To take a 5 month old on a girls' weekend to Paris

[Patapouf]

Has anyone done this and has tips to make it less stressful? I know the baby will get nothing out of it but I am not ready to leave him at home with DH for 2 nights just yet and I'm desperate to make the most of mat leave.

Travelling by Eurostar, probably stay in an Airbnb. Planning a bit of sightseeing but mainly mooching about, sitting in cafés and stocking up on skincare and food or maybe not having seen the value of the pound

Friends will be hands on and help as much as they can but I'm very anxious that it will be disastrous. Baby is BF (not going well), but mostly EBM so worrying about the logistics of expressing or BF out and about. I also can't imagine trying to manoeuvre a pram on the narrow pavements. I know babies live in Paris, I did too once, but I'm a worrier.

Can I make this work? How can I pack light?

I suppose my AIBU should really be how can I be less nervous about travelling with a baby?

Yabu. If you want to take a baby to Paris, go with your DH. Don't ruin your friends' weekend away.

Loving the suggestions to bring your DH or for him to start lactating. Brilliant.

All the posters saying 'just leave the baby'....You can't just leave a 5 month old BF baby for two days without suffering from engorgement which could lead to mastitis and at the very worst, going completely cold turkey from breastfeeding in this way can actually trigger post-partum depression or even psychosis! The op would have to express every 3/4 hours while she was away to maintain her milk supply and prevent blocked ducts.

You are wasting your time mita all the “it easy to leave the Dad with BF baby brigade” don’t seem to understand that it is not just the baby who relies on BF once the supply is built up.

Definitely take a sling and make sure that you have tested it for comfort and carried baby around all day in it beforehand, particularly if you're not used to using a sling. Your local sling library will be able to help with this and do it closer to the holiday as baby will get a lot heavier in two months. It'll be so much easier on the metro.
Don't plan to do too much and make sure your friends know this beforehand. One outing and a cafe/lunch will be enough for a day. Eat in the flat sometimes. Do not travel for miles across Paris each day, so think about location. Keep it simple. A tired baby or mum makes for a crap weekend. You will be more tired than your friends. Discuss them doing things without you as they will have energy for more than one outing a day. Plan for them to do a more adult friendly activity at least one day and let them know that you would prefer this. Choose activities with less of a queue, e.g. Centre Pompidou not the Louvre - queues are probably the worst idea with babies.
Book a flat with a living area so that you can put baby to bed in the evening and then sit up playing cards/chatting. Book a baby friendly flat that can provide a cot and a high chair.
You don't need to overpack equipment. Just extra nappies and babygros. I regularly travelled to and across London with a baby and a toddler on my own and got the packing down to a bare minimum. It helped that I was luckily able to breastfeed easily and so didn't need any feeding equipment.
Gen up on french vocab for baby related items. If you lived in Paris your French is probably good, but you may not know baby specific words. Remember, it's Paris, not outer Mongolia. They have the same stuff. Enjoy your holiday.

I would leave the expressing stuff at home and just exclusively breast feed for the few days.

I doubt OP is mainly expressing for the fun of it as it's bloody hard work. Most likely it's because her baby can't, for whatever reason, get full feeds at the breast. I don't think people are quite understanding that, but there's not a lot of info around having to exclusively express unless you specifically look for it. It might not be possible for her/her baby to breastfeed exclusively for a few days.

Please people, read the thread. The baby is fed MAINLY EXPRESSED MILK. It's right there in the OP That means baby mostly gets its milk from bottle, so the dad doesn't need to lactate (but he does need to have milk left for him to feed!).

Oh and OP, just a word of encouragement on the expressing front. My baby couldn't latch at all for six weeks and then very poorly for another six weeks due to a v tight jaw meaning she couldn't open her mouth wide enough to latch. The whole thing was v distressing for us both but at around 12 weeks she started latching properly, and we were able to ditch the expressed bottles and now she is almost entirely fed at breast, except for when I go out and DP feeds her from bottles. In a couple of months time, your breastfeeding relationship might have totally changed and you might not need to pump as much or even at all, depending on what your situation is.

One positive thing about expressing so much at the start is that your son will take a bottle, which is often half the battle with breast fed babies, so even if you don't want to leave him for this trip, it should make future trips less stressful

@PlutocratCow

I don't think I am being. I'm just not agreeing with you

You don't need to overpack equipment. Just extra nappies and babygros.

Sorry, not clear. What I meant was don't take things "just in case" other than nappies and babygros (take extra of these items only). You probably won't need it and can get away with the minimum for two days. Obviously you'll need the equipment to pump if that's what you're doing.
Keep the sling handy for the flight/train.

