Spain with a 10 month old baby. Questions.

[beatie]

DD1 will be 3.8 and dd2 will be 10 months. We've not taken dd1 on holiday anywhere really hot before so this is new territory for me. We will be travelling at the hottest time of the year and we'll be away fro 2 weeks, staying in a villa with my extended family.

I have a few questions...

Nappies - I don't want to take more than enough for the first night and day. I'm assuming we'll easily be able to buy a pack of nappies on the Sunday after we arrive.

Food - DD2 eats a mixture of mashed up grown-up foods, finger foods and 7months+ babyfood from a jar. If, as a family, we go out to eat lunch or dinner, which would be best to feed dd2. I'd like to think I could feed her scraps off our plates but is this a realistic expectation (i.e. is food going to be too salty for her? Should we aim to feed her before we leave the villa?

Milk - I'm still breastfeeding but she goes to bed on a bottle of formula. At 10 months will a change of formula milk brand matter or do I need to pack enough for 14 bottles?

Clothing - What should I take for the baby to sleep in? Will she just sleep in a nappy with a cellular blanket/sheet for cooler nights? How do I keep her cool enough during the day?

Insect repellent - Are insect bites likely to be a problem? Should I buy a natural insect repellent for the children? Are those insect repellent bands any good?

Thanks for humouring me and my holiday angst!

Nappies - depends where you are - I would take enough to cover Sunday just in case the shops are shut. Dodot brand in Spain is pampers

I would take your own formula
You can buy jarred food there for feeding when out

Went to Lanzarote with DS when he was 9 months. Got nappies really easily there, so Spain should be no problem.

Also did a lot of eating with DS out and about - we ordered stuff that we could share with him, lots of fresh fish and you can always get bread. You might find tapas a bit salty though. I did carry bananas and a couple of jars about just in case of emergency though.

Re. the milk, I took ours with us - I think it's safer to take what she's used to, in case she doesn't like the ones there. If yours comes in those silver packages, it's dead easy to transport. And if you're still sterilising, just buy some milton tablets and you can sterilise in a saucepan/container/even the sink I guess.

Have you got a light sleeping bag (grobag) for DH? We had a 0.5 tog one which is just one layer of cotton and DS used to sleep in that with just a nappy. Otherwise I guess just a sheet and take a cellular blanket in case you need one. During the day, there's not alot you can do I guess apart from keeping her out of the sun and inside between 11 and 3 where possible, and making sure she drinks loads of water/breastfeed her a bit more.

Don't know anything about insect repellents though. Ask a pharmacist? You can get plug in things for the bedrooms at night easily over there, so that might be an idea.

Hope that's helpful, have a lovely holiday, and don't worry too much about it all in advance!

on the milk front i would take your own. i found that even the same brand as i used was different over there - a lot thicker. didn't upset DS but was def different. have a lovely holiday

Beatie, I can recommend Mosiguard insect repellent. It's citronella, therefore natural and is safe for chldren. It can slightly sting if they rub their hands in eyes or mouth though.

The plug-in repellents are good too and should be sufficient for most people (I'm super sensitive to mosquito bites). Spanish pharmacists are pretty good ime if you needed anything btw.

I wouldn't worry at all. WE went last year with 6 month dts. We ran out of milk, and jsut bought nestle, we bought dodot nappies, and a combination of spanish baby food, and fruit etc. The boys slept in vests with one cellular blanket. They only had the blanket for comfort, didn't need them at all really. No probs with insects at all.

take your own milk - formula is all different over there and usually only available from the chemist (not supermarkets). i would take nappies if you can fit them in because i found that disposable nappies were all really expensive, but they are available.
I guess if you are going self catering you will going to larger supermarkets not the crap tourist ones in the resorts so may be cheaper there.
dd slept in a summer weight grobag, found nights quite cool (compared to how they have been here lately)
didn't find insects bites a problem at all.

Oh yes, for making up formula, use a low sodium content mineral water - we used Evian. We boiled ours but apparently you don't need to!

where abouts are you going? We had no probs with getting nappies and formula from big supermarkets. but we did have carrefour and champion down the road. Just thought of soemthing else though - spain only sells huge packets of nappies, so take the minimum or you will be filling your suitcase with nappies for the journey home! And I jsut used bog standard mineral water. Can't actually remember seeing evian.

We'll be in the Javea area.

just look at the ingredients on the back of the mineral water bottles, and get the one with the lowest sodium content - think you want one with below 20 mg.

Javea is quite big resort I think? you'll be fine! But tip about Sundays is a good one - they don't tend to open Sundays in Catholic Spain! We found small packs of nappies as well, maybe the huge supermarkets only sell the big ones, but you can get smaller in little shops. Also got swim nappies out there.

In spanish shops you can go and ask for 'papilla' (pa-pee-ya). it is porridge basically. you want it for babies over 6 months - mas de seis (seys)meses. i mixed it with a teaspoon of jam to make it more interesting.

it comes in flakes like readybrek and you can mix it with milk.

or take a sandwich bag with some readybrek inside and buy whole milk there.

Spanish towns and cities have well stocked neighbourhood shops where you can find all the day to day basics for babies and home. the prices are v. reasonable.

I live in Spain, so let me know if you need any help.
I would take enough nappies to cover Sundays as Spanish supermarkets dont open on a Sunday in general, although a few do in tourist aras on a sunday in the summer but it´s not every sunday. If you get desperate you need to find a shop called Opencor which open daily till late but are really expensive.

Food wise, scraps should be fine or even better is order a tapas, which will be more than enough. Some Carrefours stock Hipp Organic jars, Spanish baby food can have added salt.

Bedding wise, a nappy will probably be enough, you could start off with a light sheet but you probably won´t need it.

Also it might be woth noting that baby changing facilities are non exisitent, high chairs are few and far between, I used to use one of those inflatable chairs that you attach to a normal chair.

That´s all I can think of at the moment.

oh, they wean a lot later and a lot slower than we do in the UK so don't expect to see the range of jars there. papilla is a night-time porridge business but who says it just has to be night time over there it is fortified food.

you ought to be able to find good quality crackers and biscuits though and get cream cheese as a dipper for them.

Thanks for all the advice so far. I know I'll be fine and can be extremely resourceful when I need to be but it's good to go with expectations which aren't too far off the mark