths are generally narrow and most people catch public transport with their kids, so you need a small pram. For example, on buses in London there is a section that will fit two small strollers.
TIP: Always keep a sling (ie. Ergo, Baby Bjorn) under your pram. You can use it to carry your baby when they are sick of the pram, but it may also be necessary for some sights or streets that are not wheelchair accessible.
TIP: On the plane, arrange for a special meal (eg. halal or vegetarian) so that one meal comes out first, or you can just ask the staff to bring one meal out after everyone else. This way, one of you can hold the baby while the other eats.
TIP: Book a bassinet seat, even if you don't need one, as there is a lot more room in front of the bulkhead seats for you to stand and juggle the baby and food etc.
TIP: At the start of the flight ask the staff if there are any spare seats next to each other that you could move to, to allow your child to have a seat. You can then lift the arm rest to allow them to sleep on you. Unfortunately the armrests don't lift up in the bulkhead/bassinet seats as the armrests hold the tray table.