Do you actually want to go, OP? At the start, you said you were "desperate not to waste your maternity leave" which seems a bit of an odd way to phrase it!

You won't have wasted your ML if you don't go on a trip abroad - sounds like you are using it to look after your new baby, which is exactly what it's for. And going on a trip to Paris that you feel anxious about and won't enjoy would be even more of a waste than not going at all.

It sounds like this trip is something you feel you "ought" to want, or something you want to prove you can do, rather than actually something you are looking forward to. Sometimes people worry that having a baby will make them "boring" or unadventurous and want to prove they are still the same person they were before. Do you maybe feel that saying no to the trip would be "boring" or letting your friends down, OP?

Definitely not.

Ideally, we will be totally BF and I'll be able to ditch the pump but i need to plan for expressing as well as BF.

Baby will obviously take bottles but prefers the breast and sometimes that's all that will soothe him, this may not be the case in the autumn but is another factor in my unwillingness to be away from him overnight. Just to clear things up, he is 3 months old now, so will be 5 months if and when we go to Paris.

I know someone asked earlier, I have a Spectra S1, a medela swing and a couple of Hakaas. Spectra doesn't need to be plugged in but it's massive so maybe could discretely use hakaas just to take the edge off until I can get back to the Airbnb to pump properly.

If you've called me entitled, can you elaborate? I'm not sure how accepting an invitation makes me entitled

I'm going against grain but I'd say go for it if friends and you aren't planning a boozy late night weekend.

He's at the best age. No worrying about finding food! Can't sit or crawl or cruise and so no wanting to constantly get down/run off or worry about turning your back on him.

In fact - this is probably your only opportunity until you are truely ready to leave him for a weekend.

@Celebelly that's fab, I'm hoping one day things will just click because expressing is such a hassle.

Look up Freemies - there might be a way to discreetly attach them to the Swing when it's on belt clip for handsfree pumping. Spectra is a great pump but it's quite bulky to carry around when out and about.

If you're in north east Scotland you can borrow my Elvies!

Pata that is very possible that you will be EBF by then. I had to express too in the early day but as the baby got older the latch improved enough to eliminate expressing. Simply the mouth getting bigger meant feeding got better. Personally I found hand pumps much easier to drag around when only expressing intermittently but electric when I was pumping intensively at the start.

We took our 10m old and I suspect it would have been easier if he was little. We did take a pushchair and it was completely fine, apart from going up the stairs to our AirBnB but then we just left it in the stairwell at the bottom. I'd also take a sling, which might be better for day time naps if you're out and about?

Plenty of Parisian mums out and about with buggies, and surprisingly, loads of play parks when you look for them! Breastfeeding was completely fine, had no issue even with a bigger baby.

Make sure your accommodation has a travel cot unless you cosleep - bit of a fail on our part!

I think you know your friends best and if you're happy to take the baby then go for it!!

@FineWordsForAPorcupine I don't think so, no. I have no FOMO if they decide they still want to go if I bow out. I went to Paris several times when pregnant so I'm not in a massive rush to go back, It might just be a nice opportunity to spend some time with friends and have a change of scenery.

In terms of making the most of maternity leave, I mean making the most of not having to request annual leave! Obviously my plans for the year are to care for DS, I'm just asking how sensible it is to want to do that away from home for a couple of days.

Wow, your friends sound like kind and generous people. I would bow out before I inflicted a baby on a girls' weekend!!
Actually OP, I am in Paris now, and boy is it expensive. Make sure you stock up on everything you need before coming

And don't bring a buggy. I'd forgotten how many metro stairs there were.

How come you dont trust your husband with the baby?

I think it will do him good, and youll be able to catch up with your old friends as an adult in your own right. Its kind that they want to see you so much even with your baby, but if noone else has kids then its really not fair to bring him. It will change the dynamic entirely. Its really advisable to keep adult friendships and not make them all child centered once you become a parent if possible

This is either a huge coincidence OR you have changed some details (number of friends travelling/date/location) OR I know one of your friends... in which case I also know they are just being begrudgingly polite and not in the slightest delighted.

@Branleuse where have I said I don't trust DH?

Bran have you BF and left the baby for 2 days?

@Cluelessbeetroot

One word:
No!!!!!!!!!!!

If you are not ready for 2 nights without your dd fair enough. But do NOT bring her to a girls weekend!

That is supposed to be filled with fun fun and fun
Not a baby that needs to be catered for...
I would be so grumpy if i go on a girls weekend and someone brought their baby. You know how annoying a baby is when you have a hangover ?? Or when you are trying to relax and get away from family life, only to be trapped with a baby

No no nooooo