We recently traveled to Australia for 4 weeks when our baby daughter was 2 months old. I'm writing a series of posts in the hope that this will help others. The other parts can be found here: Part 0, Part 1, Part 2.
When people ask us how the trip went I say "Wonderful! Better than expected!" and to the question about the baby I usually say "She's a better traveler than us! She was wonderful." Thinking about this, I might have given people a false image of how it actually was. Our daughter isn't magic - she didn't behave better while traveling than at home. She behaved about the same. This was better than I expected.
I went expecting that I'd be covered with poop, spit up, holding a screaming child while my hair was on fire. If it was only three of the four, I considered that a win.
Case in point: shortly before boarding on our 20+ hour flights and layover journey home our daughter had a huge poop that overflowed and required to wardrobe change. Then she threw up on me and the airport seat (which was thankfully wipeable). So there I was, now in stinky clothes that I would be wearing for the next 25 to 30 hours, holding a baby while trying not to get any (more?) poop on me. But if you notice, my hair wasn't on fire, so that goes into the "better than expected" bucket.
Traveling with a baby is a lot like regular traveling. Except you're also looking after a baby and everything that goes along with that.
Friday, 30 March 2012
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Travelling with baby, part 2: Infant Bassinet Boeing 777
We recently traveled to Australia for 4 weeks when our baby daughter was 2 months old. I'm writing a series of posts in the hope that this will help others. The other parts can be found here: Part 0 and Part 1.
On our long flight from Sydney to Vancouver on the way home we had a bulkhead seat with a bassinet. As far as I could tell, there was only 1 place on whole plane for it. We had no idea what it would be like, so I'm documenting it here so hopefully it will help others.
It attached to the wall and had a mesh bottom, vinyl side and a mesh "lid" that that velcroed and clipped across. We didn't get as much use out of it as I thought we would. This was because every time they switched on the seatbelt sign you're supposed to take the baby out and hold them on your lap. The flight was bumpy, so the seatbelt sign was on a lot, and even when it wasn't, we thought twice about putting our daughter into the bassinet because taking her out would wake her. The whole bassinet wasn't very deep, so if the lid was secured it was too close and our daughter wouldn't want to be inside if she was awake.
Even though we didn't use it as much as I thought that we would, I'm glad that we had those seats on the way home because they were "bulkhead" seats with extra legroom. On the way there we just had regular seats so that meant that we had to wake the very understanding woman sitting with us up every time we needed to get up to change our daughter.
On our long flight from Sydney to Vancouver on the way home we had a bulkhead seat with a bassinet. As far as I could tell, there was only 1 place on whole plane for it. We had no idea what it would be like, so I'm documenting it here so hopefully it will help others.
It attached to the wall and had a mesh bottom, vinyl side and a mesh "lid" that that velcroed and clipped across. We didn't get as much use out of it as I thought we would. This was because every time they switched on the seatbelt sign you're supposed to take the baby out and hold them on your lap. The flight was bumpy, so the seatbelt sign was on a lot, and even when it wasn't, we thought twice about putting our daughter into the bassinet because taking her out would wake her. The whole bassinet wasn't very deep, so if the lid was secured it was too close and our daughter wouldn't want to be inside if she was awake.
Even though we didn't use it as much as I thought that we would, I'm glad that we had those seats on the way home because they were "bulkhead" seats with extra legroom. On the way there we just had regular seats so that meant that we had to wake the very understanding woman sitting with us up every time we needed to get up to change our daughter.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Travelling with baby, part 1: Stuff
We recently traveled to Australia for 4 weeks when our baby daughter was 2 months old. I'm writing a series of posts in the hope that this will help others. The other parts can be found here: Part 0.
In this post I'm going to talk about the stuff we took along with. First off I'd recommend getting Travels with Baby because of the helpful advice, but most of all it helped to reassure us that we were not totally nuts. It's there where we read to take binder clips to help secure cloths to cover our baby from the sun.
This is the most used, most critical thing that we took - a portable change pad. We had a Skip Hop Pronto! changing station, but I don't think that it matters specifically which brand / model you have as long as 1) it stores diapers / nappies and wipes 2) you can reasonably unfold / fold it 1 handed while you hold a baby. This was worth it's weight in gold because we needed to change her on planes, trains, automobiles, boats, in parks, hotels, etc. You don't want a big diaper bag with you when you're squeezing into an airplane bathroom.
For the long flight I was glad that we had the Baby B'Air Flight Vest. It helped us feel like we could doze off and not put our baby at a risk of flying around the cabin if the plane bounced around.
