Top 13 Tips for Bringing Baby on Holiday

And in 13 months, we have brought Baby Lauren to Hong Kong & Italy! So here are our Top 13 Tips for Bringing Baby on Holiday! Hope this helps!

1. Mentally prepare yourself for the worst. Baby pooping on plane. Baby screaming on plane. Baby refusing to sleep for full 13-hour flight. Baby vomiting. Baby kicking you in your face. Baby punching the plane marshal. Once you’ve prepared yourself mentally for all kinds of baby emergencies and shenanigans, you’d breeze through your trip since most of it probably won’t happen and even if they do, well you’ve been warned. Right?

2. Plan when to go. After you’ve imagined how ludicrous it would be to bring your baby on a long-haul holiday and you still think it’s a good idea, well, start planning when to take off. Best to go when they’re still light and fluffy. Once they start walking, they’d probably be heavy as a sack of rice and even if they don’t get tired of running amok, you’d eventually get tired when they decide they can no longer walk on and they insist you carry them. Brats. Or just bring along a light-weight, foldable pram. Best to use a sling or carrier, though.

3. Select baby-friendly countries. I would suppose most countries are, but it makes a difference whether the locals actually love or are indifferent to babies. Both Hong Kong and Italy that we’ve visited with Baby Lauren were fantastic places, the locals absolutely adored Baby Lauren, stopping to say she’s beautiful (bella in Italian and tak-yi in Cantonese, we heard it wherever we went!), blow kisses at her, and take photos of her. Not to mention, we skipped the mammoth queue at The Vatican Museum without paying extra, just because we had a baby with us. We felt really grateful for Baby Lauren and I’m sure many countries do exceptional things for parents with babies. Google before you go to maximize your parenting benefits! Also, you may also want to choose a country with an efficient medical system. Never know when real emergencies happen and it’d provide you with a piece of mind.

4. Take down important contact numbers. Save local hospital, embassy, nearby clinics, police stations, insurance numbers directly onto your phone once you’ve done your booking. Always have extra photocopies of all itineraries, passport, baby birth certificate and insurance details. Best to have a money-belt for secure handling of excess cash and passports so you don’t have to worry where your purse is. Especially if you have “I am loaded with cash” tattooed onto your forehead or you’re just Asian. You need to travel light and have all your eyes on your baby and belongings. A concealed money-belt makes sure your valuables stay intact.

5. Choose flight timing to coincide with baby sleep. So you’ve done all your homework and you’ve decided on the destination and dates. Next thing: Choose the flight timings that match your baby’s sleep. Chances are, they will be so tired, they’d knock out most of the plane trip. That will save plenty of distress onboard the aircraft. Having said that, Baby Lauren didn’t sleep a peep during the 13-hour flight to Milan and was hyper the whole time. It was brutal. I need hugs. Some babies may experience ear ache so during take-off and landing, feel free to offer your baby some boobie love or pacifier or bottle, whichever works.

6. Have a baby essentials backpack. Pack basic medication like baby panadol, diarrhea meds and rehydration salts from baby’s PD. Bring along syringes too. Thermometer. Lip Balm, or better still bring our Baby Miracle Balm. And some bandages and sterile swaps for any scrapes and cuts. If breastfeeding, bring along your breastfeeding cloth. For me, I found it was easier to wear a sweater backwards, ie covering my front instead of back, it kept Baby Lauren from saying hello to the world with my boob in her mouth. Make sure you always bring along extra diapers, formula, snacks and water.

7. Pack entertainment equipment. Look, I know how doctors and PDs say no-no to screen time and the iPad is the spawn of Satan’s IT guy but hey, peace is underrated. A calm baby is extremely lovely to be around, agree? We use the iPad and Youtube as our last resort. Baby Lauren loves listening to me sing nursery rhymes to her, so I usually do a 20-song medley, repeating each song once, and I drag it here and there so she gets entertained for a good hour or so. Works on normal days but when strapped to a plane seat for 13-hours with a screaming baby struggling to break free? That’s right, pack the iPad and load it with plenty of videos and songs. Bring along books and toys too. But not too many, travel light. I know, what a dilemma right?

