Going away with ds (9m) for a few days - what do I need?

[Miaou]

Unfortunately not a pleasure visit - my auntie has just died and I will be going down to England for her funeral. My head is in bits right now so I thought I'd try to sort out what I'll need to take with me to try and take my mind off everything else!

I'll (hopefully) be staying with one of my brothers so accom. is sorted. Any tips for travelling for 7+ hours in a car with a 9m old gratefully received too.

sorry to hear about your aunt.

we move between the UK and France a lot and for the baby we have: clothes (including sleepsuits/pjs, a coat and some socks which i often forget), cot blanket, any sleep toy/blankets that he always uses, bottles/couple of plastic bowls/plastic spoons and a plastic bag of toys. we also take his pram.

for the journey lots of tapes of jolly music, dried fruit and rice cakes + we have proper food and dribk for the journey in a seperate bag.

just before we go i try to run through an average ds day in my head to work out if there is anything else.

good luck!

Thanks lummox.

I think I had better take disposables with me this time but I'm totally out of touch - what size would he need do you think? I think he's on the 50th centile for growth - ie average 9m old - (not had him weighed in months and no scales at home!).

I don't know what to do about food either. He has never had food from a jar before, so I don't know what to get. He's breastfed though so that's one less thing to worry about!

doh - nappies - good point. we shove loads in the change bag, then buy some when we get where we're going. i would think either 4 or 4+ for a 9 monther?

jars-wise i find that ds doesn't eat much when we're moving about, so i try to go for something fairly tempting and finger foody like bread, fruit and then spoon in some yoghurt (well that's what my ds thinks of as tempting!). if you're going for jars, Hipp do a jar called a fruit duet which is very nice. Also there's one called something like superfoods which is a box with two little plasctic pots inside - either sweetcorn and carrot or sweet potato and something.

bfing is always a bonus for travelling, as it is so comforting, particularly when the baby is having to adapt to a new place to sleep.

we used to take some bought baby food jars and a few pots of home made that had been frozen (so they'd defrost on the journey and then last a couple of days in the fridge at the other end) - if he's not had jars before I do advise you do that in case he doesn't like the jars you choose. I also recommend the small vegtable mix Hipp jars - they are the closest thing you can buy to home made food in spain anyway.

Thanks for the tip about food SP - I was wondering about taking some prepared meals in a cool bag - a lot less stressful for both me and ds!

Right, I am staying with db2, who is going to get hold of a travel cot and high chair for ds. He has a ds but he is not weaned yet so I'm guessing I will need to take bibs/bowls/spoons etc. Argh, I'm really stressing about this.

Any other advice for me? Really not sure how ds will cope with such a long journey.

if you can start the journey after a meal then they'll probably sleep through the first part of journey and you can stop at next feed time. Can you make stops where DS can get out of car seat, play on a swing etc - something other than being strapped in, so can use some energy.

only take what you need for the first 24hrs regards food, bottle and nappies (BTW size 4 will be ok, DD2 in them now)

can you ask DB's partner to buy weaning spoons, bowls, nappies and wipes (all the day to day stuff) for you when she does her next weekly shop and you reimburse when you arrive. I'm sure if you ask they will have bibs and muslin and probably even got some clothes in the right size as no doubt someone has probably passed some on to them already. If this is impossible then have a list ready and send someone (DH/DP) shopping when you arrive.

if you don't use jars of food reguarly then I would buy a couple now and try them - Some of them are so thick they are impossible to eat unless warmed up, where as others are thin enough to eat straight from the jar.

as for you take a deep breath and write a list of everything you need to do / take and delegate to DH to share the load.