How do you go on holiday with a baby?

[Orangelover]

Ok fairly light hearted pondering here about travelling with babies. Due first baby in March and have been asked if we would like to join friends in a European country in August (they have a villa there) so baby would be between 4 and 5 months.

We’d kind of written off an abroad holiday this year until baby is older but it’s been a while since we’ve been away properly and my mind is thinking through the logistics.

How do you fly with pram/buggy? What about car seats/travel when you get there? Do you worry about baby being too hot? So many questions and likely to be hypothetical as I doubt we’ll accept.

I've always thought a package/AI type holiday would be easier for the early years but we’re likely to be invited to other trips like this and don’t want to turn everything down.

Thanks!

Young babies are fairly easy, I travelled a lot. I had a lie back umbrella buggy for travel/car use , checked the car seat in, coslept and breastfed. I did borrow/rent bits occasionally but not until the highchair stage

If you fly, you will be need to take a car seat for cars/taxi’s and you may need a travel cot, high chair, baby gates (if baby is crawling by then). Obviously if you can drive, then you can take so much more. If your friends rent out their villa, they may already have some baby things.

Start by accepting that this is not going to resemble holidays before kids in any way. Keep expectations low and realistic.

We had a bag for pram, a travel stroller and a bag for car seat.
The airlines we used to stroller/pram and carseat for free under 2 yo.

We were settled in UK with our family but had our family in Europe. It's wasn't hard to travel the first years.

I haven't travelled with babygates, highchair or cots. Tbh none of the families I know have. It's a holiday.

I wouldn't go in August anywhere hot, it won't be pleasant for anyone. Yes, there are children in these countries but they don't go from 20 to 35 degrees in a day.

Do your friends have children? If not, your holiday will be very different and that may cause issues. You may be stuck with a baby in the evening when everyone else wants to go out for dinner and drinks. Your baby may or may not be happy with sightseeing in a pram/sling.

I wouldn't commit and see what kind of baby you have and look for a low key holiday yourself.

If you fly, most airlines take a pram and car seat free of charge. You take your changing bag as one piece of handluggage.
Going before you wean is easy unless you have milk issues like special formula. There are ways to take bottles and steriliers with you.

You take a lot more stuff and it's some faff. The good news is that when they're tiny is the easiest time to take them away. You won't need to do any baby proofing because baby will still be in the potato phase. Take the pram, but also I'd recommend using a sling. We went aboard when my baby was 6 weeks old and the pram got lost in transit! As it happened she liked the sling a lot, and wasn't really a chill in her bassinet type baby, so I barely noticed it and we got it back the day before we left. I wore her in the sling at the airport and on the plane, which meant I still had hands-free. It was by far the easiest holiday we've had with children.

I never flew with a buggy, I just took a sling. We also chose a completely different holiday to the type we used to do - an AI hotel, set up for babies and young children, where we didn’t leave the resort. They even had bottle sterilisers in the room, we didn’t bring anything. The baby/toddler menu was great. We had previously thought that we wouldn’t bother going abroad until DD was older, but I finished cancer treatment and desperately wanted some sunshine. It was such a lovely week that I cried when I left!

We went to Greece when baby was 7 months. You can take buggy to the gate then you get it back on arrival but definitely take a sling to carry them on between, so your hands are free. We didn’t take a car seat - we got a taxi transfer which provided a seat, and just stayed at the resort. Was breastfeeding which meant no bottles etc so not sure how people manage that. Hotel provides a travel cot. It was hot so we took baby back to the air conditioned room for naps; and obviously kept her in the shade. We didn’t find the packing too bad - took all nappies which we found easier. Just have low expectations of what a holiday will be like!

We flew with a YoYo buggy which is small enough to be taken on as hand luggage if you want. It clipped into my car seat which I always took. I didn’t take babygates or high chairs etc though. I used a portable fabric attachment for a high chair past 6 months.

4-5 months is probably the easiest age to travel though, before they move or need food.

You don’t need to take a high chair or baby gates!

Honestly it’s a massive faff - baby gets too hot and cranky, eats sand in beach, hard tiled floors in villas that are terrifying, have to take tonnes of equipment, car seats, buggies etc
We tried it once and then stayed in the Uk until the kids were old enough to appreciate. It was less stressful that way.

4-5 months is absolutely optimum time to travel with a baby- before they can move, after the fourth trimester. IMO the absolute Age of Horror is 18 months- 3 years.

I don't know which European country, but could you potentially drive? Then you could sling All the Stuff in the back of the car.

Babies are easy to travel with!

They generally travel for free, if you breastfeed them you don't have to lug bottles and food, although even if you do, it's not that much of a faff (I did both). They are containable, don't run around, kick seats or drive you nuts with incessant questions. You can hire car seats at pretty much every car hire place in the world. You can usually take your buggy / pushchair to the gate or sometimes even the plane door and then it is loaded on late. I found mine much easier as babies than toddlers.

Babies are born in pretty much every country in the world, so heat can't be that much of an issue, otherwise the populations of really hot countries would have all died out.

Yeah, but the baby won't be crawling or cruising by 5 months.