8. Always practise elastic timing. Allow buffer time for cleaning up baby pooplosions and other last-minute events. That’s especially vital for flight check-ins. It’s easier to wait at the departure gate than to do a 400m sprint with carry on bags and baby in tow. For those considering a guilt-free luxury splurge in Europe, this is critical because the tax refund procedure can take more than an hour or two if you’re unlucky. With hordes of moneyed locusts (shan’t pinpoint nationalities) lugging trunk-loads of leather goods back home, yet just one or two custom counters open to refund taxes, you will want to avoid being right at the back of the line. Or miss your flight. And they process refunds based on passports, so try to spend with just 1 passport for easier refund. If both passports are used, remember to organize all receipts according to respective passports and pack the goods in your carry on luggage in case the officers want to check them. This is no time to be disorganized and messy. Remember to have your cute baby with you, it helps to lighten the mood. Really!

9. Use a baby sling or carrier. If you haven’t gotten around this whole baby-carrying gig, better start soon if you wish to travel with baby. Don’t wait until you’ve booked your holiday before you try fitting baby inside because chances are, they hate it. At least in the beginning. I struggled with Baby Lauren for 2 weeks, before she relented at 6 weeks. Thank God because she’s now 58 weeks (1 year and 6 weeks haha) and she loves being in the sling. If she’s cranky and fussy, plop her in and she goes silent. It’s like nirvana to her. We started her on the carrier too and she falls asleep within 15 minutes of being inside. Really helpful when traveling. And you have your hands free to do whatever, like eat a gelato cone.

10. Fill up baby before moving. If breastfeeding, always top up baby before moving off. Even if you’ve fed baby 1 hour ago. That’s just to make sure baby is absolutely satisfied and happy to go. If baby loves snacks, always offer baby a baby biscuit or cookie to keep baby in high spirits before going out. Remember to pack along snacks that can “calm” baby down when out. It’s ok to mess up baby’s diet and routine here and there when on holiday. If you don’t wish to jazz up baby’s fixed routine, then don’t go overseas. You’d be more miserable than the lil bub.

11. Schedule baby sleep on the go. Same mantra as above. This is especially important when doing a self-drive holiday like what we did in Italy. Although we throw the nitty-gritty details out the window, the overall routine must remain intact and that means, blocks of baby activity. For instance, we always top off baby before leaving and only drive off after baby has been awake for 3 hours or so, so that baby can have a restful nap in the car. Then we reach the destination and explore for another 3-5 hours then feed, top off baby and drive off again, with baby peacefully napping until we reach our last destination. Never drive long stretches when baby is part-hungry or just woke from a nap. Make sure baby had wake time of at least 3 hours before driving off again if not baby is going to be real fussy! Take it from us! You may want to buy some removable sun shades for the car although we managed without those.

12. Pack some baby jar food from home. Well, unless you’re not particular about baby food, then you can buy it off the local supermarket shelves. I am very anal about Baby Lauren’s diet because I make sure her food is organic as much as possible and I cook her all her meals, zero jar food since she started solids. But I had to pack baby jar food for her on the Italy trip since it wasn’t possible to cook in most hotels and I’m glad Italy had organic baby jar food. It’s best to bring along at least 3 days worth of jar food from home that baby has tried and tested in case you can’t find anything your baby likes. Don’t go rambo and try new foods, stick to the usual stuff like jarred carrots and peas.

13. Bring along Jo Lauren skincare. But of course! Haha! The Baby Miracle Balm not only kept Baby Lauren’s skin supple and smooth, it kept our skin and lips hydrated too! It is especially important during winter trips to dry climates, our tropical skin and lips are just not prepared for the lack of humidity. Papa Ray had chapped lips and cold-burn above his lips the very first day but the Baby Miracle Balm healed it overnight! What can I say?

Hope you’ve enjoyed our tips for bringing baby on holiday and from one mama to another, you’re making the right decision to bring your baby on holiday with you! It will be lovely and absolutely unforgettable. Have fun and travel safe!