Having just returned from a week’s holiday with our family, I thought I’d share a few my thoughts on travelling with a very small baby. I’m by no-means the expert, but having been told that we were mad for even thinking of taking such a young child (just 5 weeks old on the day we left) away, I was quite pleased that things turned out fine. So if only to provide some reassurance to other parents who are wondering whether or not to holiday with their baby yet, here’s my view:
Having travelled on many flights which included babies, I’m pretty sure I’m still not comfortable with taking a baby on an aircraft, unless you strictly have to. Not only is their screaming a little bit annoying for the other passengers, but I can’t imagine the pressures that air travel puts on your body can be very good for a tiny baby.
Thankfully though, our holiday only saw us travelling to Cornwall, so no air travel was required. Instead we just had to endure a 5-6 hour car journey with two restless children couped-up in the back seat – certainly not as bad as it could have been. We only had to stop 5 times on the way, and 3 of those were brought on by a desperate-to-pee toddler, so the baby comes out of this pretty well to be honest!
The holiday itself was reasonably uneventful from a baby point of view. We were already very used to the sleepless nights, which didn’t change too much during the holiday. In fact, if anything they improved – the sea air in the South West seemed to tire baby Freddie out, allowing us to get at least 2 or 3 nights with over 5 hours of unbroken sleep!
We weren’t really limited in our activities by the baby either. There were definitely precautions we had to take – making sure we had a little beach-shade-tent-thing for the beach, packing a LOAD of spare clothes to prepare for all weather conditions – that sort of thing. But thanks to some very child-friendly restaurants/hotels and a very understanding family, the holiday went quite well.
It also proved pretty useful to be taking so many other family members with us, including 2 grandparents. There was almost always somebody stood there ready to have a cuddle or wanting to play with baby, which meant we got some “me” time – or more accurately, time to play with the other child for a while!
I suspect our experiences are probably a little less “average” than most holiday makers, so I’m certainly not saying there are no problems associated with taking babies on holiday. But I’d be very interested to hear about other parents’ experiences if you’d like to share them!
When my daughter was about a five week.. I remembered, I have never taken a holiday with her at that time.. My first travel experience was around her 2years age.. It’s really a hats off job with the baby to travel..