For sleeping we had the KidCo PeaPod pop up tent. I was happy to have that and we even take it with us when visiting family for dinner so we can have a place to put our baby down for a nap. My only complaint is that (with ours) there is no way to secure a blanket under the child so they are not lying directly on the nylon (or whatever it is) part of the tent. We'd put a blanket under her, but with her moving around it would get pushed into a corner.
For moving around we had a baby carrier, which we didn't use as much as I thought that we'd use. We took our Graco Mosaic Stroller, but any light stroller would do. It might be better to have a stroller that could carry more or had bigger wheels, but we wanted something that if it got crushed / broken by the airport crew we could easily replace it. A key addition to this setup was our Jolly Jumper Weather Safe Stroller Cover which allowed us to go around without fear of sunburning our daughter. We used the binder clips on this to open up 1/2 to allow air in, but still keep the sun off.
In this post I'm going to talk about the stuff we took along with. First off I'd recommend getting Travels with Baby because of the helpful advice, but most of all it helped to reassure us that we were not totally nuts. It's there where we read to take binder clips to help secure cloths to cover our baby from the sun.
This is the most used, most critical thing that we took - a portable change pad. We had a Skip Hop Pronto! changing station, but I don't think that it matters specifically which brand / model you have as long as 1) it stores diapers / nappies and wipes 2) you can reasonably unfold / fold it 1 handed while you hold a baby. This was worth it's weight in gold because we needed to change her on planes, trains, automobiles, boats, in parks, hotels, etc. You don't want a big diaper bag with you when you're squeezing into an airplane bathroom.
For the long flight I was glad that we had the Baby B'Air Flight Vest. It helped us feel like we could doze off and not put our baby at a risk of flying around the cabin if the plane bounced around.
For sleeping we had the KidCo PeaPod pop up tent. I was happy to have that and we even take it with us when visiting family for dinner so we can have a place to put our baby down for a nap. My only complaint is that (with ours) there is no way to secure a blanket under the child so they are not lying directly on the nylon (or whatever it is) part of the tent. We'd put a blanket under her, but with her moving around it would get pushed into a corner.
For moving around we had a baby carrier, which we didn't use as much as I thought that we'd use. We took our Graco Mosaic Stroller, but any light stroller would do. It might be better to have a stroller that could carry more or had bigger wheels, but we wanted something that if it got crushed / broken by the airport crew we could easily replace it. A key addition to this setup was our Jolly Jumper Weather Safe Stroller Cover which allowed us to go around without fear of sunburning our daughter. We used the binder clips on this to open up 1/2 to allow air in, but still keep the sun off.
Friday, 9 March 2012
Watching a man drown
You hear that people drown close to safety, around people that can help them. Part of me always thought that was a bit of huey - I mean, how can you NOT notice that someone is downing.
Then I saw it with my own eyes.
Alice and I were on a platform and Laura was off snorkeling. Other tourists were snorkeling around off the platform. I saw one guy about 6 feet from the entry point. He bobbed up without his snorkel in, then bobbed down, but just over his nose and mouth. He came up, bobbed again. At this time we had locked eyes. My thought was "what is this guy playing at? I don't get it". Each time at the top he'd spit out some water and gasp a bit. He did this about half a dozen times. Then he raised one arm as they had told us to do if we were in distress. The staff rang a bell, dived in and saved him. At this point I noticed that his girlfriend (?) was getting a pool noddle for him. There were probably about 30 people in a small area around him.
It freaked me out a bit. If I was just in the vicinity it probably wouldn't have bothered me as much as it did. But we were staring at each other as this was happening. I was literally staring into the eyes of a drowning man and had no idea.
Then I saw it with my own eyes.
Alice and I were on a platform and Laura was off snorkeling. Other tourists were snorkeling around off the platform. I saw one guy about 6 feet from the entry point. He bobbed up without his snorkel in, then bobbed down, but just over his nose and mouth. He came up, bobbed again. At this time we had locked eyes. My thought was "what is this guy playing at? I don't get it". Each time at the top he'd spit out some water and gasp a bit. He did this about half a dozen times. Then he raised one arm as they had told us to do if we were in distress. The staff rang a bell, dived in and saved him. At this point I noticed that his girlfriend (?) was getting a pool noddle for him. There were probably about 30 people in a small area around him.
It freaked me out a bit. If I was just in the vicinity it probably wouldn't have bothered me as much as it did. But we were staring at each other as this was happening. I was literally staring into the eyes of a drowning man and had no idea.
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