Travelling with a six-week-old - how mad are we?

[Moorhen]

I'm due July 14 (first baby) and my family have booked an Italian villa for when he'd be five-six weeks old assuming arrives on time (har har).

I would love to go - we do this every two or three years, everyone goes, and it's fantastic to spend so much time together. Love the idea of everyone getting to know the new arrival, and also tbh fighting to look after him so DH and I get an hour or so to ourselves!

Have been assured that babies are "very portable" when that tiny. Pram includes a carrycot he could sleep in. Villa is half an hour from town and owned by an English family nearby, my father speaks Italian anyway, it's in the mountains so will be cool in the evening and not too insect-infested.

On the surface, I think it looks do-able (at any rate worth risking £200 to book cheap flights now so we can go if we want). But am I missing something? Any thoughts?

it sounds like a nice idea if all works out fine
only things to bear in mind are that you can't book a plane ticket because you don't know the baby's name and d.o.b. yet, and that you need to get a passport for him/her too, which takes time.

You could go up to 2 weeks overdue, bear in mind, so baby could actually be 3-4 weeks old rather than 5-6

I'm quite a capable person, but when my first baby arrived I was a wreck

I didn't know how to pick her up/latch her on/bathe her and the thought of going abroad with her would have filled me with terror. With scond baby I'd have gone like a shot!

If you are used to babies I think you'd be fine (and probably would anyway, especially with family around) but TBH while you say you love the idea of everyone getting to know the new arrival, and also fighting to look after him, I would have HATED that

geekgril, why didnt i think of that!

another thing is missing your 6 week check
it really depends very much on how early/late baby is and how the birth and the first few weeks go, doesn't it?

Go for it of you possibly can. We were told we could book tickets without knowing the full name. dd's passport required a trip to Newcastle to arrange in person but arrived well within the 1 week they promised. All that sunshine will do YOU the world of good and it sounds as if there will be plenty of people around to support you and look after you. I suspect Italian healthcare is quite good, and there are always people at the other end of the phone in the UK to ask for advice.

Go! I would!

I took my 4-week-old abroad and it is true, small babies are entirely portable, especially if you are breastfeeding. Book the flights, make up a name and DOB for the baby then change them after the birth. Get passport forms now so you can send them off as soon as you've got the info and pics together.

That's what I'd do anyway. Because if you don't go in the end, it's because you don't want to, not because you can't, IYSWIM.

totally agree, frenchleave
don't set your heart on going so you can always change your mind if nec (if you have a c section for example you might want longer to recover) but if it's not too expensive then it should be ok if you have to pull out
don't forget to put her on the travel insurance

I would go!

You can book a plane ticket even before baby is born - have done it twice now. The only problem was we had forgotten to actually pay for the ticket so had to do it at the airport before we could check in.

Travelling with babies, especially really young ones, is a breeze compared with toddlers!

The six week check can be delayed, can't it, my DS was early, and then I couldn't make the scheduled appt as we were away so we made it for closer to three months.

I would go, definitely...

Good luck,

No problem with booking the flight - after all baby does not have a seat anyway and you don't need a date of birth, you just book for an infant.

I went away when ds was 5 weeks old and was miserable - but I have decided that I would have been miserable at home anyway. Besides you are going somewhere hot - I was miserable largely because every time it rained I had a let down and milk went everywhere.

My main concern would be the language barrier if your baby got sick - but as your father speaks Italian it's not a problem.

If you have got on on previous holidays no reason why you shouldn't with a baby. Just make sure that you get some sleep during the day when you have willing baby sitters.