We flew with our main buggy which is a Yoyo and fits in the overhead lockers. Most holidays were on Eurostar rather than flying so we just took it on the train as we would for day trips. We fly once a year to the US to visit family. Most holidays we didn't use cars so didn't worry about a car seat, though we do need one in the US. We have spare car seats kept at DH's parents for when we visit (if we didn't have those we'd just have to bring them from the UK.)

We never worried about baby being too hot but we limited holidays to northern Europe for summer holidays and to USA at Easter.

We've never found travelling stressful and don't bring along many things that many people consider to be essential. I bf so never needed any feeding equipment.

All of the best holidays I’ve had were with babies! I don’t agree that holiday with young children are crap, I absolutely love them. Yes, you’re not going to be out partying until the small hours, but there are other ways to have fun.

Get a travel buggy (yoyo is great as you can take it to your place seat). You can bring a car seat if you fly, or you could drive to France/Germany etc and bring as much as you want.

We always did self catering and hired a place with a pool (and hired a car if not in the town). We would go out during the day, have a big lunch often the child would be sleeping (bliss), then just bread, cheese, and wine in the evening after the baby was down and sit out in the garden. We always brought a baby monitor that doesn’t require WiFi.

when they are very young, you could probably do a hotel and eat out in the evening when they are napping. We preferred a self catering place with extra rooms and outside space so we didn’t feel confined to all being in a room after 1930.

We travelled abroad when DS was coming up 6 months. We had a pushchair that folded down and went into the overhead locker, and booked a hire car with a car seat. You can either take a travel cot or often if it’s a popular holiday destination hire one locally. I was breastfeeding and pumping so took the pump stuff / microwave steriliser pouches etc. If I hadn’t been pumping I’d have just needed my boobs. Then pack all the other detritus they need into a suitcase and off you pop!

Often people take a car seat as they don’t trust hired ones, but after 20 years in the travel industry I trust baggage handlers less so I’d rather take the risk with a hired car seat for a few short journeys than risk our own car seat suffering invisible damage and then being risky forever.

I went to Australia when my daughter was 4 months old, combined feeding. A sling is the way forward for the airport. I took a travel cot (the villa probably has something available), which doubled as a playpen, and packed a baby gymn in it which was actually v useful. I was going to family so hired a car seat and borrowed a pram there - I would take a capsule and put it under a seatbelt.

I had assumed it would be easy to sterilise bottles with a microwave bag, but actually impossible and I gave up while flying.
If bottle feeding then order nappies, pre mixed formula and Calpol to pick up from Boots once through customs.

We stuck to UK holidays where everything could just go in the car. We booked cottages that were just for us and included things like highchairs and cots. We had our own travel stairgate just incase.

I know lots of people do fly with babies and go on group holidays but I just didn't want any extra hassle.

You're very unlikely to be enjoying a few drinks and lounging around the pool chatting when you have a 5 month old. Baby will need constant supervision and even if someone else offers to look after them for a while you really still need to check they're doing a proper job, especially if there's a pool without a closed gate and full surround fence at the villa. Friends without experience of babies just won't get the level of supervision required around open water, balconies, stairs etc.

We had a lot of fun on our UK holidays. Holidays change when you have children but for us, were still very enjoyable. Booking the right place and keeping things manageable is key.

Oh and a top tip I saw online before we went with our non-mobile baby, we took some small toys that could be fastened to ribbon, hung them off the back of a dining chair and put a folded blanket underneath. Low energy and low space baby gym to keep him occupied while we got ready for the day!

😂Who on earth flies with baby gates and high chairs?!?!

It really depends on the baby. We have family abroad so we took both our DD to see them when they were about 2 months old and we also took DD2 to an AI type hotel in Spain when she was 5 months. DD1 - no problem and totally doable. DD2 - total nightmare, travel exacerbated the challenges we were already having with sleep - she wouldn’t sleep in the pushchair so I couldn’t relax by the pool or eat dinner while she slept next to me. Wearing a sling with a baby that cries if you sit down is miserable on a hot holiday. The best day was when where we walked around a local town sightseeing but I didn’t want to do that every day! It was a massive waste of money and I came home exhausted.

God it’s so easy that age! I went to Thailand alone with a 4 month old and 3 year old and husband joined us 2 weeks later and we travelled around loads - baby was so easy he didn’t care where we went just strapped him into baby carrier or he slept in his pram - very portable

he was breast fed so didn’t need to bring a thing for him just clothes and I was the food

my buggy fits in the hold so brought it on the plane

easy to keep cool - find shade - get a snooze shade for the buggy or go inside during peak heat times

there wasn’t even high chairs most places 😹 so Europe would be super easy

Babies are actually the easiest to take on holiday!
Your allowed 2 baby items for free with most airlines we would take a travel cot then had a light travel buggy - some go lie flat. We would take our own travel car seat and put the buggy and car seat in a travel bag together and check it in.

We would use a parasol and a buggy fan for our and about plus a sleep shade.
We would also take a attachable high chair if self catering which packs small.

Hiring a car makes life easier!

Then it's simply travel of everything including murton tablets and jar.

Your up early so you explore early morning then take in turns whilst baby naps and stay in the shade. We did use sun tan lotion but a baby specific minerals one. Carrier for through the airport.
They are much more compliant at flying at 5 months then they are are 18 months tbh!